Boiled, baked and fried potatoes, french-fries and steamed potatoes – there dozens, if not hundreds of recipes of this vegetable known from the very childhood. For example, the most popular recipe of the project is potatoes baked with herbs or homemade salad with baked vegetables and slices of rye bread.
But new potatoes do not have so rich taste yet. It’s still so young. However, boiled potatoes are always a very good way out. Sounds boing? Okay, let’s add a little bit of madness. Let it be new potatoes in dancing salad swing with fresh smoked salmon. Sounds complicated? And who promised it would be easy?
This salad recipe is very simple and even sounds familiar. But you’ll start appreciating the flavour in the course of cooking it. Chef Alexei Shvets is even crazier than us. He ordered “Let’s smoke it”, and waved his hand. In fact, smoked apple-flavored salmon tastes hell delicious and looks gorgeous. And he was not waving his hand, but for sure he was using the Smoking Gun device.
Ingredients
Method
- Put the lemon zest strips and the grapeseed oil in the small saucepan.
- Warm over the lowest heat for about 10 minutes, until the oil reaches about 70°C (158°F) and tiny bubbles form around the zest; it must not fry.
- Take the pan off the heat, leave the oil to infuse for 30 minutes, then strain it and let it cool completely.
- Whisk the yolk with the mustard, lemon juice and a pinch each of salt and sugar.
- Whisk in the cooled lemon oil a few drops at a time, then in a thin stream, until the mayonnaise is thick.
- Mix 80 g of the mayonnaise with the sour cream and refrigerate; the rest of the mayonnaise keeps for 2 days in the fridge.
- Scrub the potatoes and boil them in salted water with the half lemon for 15–20 minutes, until tender.
- Drain the potatoes, throw away the lemon, toss them with the butter and a pinch of salt and let them cool to warm.
- Cut the salmon into 4 equal pieces, brush them with olive oil and season lightly with salt.
- Line the wok with foil, scatter the wood chips in the middle and set the rack about 5 cm above them.
- Open a window and turn on the extractor, then heat the wok over medium-high heat for 3–5 minutes, until the chips smoke steadily.
- Set the salmon on the rack, cover tightly and turn the heat to low.
- Smoke for 6–8 minutes, until the outside is opaque and a thermometer in the centre reads 45–50°C (113–122°F); the middle should stay pink.
- Take the wok off the heat, lift off the lid under the extractor, move the salmon to a plate and let it cool, then chill it for 15 minutes.
- Spread the dressing on four plates.
- Halve the potatoes and set them on the dressing.
- Break the salmon into thick slices and lay them over the potatoes.
- Finish with small spoonfuls of grain mustard, the crispy onions, microgreens, a few drops of sriracha and black pepper.
- Scene I – Potatoes and Preparations
- Peel new potatoes and boil in salted water with half a lemon.
- Remove the water and add butter.
- Cut the salmon into equal pieces, heavily brush with olive oil and place in the oven preheated to 60 degrees for 15 minutes. Chill.
- Scene II - Oil
- Mix the grape-seed oil with lemon peels in a ziplock package or in a vacuum container.
- Treat the lemon with boiling water to evaporate fragrant oils.
- Put in the oven on a steam regime at 70 degrees or sous-vide regime for 2 hours.
- Strain the ready-made oil a fine sieve and pour into a bottle. It will be useful.
- Scene III - Mayonnaise
- Mix all the ingredients except the oil, until smooth.
- Pour a thin stream of oil, while continuous whisking the mass.
- Key to perfect mayonnaise is the proportion of 1 yolk and 150 ml of oil. It will be useful.
- Scene IV - Onion
- Cut each onion into 4-6 pieces, divide the layers and sprinkle with a little of olive oil.
- Put in the oven, preheated to 180 degrees until a light golden brown.
- Get it out, chill the oven, set the temperature to 80 degrees and put the onions back to complete dry-curing for 6-8 hours.
- Scene V - Smoking
- Meanwhile, put the pieces of salmon in a small bowl and tightly wrap it with plastic foil.
- Make a small hole and insert the Smoking Gun tube into the hole.
- I also apply some tape to fix it accurately.
- Put the apple sawing to the gun, filling it by half.
- Switch on the Smoking Gun, set on fire and smoke.
- When all the sawdust burn out, turned the device off. Leave it for 5-7 minutes and then the salad can be assembled.
- Final Scene – Hell with Scene, it’s high time to eat!
- Mix the lemon mayonnaise with sour cream.
- Put the potatoes and slices of smoked salmon on top.
- All the remaining ingredients put as long as much patience you have, because the flavor will make you insane. Well, how does it taste?
What we changed for home
- Smoking gun replaced with a wok or lidded pot lined with foil and a spoonful of wood chips A smoking gun is a bar and restaurant gadget; a foil-lined wok gives the same light apple-wood smoke.
- The 15 minutes in a 60°C (140°F) oven and the smoking done as one step in the wok Many home ovens do not hold 60°C (140°F), and the gentle heat of the smoking pot cooks the salmon just as lightly.
- Salmon must be sushi-grade or previously frozen As in the original, it stays barely cooked in the middle.
- Lemon oil infused in a saucepan in 40 minutes, in a smaller batch, instead of 2 hours at 70°C (158°F) in a steam oven or sous vide Warm oil takes up the lemon aroma quickly. 150 ml is all one yolk of mayonnaise needs, and most of the chef's 500 ml would go unused.
- Mayonnaise made with 1 yolk instead of 2 Four plates need about 80 g. One yolk makes about 180 g, following the chef's own ratio of 150 ml of oil per yolk.
- Home-dried onion flakes replaced with store-bought crispy fried onions The chef dries onion petals for 6–8 hours; crispy onions from a supermarket or Asian shop give the same crunch.
- Potatoes raised from 60 g to 100 g per plate, and the butter for them added to the list 60 g is two or three small potatoes, too little for a salad course. The method tosses them in butter, but the list leaves it out.
The dish in the photograph was cooked by the restaurant for this story. Photo: Oleksandr Slyadnyev.
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