Bon Appétit joins Chef Eric Ripert, owner of NYC’s Le Bernardin, to make his perfect version of salmon fillet. With three Michelin Stars, Le Bernardin is a renowned seafood destination in Manhattan, using only the best produce and ingredients cooked by master chefs–including their barely cooked salmon with coconut curry sauce.
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00:00I am Eric Ripper, chef owner of Le Bernardin in New York City and today I'm making the perfect
00:09version of salmon filet. Le Bernardin is a seafood restaurant in the heart of Manhattan and we are
00:18very lucky because we are highly regarded by our clientele, very loyal to us. Today we are going to
00:24cook some salmon. I will make a curry sauce that will go with it. I'm going to cook it with a
00:29technique called unilateral. The salmon will be warm, have a beautiful color, beautiful texture.
00:36We'll show the philosophy that French cooking is about delicacy and precision. The first thing that
00:42we are going to do is to prepare the salmon. So here we have some salmon that comes from the Faroe
00:48Island, which is in between Iceland and Denmark. This fish comes from very, very pure waters and
00:56therefore we don't have to worry about parasites and fish like that could be served very, very rare.
01:01You know it's fresh when you put your nose on top and it doesn't have any smell. If you see those
01:08white lines here through the filet being kind of beige, dark. If the color is not vibrant, it's not so
01:15fresh. When you touch it with your finger, it springs back. If you have a hole in your filet, it's pretty
01:21old already. You should take it out of the fridge a few minutes before you are going to cook it. So
01:26that way the fish comes back to room temperature and it will be easier for the fish to cook equally
01:33during the process. For seasoning the fish, I'm using fine sea salt. So when you season, you don't
01:39season too high because you're not very precise. You don't season too close because you are too close.
01:45You don't see what you are doing. You do that just before the process of cooking. If you are putting
01:50the salt too much ahead of time, it's going to start to cook the flesh of the fish that is very fragile,
01:56very sensitive to salt and acidity.
02:01I'm going to cook it with a technique called unilateral, which means that the heat comes from
02:06the bottom very slowly and cooks the salmon to perfection. I'm going to put some water in a pan,
02:12a little bit, not too much, and I'm going to use a little bit of butter like that. I'm going to put
02:19the pan on top of this griddle here. The idea is to use the heat and cook the fish very, very slowly
02:27coming from the bottom to the top. We will have the consistency of a custard when we are going to
02:32eat the fish. At home, if you have burners, you can cook the fish on top of the burner. You just put
02:38the pan on it. Here we are not searing the fish. Sometimes it's good to see the fish to create a
02:44crust. For salmon, for instance, I like it when it's cooked like this because you don't have dryness
02:50of the crust. Also, you don't test the oil that you used for creating the crust in a pan. So here,
02:57when the fish will be cooked, it will have this very, very beautiful texture. And also, you will be able
03:02to test the fish fully without any distraction from other ingredients. The fish is not flipped
03:10because if you flip it, the color will not be the same. You will have kind of like a dull grayish
03:16color. But I'm not looking for the water to be simmering, and I'm not looking for the water to
03:20be boiling because, again, that will create too much heat and will cook the bottom of the fish well done.
03:28You just have to be patient. While the fish is cooking, I'm going to make a curry coconut sauce.
03:35This sauce goes very well with the salmon because it will have a nice spiciness, vibrant color. This
03:43sauce is, of course, elegant, but very easy to make. I'm going to slice a shallot very thinly.
03:48You'll be cooking very fast. If the shallot was sliced with thick pieces, it will take a long time. You
03:53will not get all the flavors coming out of the shallot. I'm going to put a bit of oil in the pan.
04:00Shallots are going first. So the pan will be hot, but not so hot that it will sear the shallot. A clove
04:08of garlic. Garlic, as you know, is very strong and pungent. You don't want too much in it. I have some
04:14fresh ginger. Same thing. I'm going to slice it very thinly. I'm looking to sweat the vegetables. Sweating
04:20means that they're becoming soft, cooked, so you don't have the raw flavor of the onion or you don't
04:26have the raw flavor of the garlic. That is very, very aggressive. The ginger is going to be spicy and
04:33refreshing. When you make sauce, especially for seafood, you want to sweat your vegetables and not
04:40necessarily sear them. When you make sauce for meat, sometimes you want to color the vegetables
04:48because meat is not as delicate as fish. Coloring the vegetables may bring an intensity that the
04:54sauce needs to elevate the meat. I'm going to add a bit of white wine. So the wine will help to make
05:00the coconut milk not as rich and will bring a little bit of acidity. Coconut milk is when you use the
05:07flesh and you basically puree the flesh and cook it. Nice fat content that will bring the creaminess to the
05:15sauce. Madras curry powder is a blend of different spices, including turmeric, which brings very often
05:22the very bright yellow color. I'm going to let the sauce come to simmer. I'm adding a little bit of water
05:28because it's rich. I'm going to pass the sauce. So passing the sauce means I'm going to filter the sauce.
05:38To have a smooth texture, but all the flavors from the garlic and the ginger and the shallots,
05:43I'm passing the sauce through what we call a chinois. And then I'm going to extract with a spatula.
05:52And you can see I'm pressing, I'm extracting all the flavors. Meanwhile, as you can see, the salmon
05:59has been cooking. It's still cold on the top. If I lift it, you will see underneath it's starting to
06:05be cooked. And the heat is coming up. So with the broche, I'm basting the fish. I'm also eliminating
06:12the albumin that comes out of the fish. Albumin is a protein. It comes out very quickly when you cook
06:19it very, very fast. Slow cooking will avoid the albumin to come out in very big chunks. It's not
06:27necessarily pleasant, the texture. So we broche the salmon on the side like that using a thin skewer
06:36made of metal. And I'm going to go through the flesh of the fish like this. And then you touch your hand
06:45and it should be warm. If it's cold, it's not cooked. If you burn yourself, you're punished. It's overcooked.
06:51I like salmon when it's cooked medium rare. And in general, I like all fish being cooked medium rare.
06:58When it's overcooked, it's very dry and tasteless. And I can tell you that the fish is cooked because
07:04there's no resistance going through the flesh. And also when it's coming back, the skewer is warm.
07:11So it's time to remove the fish.
07:15So when you plate, you have to be very gentle, very careful. Seafood in general is fragile,
07:20delicate. I'm using a spatula. I'm using a napkin to let the liquid be absorbed before it goes to the plate.
07:31I'm going to decorate the fish. I have some chives. It has a slight oniony flavor, but not
07:36overpowering. And it's going to go well with the sauce and the fish. I have some vegetables here.
07:42We have some cauliflower, carrots and turnips. And I'm going to plate them around the fish.
07:48I just have to finish the sauce. Whisking is about incorporating air and which makes the sauce
07:55slightly lighter in appearance, adding some lemon juice. I'm saucing around the fish because I don't
08:03want to destroy the beautiful texture that the fish has and the beautiful color. I want the fish to shine.
08:09And if you want the flavor of the sauce, you will decide how much sauce you want with your fish.
08:15This is it. It's a salmon curry sauce with spring vegetables. This is a fish knife. It's not even sharp.
08:23And you slice it and you can see it's no effort. So now I'm going to try.
08:31Really good. And you can see it's perfectly cooked. It has the same texture. And if I lift it with my fork,
08:39you'll see the texture is exactly the same all over the filet of fish. And when I touch it,
08:48it's warm. It's hot. Salmon is a very rich fish, very delicate. And it goes very well with the coconut
08:55curry sauce. It brings a bit of spiciness. The lemon juice brought a bit of acidity that is a contrast
09:03with the richness of the fish and gives you the illusion of lightness. When you eat it,
09:08you will eat the entire plate and thinking it's a cloud. With this technique, it's not very hard
09:14to achieve restaurant-quality cooking in your kitchen at home. Not bad for an hour, huh?
09:23What do you think, Alex?
09:24Alex. One hour we do one cover.