Recipes

Bloody Mary Poached Salmon

Take your poached salmon to the next level with the addition of Clamato juice and vodka

By Henry Johnston /

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Clamato juice + vodka = poached salmon that tastes like a cocktail

This poached salmon dish is a meal that tastes like a cocktail! Is there anything better?

Chef Michael Smith recommends simmering fish in flavourful liquid. “And if that liquid just happens to taste like a classic cocktail, all the better,” he writes in The Best of Chef at Home: Essential Recipes for Today’s Kitchen.

This is a really quick, simple and low-fat dish with lots of flavour. I usually serve it with brown rice.

Ingredients

  • 4 boneless, skinless salmon fillets (each about 6 oz/175 g)
  • Sea salt + freshly ground black pepper
  • 2 cups tomato juice (I use Clamato juice instead)
  • 1/2 cup vodka
  • 1 tbsp each: prepared horseradish, Worcestershire sauce
  • Zest of 1 lemon
  • Juice of 1/2 to 1 lemon, to taste
  • 1 tbsp extra-virgin olive oil
  • 2 stalks celery, diced
  • 2 cups baby spinach

Instructions

  1. Generously season salmon with salt and pepper.
  2. In medium shallow saucepan with tight-fitting lid, stir together tomato juice, vodka, horseradish, worcestershire sauce, lemon zest and juice, oil and celery. Bring to gentle simmer over medium to medium-low. Add salmon. Cover; poach until just cooked through, about 10 minutes.
  3. Divide spinach among 4 bowls. Top each with fillet. Ladle broth over each.

Makes 4 servings.