Tasty and Easy Poached Salmon with Chervil Hollandaise

This may just be my new favorite way of preparing salmon. It involves relatively little work, and the resulting salmon is tender and juicy. As a bonus, you even get asparagus with your salmon! The only slightly tricky part is the Hollandaise sauce, but once you've got the method down it's not much harder than making a smoothie.

I have two tricks to getting perfect poached salmon every time. The first is to use vegetable stock and wine instead of water this infuses the salmon with loads of flavor. The second trick is to add the salmon and return the stock to a boil before turning the heat off. By cooking the salmon with residual heat, you're much less likely to overcook it.

I mentioned earlier that you get asparagus as a bonus with this salmon, and that's because I poach the two together. The poaching does dull the color of the asparagus, but I feel like this is a relatively small price to pay for the amazing flavor the broth imparts.

I like to use melted butter, an immersion blender, and boiling water to make Hollandaise sauce. This makes it a bit easier and a bit more fool-proof than most versions, but alas Hollandaise sauce is still a delicate emulsion, so you need to take care to follow the directions precisely; otherwise, your sauce may break. If you want a hollandaise sauce that's almost impossible to mess up, which can also be made ahead and reheated, check out my stabilized Hollandaise Sauce.

I didn't do it this time, but I also sometimes like to poach an egg and serve it with the salmon and asparagus. It's like a low carb version of Eggs Benedict, making it the perfect entree for a weekend brunch, along with a light salad.