Poached BBQ Salmon by Tom

Sunday night, and it is my turn to cook dinner.  As luck would have it, the proverbial cupboard was virtually bare.  But I did find some frozen salmon filets in the freezer, and with my trusty Dinosaur BBQ cookbook in hand, I was able to find a recipe that looked appealing to me.  Start to finish took about an hour, which included cooking Kasmati rice and a mixed vegetable of cauliflower, broccoli and carrots.

Poached BBQ Salmon

from the Dinosaur BBQ cookbook

Here are the ingredients:

For the poaching process:

2 - small salmon filets (mine did not have the skin on them)

Salt and pepper to season the salmon before cooking

2 tablespoons of butter

3 large cloves of garlic, minced - I used garlic form the jar

1 teaspoon dried ginger - use fresh if you have it

1 1/2 cups white wine - I used LMR sauvignon blanc

1 cup water

1/2 cup BBQ sauce - use sweet barbeque sauce versus hot, spicy or smoked

1 teaspoon dried dill

6 leaves of some spice that I thought was sage, but turned out to be more like licorice (use sage)

1 tablespoon black peppercorns

1/2 tablespoon mustard seeds

Sauce to enhance the poaching liquid after poaching:

1 tablespoon smooth Dijon mustard

1/2 cup of the BBQ sauce you used in the poaching process

Time to start cooking!

First step is to season both sides of the salmon liberally with salt and pepper.

Next put the 2 tablespoons of butter into a pan that you can cover with a lid later in the process.  I used a wok as it works well and has a cover!  Melt the butter over medium heat.

Add the garlic and the ginger, and cook for about two minutes.  This step is to infuse the butter with the garlic and ginger taste rather than to brown the garlic, so you may need to turn down the heat as I did.

Next add the water, wine, BBQ sauce, dill, sage, peppercorns, and mustard seeds.

Bring the mixture to a boil and then add the salmon filets.  Bring the mixture back to a boil for another 30 seconds or so to start the poaching process.

Loosely cover the pan and cook for about 15 minutes, reducing the heat to a simmer. The salmon should still be firm, but just starting to flake.  That is when you know it is done.

Remove the salmon from the poaching liquid, and put into a warm oven to keep your filets hot.

Using a strainer, pour the poaching liquid through the strainer into a bowl or large measuring cup.  This removes the peppercorns, the mustard seeds, and the sage leaves, and most of the garlic. 

Pour the liquid back into the pan and add the Dijon mustard and 1/2 cup of BBQ sauce.  Bring back to a boil and reduce the liquid for about two minutes, which intensifies the flavor of the sauce.

Using a large soup bowl, put a couple of spoonfuls of the cooked Kasmati rice into the bottom of the bowl.  Remove the salmon from the warm oven, and place over the rice.  Add a few heaping spoonfuls of the reduced poaching sauce over the salmon filet.

Enjoy!

              ----Tom