Salmon Confit

During a visit to Tetsuya's Sydney Restaurant, I tasted a delicious Trout confit and wanted to try and reproduce this beautiful dish. The slowly cooked, "confit", melts in your mouth and highlights the exquisite flavour of the Salmon.

Ingredients

350g skinned Salmon fillet
100ml Grapeseed Oil
80ml Olive oil
½ Tbsp ground coriander seed
½ tbsp ground white pepper
10 Whole Basil leaves
3 sprigs of Thyme
½ tsp finely chopped garlic
25g each finely chopped carrot and celery
1tbsp chopped chives
Salt

For the Fennel Salad
½ bulb of fennel, finely sliced
1 tsp of lemon juice
1 tbsp of olive oil
Salt and Pepper to taste

Directions

Step 1

Cut the Salmon fillet across into 65-90g pieces. Each piece should not weight more than 100g. If the pieces of Salmon are too big, the fish will not “confit” but will stay raw.

Into a small, shallow dish, mix the grapeseed oil, olive oil, coriander, pepper, basil leaves, thyme and garlic. Immerse the pieces of Salmon in the mixture, cover and leave to marinate in the fridge for at least 3 hours.

Step 2

To cook the fish, preheat the oven to 110 degrees Celsius.

Take out the fish out the marinade and allow it to come back to room temperature.

Spread the chopped carrot and celery on to a small baking dish and put the pieces of salmon on the top. Ensure that the pieces of Salmon do not come into contact with the tray.

Cook the Salmon in the oven for 10 to 12 minutes, brushing it occasionally with the flavoured oil.

Step 3

The flesh should not change colour too much, it should remain a brilliant red-orange. The fish should be lukewarm to the touch and when you press the end apart, your finger should just go through the flesh.

Remove the fish from the oven and allow it to cool down to room temperature.

Meanwhile, prepare the fennel salad. Toss the fennel in lemon juice and olive oil and season to taste.

To serve, place a piece of Salmon on top of the fennel salad. Sprinkle the top of the Salmon with some chives.

Recipe Notes

A traditional confit recipe calls for the oil temperature to be held at a stable 55 – 60 degrees with a cooking time of around 50 minutes or so. This allows the cooking processes to occur but results in a completely different texture in the dish than when you use hotter cooking temperatures.

But wait, I hear you say. Your recipe calls for a high 110 degree temperature too. Yes this is true. We have had to tinker with the traditional recipe because unfortunately our old oven is incapable of holding a steady 55 – 60 degrees. To that end, we have changed the cooking style, temperature and cooking time with the aim of coming as close to the right outcome as we can without having to buy a new oven.

Our original recipe post can be seen below.