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A Guide To Buying Salmon

buying fresh salmon

What to look for

When buying Salmon a good way to tell if it’s fresh is to press it with you finger, the flesh should spring back, not leave your fingerprint in it. It should smell of the sea, slightly of ozone and most definitely not of FISH. If you’re looking at a whole salmon - take a good look at its eyes, they should be clear and bright, not sunken and cloudy. The gills should be a deep red colour and the skin shiny and slippery. When you pick up the fish it should feel firm, not floppy like some old rag doll.

Types of Salmon

Wild Salmon is the best and therefore usually the most expensive but don’t let that put you off; once you’ve eaten wild Salmon the farmed Salmon pales in comparison. Wild Salmon tends to be a darker orangey pink colour, the reason being is that the natural diet of a Salmon includes crustaceans. When you pick up a whole wild Salmon you’ll notice how firm and lean it is, like a torpedo, caused by the fish using its muscles to swim in the currents and tides of the rivers and seas.

Farm Raised Salmon is lighter pink in colour and more rounded and flabby, the only fighting it’s done is for food amongst the other Salmon in the sometimes very crowded farm cages.

Did you know that sometimes the farmed Salmon colour is determined by the fish farmer? Depending what colour the farmer wants his Salmon to be he can literally order a colour from a chart and the feed manufacturer then calibrates the Salmon’s diet accordingly and hey presto a ‘painted by numbers’ Salmon! (it’s the same with battery egg production - but I’ll save that for another day).

Farmed Organic Salmon is governed by strict guidelines set in place by Organic institutions such as The Soil Association. The fish is better looked after and the farms regularly inspected. Except for permitted antibiotics and pesticides the fish are largely left to naturally mature and being in larger cages they are a lot happier, healthier and fitter. The cages are also a lot further out to sea thus enabling fresh water to continually wash away the Salmon effluence and of course making far better living conditions for the fish.

Online, your Local Fishmonger or at the Supermarket. What is the best option for buying Salmon?

Supermarkets

At the Supermarket They may have a fresh fish counter or a section in the chiller department, they will almost certainly have a freezer department.

You may or may not realise this, but all fish starts to spoil as soon as it’s killed and the more the fish is processed/handled the quicker the fish starts to deteriorate. When I'm buying Salmon or any other type of seafood I want it as fresh as possible.

At the Fish Counter you’ll find various cuts of fresh Salmon from Salmon Steaks to Salmon Fillets along with whole Salmon. These will probably have come from different sources, be it Wild Salmon, Farm Raised Salmon or Farmed Organic Salmon. And it could have be sourced from all over the world - anywhere ranging from Alaska, the Pacific, Canada, Norway or Scotland to name a few.

At least at the fish counter you have the opportunity to touch and smell the fish therefore making it easier to judge for yourself.

The Chiller Cabinets - I personally would not buy the Salmon or indeed any of the Seafood that I see in the chiller, yes, I know that’s a very strong statement but I feel strongly about it. Have you ever looked at the best before date on those hermatically sealed containers? It may be anything from 3 to 7 days more than the date on which you purchase it. All fish should be eaten as fresh as possible and more than 3 days old doesn’t say fresh to me!

The reason that the Salmon in Supermarkets manages to have such a long shelf life is because those little sealed containers have pumped air in them - not air exactly as you and I breathe, but air with the same elements calibrated to a different ratio and this is what stops the fish going off so quickly. As soon as that container is opened the fish will start to spoil faster (I might add that they do the same with bagged salad).

Do you really want to be buying Salmon that 's been artificially kept edible? When you look at those little containers and the salmon fillets sitting on their absorbent ‘blankets’ how on earth are you supposed to judge the fish inside?

The third option in the Supermarket is the Freezer department. This can be a very good alternative to fresh fish. Look for Salmon -or indeed any fish - that has been ‘flash frozen’, this means that the fish has been caught and filleted very quickly - possibly at sea , then frozen very quickly thus retaining all the flavour and nutrients. This is often a far better option than fillets of Salmon lying for days in the chiller cabinet.

Fishmongers

If you are lucky enough to be close to a decent fishmonger, get to know him and he’ll look after you. They are becoming more scarce as the supermarkets continue their domination across the world. The fishmonger will invariably know where the Salmon has come from and when it was caught. He can prepare it for you and give you tips and recipes. If you have a special occasion coming up, tell him beforehand and he will be only to happy to fulfil your order, handing it over ready to put in the oven or whatever. Don’t let the supermarkets destroy the independent retailer or you will soon realise that you have no choice at all - you know what they say - Use It or Lose It!!

Online

Thankfully, now that the Internet has come into its own, it's never been easier to buy seafood online . There are many small, specialised companies where you can buy Salmon and Salmon products. Until recently these companies had few ways of getting their products widely known. They deliver excellent Salmon and Smoked Salmon either fresh in chilled boxes, frozen or vacuum packed. The Internet has opened the door to an infinite range of merchandise - all you have to do is navigate your way around it. But don’t worry - we’ve done the hard work for you and you will find links for several excellent Salmon and Smoked Salmon sites within this salmon recipe sites pages.

Further Buying Information