sous vide supreme smoked haddock and poached egg

… as regular readers will know I recently visited a wonderful smokehouse in Grimsby and came away with a freezer full of glorious haddock… i’ve been pondering over recipes and developing ideas ever since but not had much time to do anything about it until I woke one morning to the delivery of an incredible package of goodies… I was recently asked by the clever boffins at Sous Vide Supreme if i’d like to trial one of their products and as you can imagine I was very intrigued.  Any of you who’ve been watching the recent Masterchef programmes will have seen many a chef refer to the ‘water-bath’ cooking technique which has been adopted by some of the worlds best restaurants due to its wonderful slow-cooking, controlled temperature and incredible results…

… the concept behind sous vide – ‘under vaccum’ in French, is that cooking the food in vacuum-packed bags, submerged into a precisely temperature controlled water-bath yields perfectly cooked, intensely flavoured and wonderfully textured food that cannot be duplicated using any other cooking method… this procedure also retains natural juices and nutrients and it’s not just meat and fish, it works beautifully with vegetables and even eggs… but it’s not a quick-fix… you have to be patient as some of the meats can take up to 12 hours to cook so this is proper ‘over-night’ or ‘work-day’ cooking but it is foolproof and delivers perfect results at just the flick of a switch… I think this will be a bit of a voyage of discovery but I am so excited to get trying I thought i’d start with a very simple dish…

sous vide supreme smoked haddock and poached egg
one of the exciting things about this method of cooking is that you really do feel like a proper chef… the clever people at sous-vide have developed these professional products for the home cook with a large range of techniques and recipes to read through… this is a proper gadget for the at-home cook that can take the place of the slow-cooker… fish like this is ever so delicate and really needs a light touch to cook and I have to say my smoked haddock was undeniably good, perfectly flaky with an already intense smoky taste made more delicate and beautiful… the egg was a little tricker with the timings but I think the perfect results speak for themselves…

2 fillets of smoked haddock
1 lemon – sliced
a handful of lemon thyme
freshly ground pepper
2 large free range eggs
olive oil

fill your sous vide supreme with water and set to 60C

place each haddock fillet into a cooking pouch and place a slice of lemon, a sprinkling of lemon thyme and a glug of olive oil and seal the bag using the vacuum sealer. (with fish it’s best not to vacuum the bag completely as this can effect the texture – 90% is best)

place the bags of fish into the sous vide and set the timer for 20 minutes

after 20 minutes remove the bags and set them aside covered with a tea towel, then turn the sous vide up to 75C and once the temperature is reached carefully place your un-bagged eggs (in their shells) into the water and set the timer for 15 minutes

to plate up simply remove the fish from the bag, place on the plate and crack the egg on top – it should open up and reveal the perfect poached egg

sprinkle with freshly ground pepper and serve

eat and of course enjoy!