Sous Vide Salmon with Lemon Caper Sauce

Mom wanted some fish for dinner, so we picked up some salmon from Costco. She normally pan sears it - but a couple of cookbooks and some Internet searching later, we decided to try it in the sous vide.

Ingredients:

Salmon:

• 16 to 20 ounces salmon (5 to 6 ounces per person)
• kosher salt
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• zest from 1 small lemon (or most of zest from a larger lemon)
• 1/4 teaspoon dry thyme

Lemon Caper Sauce:

• 4 tablespoons butter
• 1 tablespoon sweet onion, sliced very thin and then cut into small pieces
• 1 medium clove garlic, minced
• 1 tablespoon all purpose flour
• 1 cup white wine
• 3 tablespoons capers, rinsed, dried, an roughly chopped
• 3 to 4 tablespoons lemon juice (from 2 small or 1 large lemon)
• 1 tablespoon dried parsley
• black pepper

Instructions:

1. Sprinkle salmon generously with salt on both sides (this will be a dry brining)
   
2. Mix olive oil, thyme, and lemon zest together. Brush all over skinless side of salmon (use up leftover oil on skin side)
3. Place salmon in a gallon ziplock bag, and marinade in refrigerator for at least 30 minutes, up to overnight.
4. Preheat water in the sous vide pot to 125 degrees.
5. Press remaining air out of ziplock with salmon, then seal.
6. If salmon is less than 1" thick, cook at 125 for 30 to 45 minutes. (Cook for 45 minutes to 1 hour if salmon is between 1" thick and 2" thick.)




7. While salmon is cooking, make the lemon caper sauce. (This will take about 10 minutes.)
8. Melt butter in a pan on the stove on medium, add onion and garlic and saute for a minute or so.
9. Add flour, and cook for a minute.
10. Add wine and capers, bring heat to high and cook for 5 minutes or so to reduce.
11. Remove from heat, add lemon, parsley, and black pepper to taste.
12. Carefully remove salmon from bags (it will be very delicate).
13. Transfer salmon to a double layer of paper towels. Gently blot top of salmon with more paper towels. 
14. Heat 2 teaspoon canola oil in a carbon steel skillet until shimmering.
15. Place salmon skin side down in pan, cook for 1.5 minutes.
16. Flip salmon, and cook non-skid side briefly for 15 seconds.
17. Transfer to fresh paper towels to blot of excess oil, and serve immediately with sauce.

Carole's Notes:

We all really liked this! The lemon caper sauce was outstanding!

The recipe is lightly adapted from http://www.seriouseats.com/recipes/2016/08/sous-vide-salmon-recipe.html and the Lemon Caper Pan Sauce from The Food Lab: Better Cooking Through Science