A luxurious, delicate cooking technique that involves slow-cooking food submerged in a fat (such as oil or animal fat) at a very low temperature.
Mediterranean confit salmon
Serves 2
Ingredients
2 x 150g skinless salmon (or trout fillet)
250g baby tomatoes
4 sprigs origanum
4 cloves garlic, crushed
2 shallots, quartered
½ tsp cumin seeds
1 lemon, sliced
2–2½ cups olive or olive oil blend
4-6 gherkins, finely chopped
70g (drained weight) pitted or pimento stuffed green olives
¼ red onion, finely chopped
Handful parsley, chopped + extra for serving
Milled pepper
1 lemon, zested and juiced
Toasted pita, to serve
Method
- Preheat oven to 120°C.
- Place the fish, baby tomatoes, origanum, garlic, shallots, cumin, lemon and oil in an ovenproof dish. The fish should be submerged in oil.
- Place fish in the oven for 35-45 minutes.
- Combine the gherkins, olives, onion and parsley in a bowl. Season with pepper.
- Gently remove the fish from the oil and drain on kitchen towel. Reserve the confit tomatoes, garlic, shallots and lemon for serving.
- Serve the confit fish with reserved ingredients, salsa, toasted pita and some confit oil.
- Garnish with fresh parsley.
Cook’s note:
Note that the confit will bring out some white albumin. To prevent this, brine the salmon for 2-3 hours before confit cooking.
Recipes & styling: Lichelle May
Photographs: Zhann Solomons
Also read: Pickled fish toast
