Fish Roulade

After using Transglutaminase over and over again for beef and lamb I decided to give it a try for fish. Overall it worked out pretty good. The fish idea was a food epiphany that emerged during my trip to costco. While walking through costco I saw these Fresh Sockeye Salmons in the fish case so a thought crossed my mind....why not roulade? But did I want to take a risk on a new food concept using Fresh Sockeye? So I made Sockeye for for dinner and I purchased farmed salmon for this experiment. 

Nice large piece of Fish for this experiment!!!

Breaking it down by removing all the bones and trimming it down for the next step. I planned on stacking them and using TG to bind them together. Its important that they were roughly the same shape. 

I decided to brine the fish for two reasons.  It keeps the fish moist during the cook and it will remove the unsightly patches of white albumin which I hate!! Albumin is a protein that oozes out of the muscle as it cooks coagulating on the surface. How do you brine? I use a 10% brine (5% sugar) for about 25 minutes. Simple.....do the math.  I used 1600 grams of boiling water and to that I added 320 grams of kosher salt and 160 grams of sugar. After the salt and sugar were dissolved I added 1600 grams of ice to cool it off. I added the fish once the brine was cold. I did a lot of fish that day but you can use less brine if you want. Just do the math.  I.E 800 grams of boiling water 160 grams of salt and 80 grams of sugar. Toss in 800 grams of ice and you got the same brine but just less.

Coated the first piece of salmon with TG. I know the picture is skewed but the fish pieces are about the same size and shape.

Stacked and ready to be rolled tightly in plastic wrap. Instructions on how to wrap can be found HERE.

Here are the pics out lining everything I did. Stacked, rolled and vacuumed sealed. 

Some steps that are essential to this process. After rolling up Fish and applying Transglutaminase (TG or Meat Gloo) it needs to be refrigerated for 24 hours for all the proteins to bind. After rolling up fish and tying it off with string to secure shape I vacuumed sealed it to get it ready for the Sous-Vide. 

I Sous-vide fish at 113°ƒ for 30 min. I  shocked fish in cold water which is not necessary for SV but I wanted to bring down temp because I knew I was going to sauté at a high temp. I wanted to keep interior fish rare and this is one way to prevent over cooking. Fish was very tender. I wish is was a little firmer. I am gonna try this again on a different fish.

Sliced into medallions.

The next set of pictures are gratuitous at best. I decided to go a little asian on the fish. Very simple. Some spices, black and white sesame seed coating and a quick sauté in some fat. I made orzo with some veggies and a ginger garlic and sesame oil sauce. 

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