Saw this salt crusting cooking technique on the Iron chef, read about it on the net.
Tonight I bought a $20.00 piece of Salmon. I followed the directions. I seasoned my fish. I mixed the salt with water, spread it in a 1/2 inch thick layer on the bottom, placed my salmon, put the salt on top, and cooked for 45 minutes at 350 degrees.
The damn thing tasted like a fish flavored salt lick!
The salt is supposed to seal in the juices but not penetrate because of the pressure in the juices of the fish while it’s cooking.
Bullshit!! Bullshit!! Bullshit!!
It didn’t fucking work! It’s not fair! The whole thing was soaked in salt! It tasted like shit! I couldn’t even wash it off!
My wife laughed at me! She laughed at me. The woman can’t even cook a Hot Pocket and she’s laughing at me. That’s how bad it was.
I’m hungry, and I can’t even eat some potato chips, because my body is rejecting any more salt.
Ummm. I’m sure you’ve done more research on it than me, but I seem to recall the Iron Chefs putting seaweed or something between the salt and the fish…
I’m a Danish gal, born in Wisconsin, and I couldn’t help but be reminded of the lutefisk of my childhood. Soaked in brine and lye. At least your fish didn’t have any lye in it, if that’s any consolation to you.
“Fuck fuck fuckity fuck fuck” has a nice ring to it. I think I’ll say that the next time I trip over something (I do this often). Now, I think I need a drink…
I don’t remember the Iron Chef episode, but I’ve always used egg whites instead of water. It holds the salt together without dissolving too much of it and also helps to create the hard crust.
Curse you and the pig you rode in on !!! You have revived my unnatural yearning for McFries … may a thousand plague ridden hermaphrodidic lutefish dance at your wedding while guest hurl Norwegian goat cheese at your inflamed genitals!!
This was your problem–there was skin on only one side. You need to do this on a whole fish, as the flesh will release juices during the cooking process, and will dissolve and soak up the salt. The skin prevents this from entirely happening (a little bit happens, but its enough to season the fish, not make it salty). You may want to try another recipe: http://food.epicurious.com/run/recipe/view?id=100904
I’ve seen it done with whole trout, and my mother does roast beef this way all the time. Is the best way to cook roast beef. But with fish, yes, you need skin on all sides.
OK, so it looks like the teeming millions have, tentatively at least, discovered the fatal flaw in Scylla’s procedure. Now, what are the odds that he follows through and tries again with a second $20 piece of fish?
C’mon, Scylla’s, I want to hear an inspiring story of one person’s rise to glory in the men’s ten meter freestyle salt fish cooking event, triumphing through adversity (and jeers from the onlooking crowd of one) to eventually claim the gold. Some slow-motion video would be a plus.
Or, I suppose you could just chuck the whole idea and slink back into obscurity, a man with shattered dreams, endlessly replaying “what-if” scenarios in his head. Some slow-motion video would be a plus here, too.
I don’t think its a good idea to use cooking techniques from the Iron Chef. I love that show, but some of the things on there…I mean, CHOCOLATE COVERED FISH LIVERS?? Yuck!
Yeah, The Raven, they throw together some strange things on Iron Chef, but this isn’t one of them. Cooking fish in a salt crust is a reasonably common cooking method.
