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Sous Vide Salmon


Brinkman

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And so yet another culinary journey is about to begin! A salmon has been pin boned, portioned and prepared three ways. The first has been vac'd with a teriyaki sauce, some shaved ginger, a little garlic and a tiny amount of soy syrup along with a couple of kaffir lime leaves for future use with a noodle dish. The second has been very very lightly dry brined. The third has been rubbed only with a smidgen of olive oil. Three double portions I hear you say? yes they are quite large portions because I'm greedy. A long hot bath awaits them at some stage, well as soon as I've figured out what the temp and time should be? Is it weight based I wonder? I feel a Google search coming on... ? 

Edited by Brinkman
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I have a not done salmon sous vide yet but have a recipe:

I bit of salmon per bag only, this is important

45 mins at:

51.7 deg c for soft fancy restaurant texture

54.5 degs for firmer fish 

If salmon is more than 5 cm thick then increase cooking time form 45 mins to 1 hour

For Fully fully cooked salmon or if you want your salmon to behave more like canned salmon for salads and other dishes then 60 deg c.  Cooked for 1 hour at this temperature , the fish will be pasteurised.  In fact in this combination of time  ad temperature will pasteurise any single serving size fish fillet

If you plan to grill or otherwise cook the salmon later , turn the heat down to 43.3 degs c. The initial bringing and light cooking at this ultra low temperature will firm and set the flesh so the center will not have a raw texture after grilling

 

 

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Well I've never given a salmon a bath either so its a voyage of discovery all round! Been reading both furiously and avidly everything I can find on bathing the blighter and two of the options that kept coming up over and over were that you should dry brine for thicker portions and or oil! So as I had a whole salmon I decided to do half of it for testing in the sous vide! That way if I ruin it I've only lost half of the fish. The Asian version is one I would do using normal cooking methods anyway, the only difference is its going to be done in a bath instead of pan fried after absorbing the marinade!  Cheers for all that info Justin, I'll take it on board and think I'll aim for the 54.5 option. Wish me luck, I'm going in...

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7 minutes ago, Raptor72 said:

What bags do you guys use etc 

I was on the phone earlier to one of my pro chef pals and he said, as did Justin the other day, that heavy duty freezer zip lock bags work just fine if you use the immersion method to expel all the air! Oh and they are cheap, which is nice. If you want to go mad, I don't but my pal is going to give me a couple for free, well I hope so, then the new silicone bags with a little hand pump for drawing the air out are proving to be 'very good' His words not mine and they have the bonus of being re-usable thousands of times, well as long as you wash em!! Hope that answer helps Raptor?

 

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Yeah as I understand it the valve is a one way affair so you don't have the issue of drawing any marinade up and out of the bag while sealing on the less sophisticated vac units. Anyway if I'm getting one or two of the silicone ones for free I'm all for trying them before committing any dosh.? 

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Not quite, even the hand pump can draw up liquid through valve and that ruins the suction. best for liquids is immersion method, but at high temperatures make sure the seal at top is out of the water.  some people peg top of bags to the bath top  edge in those circumstances

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I noticed that on quite a few of the videos I watched, makes sense, otherwise they could ballon! I think the first thing I'm going to test this unit out with will be some poached eggs for breakfast on Sunday! Would I be right with 64c for an hour if the eggs are at room temperature?

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16 hours ago, Raptor72 said:

Yeah £2 from co op

probably get cheaper from Aldi 

I use them for other things anyway but almost all of the SV sites I've checked out say the zip lock or the press type are just fine. I only use the sealer vac bags for freezing as they stop any chance of freezer burn and or splitting due to other stuff chaffing them! Trust me, nobody wants chaffing be it in the hot or cold..

Edited by Brinkman
auto spell, rubbish.
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Well only if you are using the newer type of bag with a valve built in! Its only a little hand pump and if used too vigorously with a marinade, it will draw it up and out into the pump, but if you intend to use ziplock or press bags then its down to the old immersion method which works perfectly with marinades. Vacuum sealer bags work best if the item has been left in a marinade and you then intend to move the food across and into a vac bag for sealing. I tend to do it that way, retaining the marinade and freezing it in the ziplock bag to be defrosted and reduced as a glaze on the stove when the chosen food is going to be eaten which saves wasting the marinade! The vac bags are great for veg with butter, seasoning and so on but unless you have an industrial vac sealer the home ones just don't work so good with wet ingredients. Does any of that make sense? I think I'm losing the plot man.?

Edited by Brinkman
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Todays the day, salmon one way, Asian, will be going into the bath kicking and screaming and if not it then me! Shall I put the bath on now? No, that would just be plain silly, besides I have hot water in the tap, plenty of it, so it will only take two or three hours to heat the bath up, no I'm worrying unnecessarily! Shall I cook it at 46c or 54c? 30 minutes or 45? I spoke to my chef pal and he swears 46c for 30 but others say 54c for 30 but then it could turn out with a chalky taste at 54c! Oh woe is me? Who knew cooking a bit of fish was going to be so stressful? It was never this way when I had a hot pan in front of me with some olive oil and butter in it! Why oh why am I putting myself through this hell? Sorry but its all too much, I'm off for a lie down in a darkened room.?

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