Got intrigued this week with the idea of poaching a salmon in olive oil, which basically involves longer cooking at a pretty low temperature (as oil goes).
Here’s an Epicurious recipe to give you the idea, although it’s not the one I followed. Mine came from a (shudder) legacy printed cookbook that my cousin Nina gave us a couple of years ago (before the CrummyCook phase began, but after I had begun to express an interest in cooking better).
The book is The Slow Mediterranean Kitchen, from which Debbie had made a slow-baked salmon recipe some time ago that we had liked.
The promise of oil-poached salmon is that the fish looks very fresh, perhaps even a bit uncooked, and is not dried out, but is properly-done. Sort of a cooked-sashimi blend.
Verdict? Debbie and I were a bit disappointed. It used up a boatload of oil (although, to be fair, they claimed you could reuse the oil since the cooking temperature is so low) and didn’t turn out much different from the slow-baked recipe.
I’d like to try it again, since the Web is loaded with paeans to the deliciousness of the technique. But probably not for a while.
