Herb Butter Poached Wild Salmon #FishFridayFoodies

Herb butter poached wild salmon is tender and flavorful. The herbs complement the delicate flavor of the fish, and the simmering butter ensures that it won’t overcook or dry out.

I’m a fan of all salmon but I especially love the flavor of wild sockeye salmon. This is going to sound odd perhaps, but it reminds me more of crab than of its relation, farmed salmon. Aside from cost, the only problem with wild salmon is that it is so lean that it’s easy to overcook, if you are not careful. Nobody wants dry fish. Fish should be tender and flaky, and even, (dare I use the hated word?) moist.

Poaching to the rescue! One can, of course, poach seafood in all sorts of liquids. As a matter of fact, if you scroll on down past my wild salmon, you’ll find links to several recipes since that’s this month’s theme for my Fish Friday Foodies group. While researching methods, I came across a recipe for butter poaching fish and thought, sure. Confit duck is essentially duck poached long and slow in duck fat. No good reason why we can’t poach fish in butter. It just hadn’t occurred to me.

Wild salmon is perfect for poaching in herb butter. It cooks relatively quickly, even on a gentle simmer, and turns out so very - here I go again - moist. I’m not sure I can cook it any other way now. Such a treat.

I mean, really. Look at that color. Delicious as it can also be, farmed salmon cannot outdo wild salmon for color. Some people even say it's better for us.

Herb Butter Poached Wild Salmon

Do not worry about all the “leftover” butter. It can be used to flavor vegetables, in another seafood dish or chill it and pop it in an airtight bag in the freezer to keep for the next time you poach fish.

Ingredients
4 wild salmon fillets (about 1 lb or 450g in total)
1 1/2 cups or 340g butter
A few sprigs parsley
A few sprigs thyme
Fine sea salt
Freshly ground black pepper
Ground cayenne pepper
To serve: slices of lemon

Method
Remove any hard stems from the herbs and chop them finely. Season the fish fillets with a sprinkle of salt and the two peppers, on both sides.

Melt the butter in as small a pan as will fit your fish, with high enough sides to contain butter to cover. As it warms up, add in the minced herbs.

Gently add the fish fillets to the herbed butter, skin side down. Poach the salmon over a low heat until it flakes easily, about 10 minutes. If the butter doesn't quite cover it, spoon the simmering butter over it occasionally.

Remove the fish fillets from the herb butter. Serve with a spoonful of the herb butter over each fillet and a slice of juicy lemon.

Enjoy!

Check out all the lovely poached fish recipes my Fish Friday Foodie friends are sharing today. Many thanks to our group creator and organizer, Wendy from A Day in the Life on the Farm for this great theme and all of her behind the scenes work that keeps this blogging event running so smoothly.

• Chamomile-Poached Sand Dabs with Candy Caps from Culinary Adventures with Camilla
• Herb Butter Poached Wild Salmon from Food Lust People Love
• Poached Cod Cantonese-Style with Chiles from Karen's Kitchen Stories
• Poached Prawn Cocktail from Sneha's Recipe
• Poached Salmon with Bourbon Cream Sauce from Palatable Pastime
• Poached Sole with Caper Sauce from Sid's Sea Palm Cooking
• Tomato Basil Poached Fish from Making Miracles
• Tomato Poached Cod over Egg Noodles from A Day in the Life on the Farm

Would you like to join Fish Friday Foodies? We post and share new seafood/fish recipes on the third Friday of the month. To join our group please email Wendy at wendyklik1517 (at) gmail.com. Visit our Facebook page and Pinterest page for more wonderful fish and seafood recipe ideas.

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