Fish and Shellfish

FISH IS DELICATE, BUT I DON’T VIEW IT DIFFERENTLY FROM MEATS AS FAR AS COOKING it goes. It still has to reach a specific temperature, and you still have to be aware of it when it gets there so that you can get it out of the heat. Many of the qualities sous vide techniques bring to fish are similar to those of conventional fish cooking. We often prepare fish in liquid or oil that is scarcely hotter than we want the fish to be. But sous vide allows us to achieve textures we couldn’t get using conventional means. What’s particularly enticing about cooking fish sous vide is the fact that you don’t have to cook it in anything. Before sous vide, when we wanted to cook a fish very gently and also introduce aromatic flavors, we might, say, poach salmon in a court bouillon. That’s a traditional technique. But inevitably you’re going to lose flavor to the cooking liquid. With sous vide, we can infuse flavors and cook the fish in a moist, gentle environment without losing any flavor to the cooking medium. This has a remarkable effect on the flavor of the fish.