When working with salmon there are several parts to the whole. More often than not we treat the entire piece of fish like one whole and disregard the unique elements within. Yesterday we separated our piece of salmon into two pieces, the belly and the loin. We soaked them for 10 minutes in a 5% salt water brine and then gently patted them dry. We butterflied the belly and dusted it with Activa RM. Once the belly was evenly coated we rolled it into a cylinder. We let the fish rest for a few minutes while we put together a spice blend which included black cocoa. We rolled the fish cylinder in the spices, wrapped it securely in plastic wrap, and let it set overnight. This morning we cooked the spiced salmon at 50°C for twenty minutes and then chilled it down in an ice bath. When the salmon was cold we were able to slice it into beautiful rounds with the dark spice mix on the exterior surrounding the delicate fish on the inside.
