Vol. XIX · Fish and Seafood Plate 3 of 9cooking fish, pan-fried fish, crispy skin, steamed fish, poached fish, baked fish, salmon fillet, en papillote, fish skin, methodsHT

Cooking Fish.

A salmon fillet can be crisp-skinned, silky, or pearly and tender. Same fish, same centre temperature; the method makes the difference.

Every method takes the centre of the fillet to the same 45–55 °C; what differs is what happens to the outside on the way. A hot pan, skin side down, crisps and browns the skin (VIII.2) while the flesh above it cooks from below; the price is a band of overcooked flesh next to the pan. Steam (II.3, XVI.3) is the fastest, but it holds the surface at 100 °C, so the outer flesh overcooks and the centre keeps rising after the fish comes out; steamed fish is taken out early. A gentle poach in liquid at 70–80 °C keeps the surface no hotter than the water and leaves the fish silky. A moderate oven is gentle too, because the fish's wet surface is cooled by evaporation (III.5); baking in paper or foil (en papillote) is really steaming in the fish's own juices.

Skin is worth keeping on for pan-frying: it protects the flesh and becomes the best part. The method for crisp skin is drying it well, scoring it lightly so it lies flat, starting in a hot oiled pan skin-side down, pressing it flat for the first seconds, and cooking it mostly on that side until the flesh is opaque nearly to the top, then turning it for a moment. The workshop cooks a 25 mm salmon fillet four ways.

Below: a 25 mm salmon fillet taken to the pull temperature you choose at its centre by pan (skin side, 200 °C), steam, poach (75 °C water) or oven (200 °C), then rested two minutes (thermal bench): the minutes each takes, the thickness of flesh pushed past 58 °C, and the centre temperature after resting.

What you will learn
Workshop
Thermal bench: 25 mm salmon fillet from 4 °C, cooked until the centre reaches the pull temperature, then two minutes off the heat. Pan: contact with a 200 °C pan on the skin side only. Steam at 100 °C, poach in 75 °C water, oven at 200 °C. "Overcooked band": flesh that passed 58 °C.

Choose the outside you want

In this model the steamed fillet reaches 50 °C at its centre in about 7 minutes, the pan-fried one in 12, the poached one in 12 and the oven-baked one in 16. But steam's 100 °C surface leaves the most overcooked flesh — 25 mm past 58 °C, the centre rising to 61 °C and about 24 % of the weight lost — against 11 mm in the pan (the layer under the crisp skin), 11 mm poached and 10 mm in the oven, where the loss is nearer 13 %. Taken out of the steamer at 45 °C instead, the band falls to 19 mm and the centre still reaches 57 °C on the plate. Each method is right for something: the pan for skin and colour, steam for speed and a clean taste (XIX.4) if it is stopped early, a poach for the most silky result (or fish cooked in olive oil at 50–60 °C), the oven for a whole side of fish or a crowd.

Practical points. Pat fish dry and salt it just before cooking (or 30 minutes ahead for firmer flesh). For crisp skin: hot pan, thin film of oil, skin down, press with a spatula for 10–20 seconds, do not move it; most of the cooking on the skin side; a few seconds on the flesh side. For en papillote: fish on a sheet of paper with herbs, a little butter or oil and wine, folded tight, 10–12 minutes at 200 °C for a 2–3 cm fillet; it puffs as it steams. For thin fillets, cook them in one quick go; for thick steaks (tuna, swordfish), sear hard and leave the middle rare. Test with a thermometer or a knife tip at the thickest point.

At the stove

Cook two salmon fillets: one skin-side down in a hot pan, one steamed. Take both off at 50 °C. Taste the skin and compare the flesh just under it.

En papillote means "in a paper wrapper" in French; the 西湖醋鱼 of Hangzhou and Cantonese 清蒸鱼 instead rely on precise steaming and poaching, and Japanese cooks salt-grill fish (塩焼き) on skewers over charcoal (XXVIII.6).

Terms

Crisp skin
Fish skin dried and fried skin-side down until brittle.
En papillote
Baked sealed in paper, so the fish steams in its own juices.
Poaching
Cooking in liquid well below the boil, 70–80 °C (XVI.1).
Overcooked band
The layer of flesh pushed well past its target near a hot surface.
Every method brings the centre to 45–55 °C; they differ at the outside. The pan gives crisp skin and a dry band beneath, steam is fastest but must be stopped early, a poach and a moderate oven are gentlest.

Sources

  1. USDA FoodData Central, SR Legacy (April 2018), public domain.
  2. A teaching value chosen for the course: the right order of magnitude and shape, not a measurement of a particular food.
  3. H. McGee, On Food and Cooking: The Science and Lore of the Kitchen, 2nd ed., Scribner, 2004.