Many years ago, when I worked in my family business, a customer was asking how to poach a whole salmon - at the same time, another customer was in.
Now this second customer's name - wait for it - was Miss Salmon - but she was far too genteel to make jokes with about something as crass as her surname.
Anyway - I digress - Miss Salmon shared with us her foolproof method for poaching salmon and I'm going to share it here with you - I didn't believe it to be honest, as it seemed so simple, but it works and I'll explain why later.
Take a piece of salmon - any size, even a whole one - get a piece of tinfoil big enough to enclose the salmon and brush it with olive oil.
Lay the salmon in the middle and season - what you use will depend on the finished dish, but a basic squeeze of lemon and some black pepper makes a good start - then wrap the salmon totally, making sure the join is water tight by folding over.
Put the wrapped salmon into a pan and cover with cold water. Bring the water to the boil and then turn off the heat. Leave the salmon in the water until it's gone cold and your salmon will be perfectly cooked.
Now I was very sceptical about this method - particularly with the larger pieces, but it really does work.
The first thing is the bigger the piece of salmon, the more water, the longer time it takes to come to the boil - but it's more than that.
For the water to boil, everything in the pan needs to be at boiling heat - that means that the heat has to penetrate to the center of the fish - and that's why it works for any size piece - because it takes longer to come to the boil and of course longer to cool down.
So that's why you can trust it as a method - your salmon won't be raw in the middle when you come to serve it to your guests.
It is so simple and takes a lot of work away from you when you're preparing large quantities of food for a buffet for instance.
