Prepare the crispiest fish of your life with a slice of bread

Chef Adrienne Cheatham, author of the cookbook "Sunday Best: Cooking Up the Weekend Spirit Every Day," which includes a recipe for brioche-crusted salmon, credits Laurent Gras, a French chef who has worked in Chicago and New York, with popularizing this technique, especially in restaurants. Essentially, a piece of bread the size of the salmon fillet is cut and cooked together. Gras prefers sourdough bread, but Cheatham opts for brioche because of its rich, soft, and creamy dough, thanks to the butter, sugar, and eggs, which add flavor and juiciness. This technique creates a thermal barrier, resulting in tender, juicy salmon with a crispy crust. It also allows for some flexibility in cooking times, particularly when preparing multiple fillets.

A layer of brioche bread is all that's needed.

For this recipe, you only need fresh salmon fillets and an unsliced ​​brioche loaf. Remove the crust and cut the loaf lengthwise into slices about two centimeters thick. The bread acts as a cushion during cooking and adds a crispy texture when serving, elevating the dish to restaurant quality.

Place a slice of bread on a cutting board. Put the fish, flat side down, on the bread. This allows you to cut the bread to the exact size of each fillet, which is visually appealing and makes turning the fish easier. Cooking the fish involves two steps. First, fry the fillets, bread-side down, in an ovenproof skillet. A mixture of oil and butter (consider garlic butter for added flavor) in the skillet helps toast the bread evenly (and slightly reduce its thickness). Once the bread is toasted but not burnt, turn the fish flesh-side down and place everything in a moderate oven. In a few minutes, depending on the thickness of the salmon, the dish will be ready to serve, bread-side up. Breaking through the crispy crust of the toasted bread to reveal the succulent salmon is an elegant sensory study in contrasting textures, aromas, and flavors that will leave you and your guests amazed.

The flexibility of salmon with a brioche crust

According to Adrienne Cheatham, breading salmon offers several advantages that simplify its preparation: the bread doesn't have to be fresh; any kind will do. You can cut the bread slices to your preferred thickness. Furthermore, you can use your favorite seasonings or marinades. The salmon's natural albumin, that white substance you sometimes see, helps the fish adhere to the bread, making it easier to turn and eat (avoid marinating the salmon for too long, as this prevents the formation of this substance, which is undesirable in this case).

Both the preparation and cooking times for this method are flexible. You can prepare everything an hour in advance and keep the fillets in the refrigerator until you're ready. If there are any undercooked pieces of bread left after baking the fish, you can turn them over and cook them for a couple of minutes in the still-hot oil. You can even pre-cook this dish for a large gathering: simply fry the bread first, bread-side down, as usual, and then place the uncooked fillets, flesh-side up, on a baking sheet. Keep everything in the refrigerator until you're ready to finish cooking and bake the fish on the baking sheet instead of in the pan. Alternatively, if everything is ready before serving, remove the fillets from the pan and place them on a baking sheet to reheat them quickly. The salmon will be crispy on the outside and tender on the inside, and your guests will be delighted.