Keen diners would immediately think of duck confit on French restaurant menus but surprisingly fish can also be used. Who could possible resist succulent flakes of tender salmon?
A long, long time ago it was discovered that meat can be preserved by sealing it airtight under a layer of fat. Even though we have fridges and canning equipment at our fingertips, confits are still used as a method of preserving.
Here is how the French do it:
- Season the meat with salt and herbs
- Let it soak up the flavours for a day
- Dry the meat
- Submerge it in fat
- Cook the meat gradually for several hours
- Drain the meat
- Place the meat in a sterilised container and add extra salt
- Remove the spoilage-prone meat juices from the fat
- Pour the fat over the meat
- Seal and enjoy later
If you have the urge to run away at the news of how much work confit requires, fret not. We are dealing with fish in this recipe. The method is much simpler and you can enjoy the fruits of your labour in just over 30 minutes. Any type of fat can be used, such as goose and duck. If you browse the internet, you would notice that olive oil is used a lot with preparing confit of salmon, but we won’t be going down this path.
Tom Sellers demonstrated how to make salmon confit at his restaurant, called Story. The secret is using clarified butter and if you can’t be bothered to make the stuff yourself, you can buy Lurpak’s ready-made product.
The salmon can be used in multiple applications. In the photo, the clarified butter that was used in cooking the salmon was slathered on a piece of rye bread topped with the luscious fish. Dried cranberries were added to the butter originally. It can be eaten as a whole fillet as part of a main meal or it can be broken up and tossed into a salad. These are just a few ideas. What would you do?
Check out these Fishy Cookbooks
- Nick Nairn’s Top 100 Salmon Recipes
- Fish & Shellfish
- The River Cottage Fish Book
- Good Food: Fish & Seafood Dishes
- J Sheekey FISH
Salmon Confit
- Prep Time: 30 minutes
- Cook Time: 5 minutes
- Total Time: 35 minutes
- Yield: 2 servings 1x
Print Recipe
Pin RecipeIngredients
- 300g (10oz) salmon
- 250g (8oz) clarified butter, Lurpak or homemade
- 1 thyme sprig
- 1 bay leaf
- 1 garlic clove
- 5ml (1 tsp) fennel seeds
Instructions
- In a pan deep enough to submerge thef salmon, melt the butter and infuse with thyme, a bay leaf, a clove of crushed garlic and fennel seeds.
- Lightly salt the salmon and leave for 10 minutes to slightly cure the flesh. Then, place the salmon into the hot melted butter and chill for 30 minutes.
- Afterwards, scoop off the butter and enjoy the salmon.
- Category: Dinner
- Method: Boil
- Cuisine: French
Nutrition
- Calories: 453
- Sugar: Sugars
- Sodium: 76 mg
- Fat: 37.3 g
- Carbohydrates: 2.6 g
- Fiber: Dietary Fiber
- Protein: 27.8 g
- Cholesterol: 115 mg
More Salmon Recipes
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Fabulous! This is something I should definitely try.
Cheers,
Rosa
I would have thought that salmon was too rich to confit – but there again so is duck. What a lovely idea.
hiya! will be trying this 🙂
Does the salmon remain raw, or just the outside just a tad cooked from being in the warm butter?
Such a coincidence – I’m going to be cooking confit salmon tomorrow so useful to have some up-to-date pointers. Cheers Michelle!
That does look and sound utterly wonderful. I bought a side of salmon this week to chop into fillets but next time I should try this.
Did you try it?
★★★★★
Wow – definitely not something I would have considered before. Unique approach to salmon for sure (for me 🙂 )