The other night, to make dinner, Kim used some of my lab equipment. Wait, let me rewind a little bit. First, she used a metric crap-ton of sodium chloride, or “salt” to the non-geeks. See? Salt:
A pretty thick bed of salt was placed in a pan. Fish was put on top of that and then a giant mountain of salt was put over the top of that.
That was it. Fish. Salt. Nothing else. It was placed in the oven for a while (I have no idea how long–Kim was in charge) and eventually pulled out so that we could measure the temperature. By this time, the salt had formed a quite solid crust. Cracking through that with the probe showed us the desired temperature.
The fish was then broken free from the salt crust, doused in some olive oil, and served with lemons and leeks. That was some tasty fish.
Isn’t that a great technique!
I generally beat an couple egg whites with water and fold the salt into it, which insures that the salt will crust. I put a trout on a layer of the salt-meringue and slip a couple slices of lemon and onion inside the cavity, then pour the rest of the salt-meringue on top. (The egg yolks become aioli.)