The East King Trailhead(tm), the community quarterly for East King County

Healthy, easy, abundant salmon: Here's how to cook it right

Cooking Class with Chef Carol

Ahhhh, salmon! The most popular eating fish in America! In the Northwest, we are blessed with an abundance of salmon, and since it is so readily available, let’s get a bit more comfortable with the choice and preparation for our tables.

In search of the perfect salmon…to eat

Fresh fish smell like the sea—no fishy odor! A good fish market turns its inventory quickly and, like good fish itself, shouldn’t smell fishy either. Look for lots of clean white ice. Market fish should sparkle and glisten, giving you a “Take-me-home-I’m-delicious” look.

When purchasing fresh whole fish, look for bright, bulgy, transparent eyes. Gills should be dark pink inside, never brown or blue; flesh should be firm and resist pressure. The tail should be moist, not dried out or curled up at the end.

When you are choosing fillets, examine the flesh: It should have a moist sheen, but not look filmy or slimy. And the fillet should appear slightly translucent—opacity can signal previous freezing. Ask the fishmonger if you may touch the fillet—it should spring back and be firm to the touch.

Read your seafood label carefully: “Fresh” is not always an indicator of quality. “Fresh” simply means that the fish has never been frozen, and is less than nine days old. I would recommend some varieties of frozen fish over questionably “fresh” fish. Don’t hesitate to ask your fishmonger when the fish was harvested.

A quick salmon primer

Chinook is the largest of the Pacific salmon, often called King. The meat is excellent, firm and dark pink, rich in oil, and flakes into large chunks. Chinook run from February through November. With the highest oil content, the Spring Copper and Yukon River Chinooks are the most expensive.

Coho salmon, commonly known as Silvers or Silversides, are smaller than Chinook, and tend to weigh eight-to-ten pounds. Cohoes are tasty and firm-fleshed, light in color, but have excellent texture, and also flake into large chunks. They run late September through early November.

Pink salmon, commonly known as Humpback, range from five-to-six pounds. With a delicate pink color, they tend to break into smaller pieces, and contain less oil than Sockeye or Chinook. They are more abundant in odd-numbered years, running from late July through mid-September.

Chum salmon are known locally as dog salmon or Fall salmon, and range from ten-to-twelve pounds at maturity. With pale-white to pink flesh, their fillets separate into large chunks. They run from July through October. Chum and Pink salmon are lower in oil than other salmon, and therefore more mildly flavored. (Among connoisseurs, the taste of the meat is considered inferior to Chinook and Coho.) Chum are good choices for pan-frying, baking in flavorful sauces, or in salads with light dressing.

Sockeye is perhaps the most prized of all salmon. Its rich, red, firm-textured flesh has a high oil content, making the fish flavorful, and excellent for canning. Mature sockeye range from five-to-seven pounds.

Atlantic salmon are almost as large as Chinooks. Their orange flesh has a high fat content and great flavor. They are the easiest to farm-raise, accounting for 80% of farmed salmon. Atlantic salmon are, understandably, not commonly found in the Pacific, except in pens.

Handling and preparing salmon

Store your fish in the coldest part of your refrigerator, usually the bottom shelf, and use within a day for best quality and flavor.

Don’t cross contaminate. Handle raw and cooked salmon separately; keep your work space clean; keep raw and cooked seafoods from coming in contact with each other. This includes cleaning the knives, containers, and cutting boards used in preparation.

To find tiny bones in salmon fillets, run your fingers along the surface. Pull bones out with tweezers or needle‑nose pliers.

Cook your salmon thoroughly. Fish is cooked when it begins to flake and reaches an internal temperature of 145°F.

Cooking salmon right

Good fish is lean and delicate—These qualities make fish cook quickly. Cook salmon at a lower temperature than you might other proteins—You’ll get a better result. But mind your cooking salmon carefully to prevent overcooking.

For grilling, broiling, or smoking, choose species with higher fat content like Chinook, Coho, Sockeye, or Atlantic.

Cook salmon with the skin on. It is easy to remove after cooking, and helps to hold the delicate fish together while turning. To prevent fish from sticking, preheat the grill or pan thoroughly, oil lightly, then set the fish down and do not move it until ready to turn. When the fish has seared it will easily release from the pan or grill.

To prevent overcooking of thinner tail sections of fillets, fold the tail end under itself, creating a thickness equal to the rest of the fillet. Cooked salmon cools very quickly—Serve it on a heated plate.

“How do I know it’s done?”

I like my salmon at an internal temperature of 145-150°F. Besides internal temperature, there are some visual signs of doneness:

Flesh no longer looks translucent, but is opaque.
Flesh begins to flake. Don’t take it too far here, or your fish will be overdone.
Collagen appears on the flesh. (That’s the whitish substance that comes to the surface.)

With larger pieces of fish, allow for “carry-over” cooking: The salmon will continue to cook even after being removed from your heat source. Expect a rise in internal temperature of about 5°F. For smaller pieces of fish, carry-over cooking is not an issue, as the salmon cools very quickly. Be prepared to serve it right away.

Remember the brine!

My favorite quick way to prepare salmon begins with a Kosher salt and brown-sugar brine, followed by pan-roasting, for perfect salmon every time. If you are short on time, just eliminate the brining step.

I am captivated by the effects of brining on protein-rich foods like salmon. The salt in the brine solution denatures (breaks down) the proteins in the meat a bit, trapping extra water and flavors from the brine. The result? Juicy, succulent, flavorful fish. And so easy! ■

The East King Trailhead
1420 NW Gilman Blvd. #2726, Issaquah, WA 98027.
Toll-free Fax: (866) 205-8722.
Email: info (at) eastkingtrailhead.com