Confit ocean trout with home made pickles

[Keith_W]

This is another recipe which demonstrates what precise temperature control with sous-vide cooking can do. The ocean trout is confited in an olive oil bath and the temperature brought up to 45C (113F). This is the transition point between raw and cooked - it is the equivalent of medium rare for fish. At this temperature, fish acquires a voluptuous quality.

My recipe doesn't really matter, it is the technique that really makes this dish. However I do realize that people might want to try the recipe, so here it is.

Ingredients
For the parsley oil:
- 1 bunch parsley
- 1 tbsp capers
- 50mL olive oil
Instructions: blitz all the above in a food processor. Add more oil to emulsify. Add salt to taste.

For the home made pickles:
- 4 cucumbers, thin slice (Australian cucumbers come in two sizes, I refer to the smaller size)
- 4 shallots, fine slice
- 4 tbsp yuzu juice
- 1 tbsp fish sauce
- 1 tbsp soy sauce
- 1 tbsp caster sugar
Instructions: mix the above together and leave to marinade in the fridge for an hour.

For the fish:
- Ocean trout fillets, about 200gm (7 oz) each
- enough olive oil to cover the trout (can be recycled)
- 1/8 cup wakame (japanese seaweed)
- 1/8 cup nori flakes (japanese seaweed)
- tobiko (flying fish caviar)

Make the coating by blitzing the wakame and nori flakes in a food processor. Set aside in a shallow bowl.

Bring the oil to a temperature of 46C in a controlled bath. Sprinkle a light coating of salt on the fish - this helps stop the fish from weeping unsightly albumin when it is cooked. Insert the fish into the oil bath and cook for 30 minutes until the temperature reaches 45C.

I accidentally dropped a piece on the floor when I prepared this dish and it broke apart. From this photo you can see the texture of the fish - incredibly moist with the raw taste just cooked out.

Pipe a circle of parsley oil on a plate and lay out the tobiko at the 3, 6, 9, 12 o'clock position. Lay out the home made pickles. Dip the fish into the seaweed mixture to resemble a skin, then arrange over the pickles. Garnish with kosher salt. Here the fish is served with a fish skin cracker (which I managed to burn!). Serve immediately.

 

[Steve williams]

Looks terrific Keith

 

[amirm]

I think we have a professional chef in our presence! My wife will kill me if she hears me wanting another cooking instrument. But you guys have sure tempted me . We have found a great source of this type of trout lately and this would be a great variation on baking it as we do now.

 

[JackD201]

Oh Lord, I'm salivating!

Amir, GO FOR IT! I promise that you won't regret it and that it will get a lot of use

 

[treitz3]

I think we have a professional chef in our presence!

I do believe you are right, Amir. I can't recall ever seeing an amateur plate a dish quite like he does. Tip o' the hat you you, Keith. You have clearly earned my respect with the few posts regarding cooking you have made. That plate looks delicious!

Please forgive my ignorance with this question but what is a fish skin cracker? Garnishment or edible?

 

[Steve williams]

Sous-vide has really gotten my attention

Keith I thought you said you did SV in a special air tight bag but I see in this recipe you are doing it in an oil bath

BTW, is that the SV heater/controller I can see

 

[Keith_W]

Thanks guys but I am an amateur. Cooking is one of my other hobbies besides hifi. At least my wife approves of this hobby and actively encourages it Then again maybe not ... she rolls her eyes when I come home with a shiny new kitchen toy. She almost hit the roof when she found out how much my new copper frypan cost!

Fish skin cracker is supposed to puff, a bit like the crackers you get in Chinese restaurants. Any protein can be made to puff. The steps are:

- overcook
- dehydrate
- deep fry

For a more scientific look at why some foods puff, take a look at the Cooking Issues blog.

If you do not get the dehydration step right, your food won't puff. The reason is - the puffing depends on the presence of water to form bubbles when exposed to high heat. I think I over-dried my fish skin, so it started burning instead of puffing.

 

[Ronm1]

Keith, in a way that's somewhat how I like to prepare salmon. It's high fat content crisp up like bacon when first seared skin side down.
Besides the presentation, your pics do the food justice.

 

[Keith_W]

Steve, you are right - "sous-vide" means "under vacuum" - so technically the fish should have been cooked in an olive oil bath inside a plastic bag to be called "sous-vide". Indeed you can do it this way, but there is a problem. Foodsaver type vacuum machines are unable to seal a bag which contains liquids in it. The alternative is to use a zip-lock bag and squeeze all the air out, or buy a chamber vac sealing machine which are very expensive. Of course the other alternative is what I did - fill up a bath with olive oil and recycle it later. No matter, the concept is the same - cook the food to precisely the correct temperature in a controlled manner. The probe you see in the bath is the temperature probe. It is actually my slow cooker, so the heating element is under the ceramic

Ronm1 thank you. Photography is my other hobby