Tuesday, April 30, 2013

Recipe Revisited: Seared Spring Salmon with Melted Leeks and Herbed Beurre Blanc

This is a recipe I've made (and loved) before, but I had to post again because it was even more mind-blowing this time with three small changes.  I don't like to make many alterations to Thomas Keller's recipes, because he's pretty much always right... but I feel like my leeks turned out better (and infinitely easier) by switching up the technique a little.  The recipe for this amazing dish is here, and I highly recommend trying it out next time you get your hands on some beautiful salmon...
The first change I made this time was to use incredible fresh-caught spring salmon.  I always thought I loved salmon, but I realize now that I never really knew what salmon was until I tried salmon this fresh and high-quality.  (You can actually find me out on a friend's boat fishing for salmon some weekends now, because I so desperately want to cook with this amazing ingredient again...) 
I won't go step-by-step through the kick-ass herbed beurre blanc again, since you can see the steps in my previous post about this recipe.  It's a super-simple but really impressive sauce, and is subtle enough to let the salmon shine through.  The cooking of the leeks was the one thing that sort of made me cranky last time, so I decided to deal with those sous vide this time around.  I included the white part of the leeks as well as the light green (because I like leek whites and because my leeks had barely any light green...), and spread them in a single layer in a vacuum bag with butter after slicing, cleaning, and seasoning.
After about 30 minutes at 185°F, the leeks are so tender that they're practically melted, and have taken on a beautiful, soft, buttery flavor...
(I know they look a little ugly, but they taste fantastic and will be buried under salmon...)  Speaking of salmon, I had actually strayed from Thomas Keller's instructions for cooking the salmon when I made this dish in the past, and that was foolhardy.  I was more comfortable back then doing one-side cooking of salmon skin-on, but this time I followed his recipe and did the one-side searing with skinned salmon.  
The skinned side gets incredibly crispy while the rest of the fillet cooks to perfection.  The sauce and leeks went down on the plate/bowl...
... and are topped with the beautiful crispy salmon (seared side up).
I have a lot of recipes for salmon, but this will always be my go-to recipe when I want to impress people with a deceptively easy fancy French sauce, and especially when I want to show off the amazing quality of the fish.  Wish me luck out there on the river so I can make this again soon...

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