I made the salmon dish as faithfully recreated as possible. The horseradish cream was great. I added hen of the woods mushrooms fried in butter for some texture and temperature contrast, which actually worked pretty well. I felt the watercress puree was too watery even though I added the appropriate amount of xanthan...Perhaps I added too much water to the puree?
The pickles worked OK, but I used shallots (no vacuum) and they were way too sharp flavored even after a good 4 hours. I've never had issues with pickled red onion in the past with a similar recipe, so I'm not sure on what happened here.
Lastly and most importantly, the salmon was....mushy. I was SO disappointed. It felt amazing coming out of the brine. I'm worried I overcooked it? I think my piece of sashimi grade salmon was thinner and wider than your salmon loin. Could this have been the reason? I gave it 5 and a half hours to chill. Obviously the recipe calls for six, but I doubt it would have firmed up much in the last half hour. Interestingly, the edges were firmer than the middle.
Still tasty, but I was disappointed. Did I cook it too long? Brine it too long? Use the wrong cut? All of the above?
