The Michelin-Star Way to Make Salmon at Home

Epicurious

Professional chef Adrienne Cheatham demonstrates how to level up and get restaurant-quality dinners at home with her brioche-crusted salmon recipe.

Transcript

00:00I'm Adrienne Cheatham.

00:01I'm a professional chef.

00:02And today, I'm going to show you how to make restaurant

00:04quality salmon at home.

00:06We're going to go over some techniques

00:08to take your salmon game to the next level.

00:10Save yourself from dry, boring fish.

00:13This is restaurant brioche crusted salmon 101.

00:17There are some really easy ways to get restaurant

00:20quality fish dishes at home that don't require a ton of work.

00:24My favorite is making this brioche

00:27crusted filet of salmon.

00:28One of the biggest challenges with cooking salmon at home

00:31is overcooking it.

00:33This recipe helps buffer the heat

00:35and makes it a little bit more forgiving.

00:38You don't have to worry as much because the bread will give you

00:41a lot of flavor contrast.

00:43It'll give you some of that buttery richness

00:45to make up if the fish is a little bit dry.

00:47This is something that we used to do in restaurants

00:49when we were cooking for large parties.

00:51It's crunchy.

00:52It's delicious.

00:53And that is the beauty of this particular technique.

00:59Your fish should always be cold until you're ready to cook it.

01:03You never want to let your fish fluctuate in temperature

01:06because that can contribute to it breaking down and spoiling

01:09a lot faster.

01:10This is straight out of the refrigerator.

01:13I like to season my fish a couple of hours

01:16before I'm going to work on it.

01:18The seasoning will start to seep in to the fish itself.

01:22It'll also pull out some of the excess liquid

01:25and help the flesh kind of tighten up a little bit.

01:28It's just one of those pro tips that help make things

01:30just a little bit better than you would normally do.

01:33I'm going to go ahead and pop this salmon in the fridge

01:35until I'm ready to start cooking dinner.

01:40I like to use brioche because it's crisp and light

01:43when you cook it up, but it also has a little bit of sweetness.

01:46You can literally change this out for any bread.

01:50I've done this with sourdough, pumpernickel, whole wheat bread,

01:53sliced white sandwich bread.

01:55The best thing about using a whole loaf that's not sliced

01:59is that you can determine how thick the breading crust

02:02is going to be.

02:03This recipe is also a great way to use up some bread

02:07that's getting stale or not so fresh.

02:09So now that I have my two beautiful slices of brioche cut,

02:13I'm going to place my salmon directly on top

02:16with what would be the skin side facing down.

02:19It's the flatter side of the two,

02:20so I don't have to worry about the bread not making contact

02:24with the uneven top of the salmon.

02:26You don't need to put anything on there

02:28to hold the fish to the bread.

02:30When you start to cook it, it will release that white stuff

02:33that you see coming out of salmon.

02:35That's called albumen.

02:36It's similar to like an egg white.

02:37It's just a protein,

02:39and it will make it stick to the bread itself

02:42without having to add anything else.

02:44Now I'm just lining my knife up with the edge of the salmon

02:47and I'm trimming the bread right there.

02:49Again, cutting right alongside the bread.

02:52The fish is seasoned, it's ready to go.

02:54If you're going to cook it right away,

02:56you can let it sit out for up to 20 minutes

02:59to come to room temperature.

03:00But if you want to wait for an hour or so

03:03before you cook it,

03:03just go ahead and pop it in the fridge.

03:05It is time to start cooking our fish.

03:10This is a really cool process that I absolutely love

03:14because it is very forgiving.

03:15We're going to start in the saute pan,

03:18but we're going to finish in the oven.

03:19So the fish itself will get a very gentle

03:22kind of cook around it.

03:23I'm going to start on low heat.

03:25I'm using a little bit of neutral oil

03:27and let that slowly heat up.

03:29Add the butter now and just let that kind of melt.

03:32The butter is more for flavor.

03:33The oil is really going to help us facilitate even browning

03:37and it'll also help raise the smoke temperature

03:40and help us minimize the risk of burning.

03:42I'm using a stainless steel pan,

03:44but you could use any oven safe pan.

03:47The butter is bubbling now

03:48and you can see it starting to turn a little bit

03:51of a darker golden color.

03:52I don't want to go too high too fast

03:54because I don't want to burn the brioche.

03:56I want to give it a chance to absorb the fat

03:59and slowly start to get golden brown, delicious and crispy.

04:03I'm carefully placing my salmon

04:05with the bread side down into the pan.

04:08The butter is bubbly.

04:10Give it a little shake.

04:11Gradually increase the heat from like medium low

04:15to barely medium

04:16and make sure you're shaking your pan

04:19occasionally to make sure that it's not sticking.

04:21Shaking it in a pan also helps distribute the heat evenly

04:25and you don't get a dark spot here and a light spot here.

04:27It's looking GBD.

04:29Butter is delicious,

04:30but I love a little bit of aromatic flavor.

04:33So I'm going to add a couple sprigs of thyme to the fat

04:36and one clove of crushed garlic

04:38just to add a little bit more aromatic flavor

04:42to this dish while it's cooking.

04:44You can see that the bread has kind of pressed down

04:47and condensed under the weight of the salmon.

04:50Flip it now so that we don't cook it

04:52all the way on the bread side

04:53and then we're going to pop it in the oven.

04:55And don't worry if you get a couple of light spots,

04:57you can always flip it back over

04:59and brown it right before you take it out of the pan.

05:02If I wanted to do this ahead of time

05:04before I have guests coming over,

05:05instead of flipping it and putting this pan in the oven,

05:09I would take them out of the pan and put them on a tray.

05:12That way when my guests come over,

05:13I can put this whole tray in the oven

05:15for five to seven minutes.

05:17Say you have 50 guests, just brown the bread,

05:20put your fish on a tray, pop it in the refrigerator,

05:23and then right before the party starts,

05:25get it back in the oven

05:26so your fish is freshly cooked for your guests.

05:28I have my oven preheated to 350.

05:31That will help cook everything,

05:33but we're not going to go so hot

05:34that we risk burning the bread.

05:36Cooking time depends on the thickness of your fish.

05:39These are very thick,

05:40so I'm going to check them at four to five minutes,

05:43but I have a feeling they might take closer to seven.

05:46The fish has been in the oven for about five minutes.

05:49Let's check it.

05:50It looks like it actually might be done.

05:52So there's a couple of ways to look at your fish

05:55to see if it's done.

05:56You see this white protein?

05:58If that's starting to come out,

05:59your fish might be cooked all the way

06:01and the protein is starting to leach out.

06:03It doesn't mean our fish is overcooked,

06:04but we want to take a look inside.

06:06So I'm going to use the corner of the spatula

06:08just to barely open up one of the flakes.

06:11We can see right in the center,

06:14You don't see any of that deep pink translucent look,

06:16but it's not overcooked, and that's a great thing.

06:19Another way to check if you have a cake tester at home

06:22is to insert it straight into the center of the salmon,

06:26give it a couple seconds and touch it to your bottom lip

06:28or just under your bottom lip.

06:30If it feels really, really hot,

06:32you know your fish is overcooked.

06:33If it feels warm, you're perfect.

06:35So when you're inserting your cake tester,

06:38sometimes you can feel the cake coming out

06:41Sometimes you can feel the cake tester

06:44breaking through each piece of sinew,

06:46which is the membrane that holds the muscle groups together.

06:49That's a really good indicator that your fish is very rare.

06:53I do not need to put this back in the oven

06:55because it is already about mid-well.

06:57There's also residual heat in the pan

06:59that will help carry over cook.

07:01So our salmon is cooked.

07:02It's time to get it out of the pan and onto the plate.

07:05I'm just going to serve it

07:06with a little simple salad on the side.

07:08I mean, to me, this is very simple in terms of technique,

07:12but so delicious, very high impact,

07:15and it has that wow factor.

07:17And this is how I make restaurant quality salmon at home.

07:21Ooh, look at that crust.

07:29The fish is tender.

07:31It's flaky.

07:32It's not overcooked and dry.

07:34The bread gives you the crust on the top,

07:36some light fluffiness in the center.

07:38And because it's absorbed that flavor

07:40from the butter and the thyme and the garlic,

07:43it's not just plain, boring salmon.

07:45The bread, it'll give you some of that buttery richness

07:47to make up if the fish is a little bit dry.

07:50And that is the beauty of this particular technique.

07:53Cooking salmon at home

07:54does not have to be redundant, dry, and boring.

07:57With just a couple of cool, simple techniques,

08:01you can really up your game

08:02and give yourselves and your guests

08:04an incredible wow factor.

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