Poached salmon with dilled cucumber salad

I think poached salmon doesn’t get the attention it deserves. It’s easy to cook, hard to mess up, and makes a perfect meal when you’re short on time and want to serve something that looks like you put in a of effort.

This is a summertime favorite of mine, especially when served with a quick pickled cucumber salad. The vinegar and dill add a beautiful brightness to the fish.

Prep for this recipe takes fewer than 5 minutes, and start to finish cooking time is a half hour.

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This is a great dish to make a day ahead as you can serve it cold or at room temperature.

Poached salmon

Ingredients:
1 pound salmon
½ of a small onion, thinly sliced
Sprinkle of sea salt
3 black peppercorns
1 bay leaf
1 lemon, thinly sliced in rounds

Use any boneless salmon filet of your choice. I prefer to cook salmon with its skin on but skinless salmon pieces could be used. You can purchase it in barbecue slices, which are usually between 2 to 3 inches thick per slice, or cut your filet into 3 or 4 pieces of that size. You can make less or more of this recipe easily, as long as you have a pot big enough to hold the pieces while leaving some room between them for cooking. Use a sauté pan or wide, shallow pot with a tight-fitting lid.
Slice half an onion into thin slices as you would for preparing gefilte fish.

Place the salmon slices into the pot and cover the fish half-way with water. A 10- or 12-inch wide pot is a good size to poach a pound of salmon.

Add the onion to the water, lightly sprinkle with salt and add the peppercorns and bay leaf to the water. I prefer the aromatics from the bay leaf but you can omit it if you don’t have it in your pantry.

Place one thin slice of lemon on each piece of fish. It’s common to add a half cup of dry white wine to poached fish. I omitted it from this recipe but you can add it if you have it on hand.

Bring this up to a gentle boil over medium heat, then reduce the heat to low.

Cover the fish and gently simmer for 20 minutes.

Remove the pot from the heat and allow it to rest for 10 minutes, then uncover the fish to cool to room temperature.

Discard the lemon slices and remove the salmon from the water as soon as it’s cool.

If you cooked the fish with its skin it may stick to the bottom of the pot. If the skin is stuck, use a spatula to gently remove the piece from the pot, leaving the skin behind to discard with the water.

This can be served at room temperature the same day, or refrigerated to eat later in the evening or for lunch the next day.

Garnish with a fresh slice of lemon before serving.

Dilled cucumber salad

Ingredients:
1 large English cucumber, thinly sliced
3 tablespoons white wine vinegar
Pinch of sea salt
Sprinkle of pepper
3-4 tablespoons fresh dill, finely chopped

Once at a bistro, I had salmon served with quick pickled cucumbers and I’ve been making it that way ever since.

Prepare the cucumber salad 10-15 minutes before serving.

Thinly slice the cucumber and place the slices in a wide, shallow dish.

Add 2-3 tablespoons of white wine vinegar, the dill and a sprinkle of salt and pepper.

Lightly toss, stirring a few times before serving.

You can add a small amount of oil if you choose but I love this with vinegar only.

Dill mayonnaise
Since you already have fresh dill on hand you may as well whip up an easy dill mayonnaise. Use about a half cup of mayonnaise, juice from half a lemon, 3 tablespoons of finely chopped dill, salt and pepper to taste.

Thin this out with 1-2 tablespoons of liquid after it’s combined. Use water to make this pareve, or a little milk or half and half for a dairy meal.

This fish hits the spot in the warmer months and is nice for a weeknight dinner, Shabbat fish course or Sunday brunch.

Enjoy and bless your hands! PJC

Jessica Grann is a home chef living in Pittsburgh.