[Sca-cooks] Mistakes to Avoid when cooking salmon

[Lorenz Wieland]

Volker Bach wrote:

>A question for those with more experience handling these lovely fish than 
>me:
>
>I have to admit my recipe for salmon up to now was 'open package, eat'. 
>However, now I got my hands on two whole frozen Pacific salmon to feed to 
>our Shire and two guests of honor at the Easter Fire. The recipe I want to 
>try is from Marx Rumpoldt - basically, boil the salmon, then flake the fish 
>off the bone, reheat with a bit of pease broth and serve with vinegar 
>mustard sauce. It sounds easy enough, but I'd like to hear if there are any 
>things I had better avoid when preparing the fish. 
>
>I'm thinking: heat stock to simmering point, carefully lower fish into 
>liquid, leave in for a few minutes (10 should do it, shouldn't it?), then 
>carefully remove. 
>  
>

Which Rumpolt recipe is this? 

It sounds like you're talking about a fairly traditional poached salmon 
dish.  In that case, you want to cook it in water just under a true 
simmer (~160-170F), and you definitely want to use either a fish poacher 
or wrap the fish in cheesecloth so it doesn't fall apart when removing 
it from the water.  8 to 10 minutes should be about right for a whole 
cojo, sockeye, or steelheadrew.  A large King salmon might take a bit 
longer.  If cooking the fish whole, you should take it out before it 
starts to flake and immediately drop it in cold water or the cool pease 
broth.  Salmon is a fairly forgiving fish, but does turn very dry very 
quickly when overcooked. 

If you're playing around with it, you might try adding some lemon 
slices, onions, black pepper, and/or wine to the poaching liquid.  
That's a traditional preparation that may not go all the way back to 
Rumpolt, but probably isn't too far off.

-Lorenz