How Not to Make Mistakes Cooking Wild Caught Salmon
Salmon served in many restaurants, especially buffets, come off as slimy skinned, chalky or dry.
How could this be an ultra-healthy dish eaten around the world, with people paying a premium for the wild-caught fish?
The reality is that restaurants make more money when they serve the food as quickly as possible for a minimum of effort. This means that the salmon served at buffets is poached to save time by virtue of its simplicity and over-poached as it sits on the buffet line warmer.
Or it gets over-cooked at restaurants that rank prevention of food borne illnesses far above flavor, drying it out as a result. Slimy skinned salmon is the result of cooking it with too much sauce without crisping the skin. Slimy skinless filets can result from too much cooking oil or butter relative to what the fish needs, though that may be done to offset the weaker flavor of chum salmon.
What are the characteristics of well-cooked salmon? Its skin is crisp or crackling, rivaling that of chicken.
The meat is tender and flavorful, though the natural flavor of the fish depends on its species. The flavor of the meat goes up with the fat content. Properly cooked, it is moist. King salmon, sometimes called chinook salmon, are the largest salmon species, and their large thick fillets make it easy to cook if you have the right technique.
One option is cutting it like beef steak and cooking it in a similar manner.
You can cook it on the grill, in the oven or any other option. You have to take care to cook it in a manner that it is thoroughly cooked. Coho are smaller than king salmon. They have less intramuscular fat than king salmon, but they are still able to be cooked without fat and oil unless you’re pan frying.
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They can be cured to create gravlax and similar preparations. Sockeye salmon have a deep red color darker than the pink most of us associate with salmon, due to the pink salmon dominating the canned salmon and buffet line offerings.
They have a full flavor and high that makes them easy to use almost any way. The problem is that their small size and thinner fillets are easy to overcook, leading to dried out fish too often smothered in sauce to make it palatable again. A sign that the fish is overcooked is when white gunk can be squeezed out of the layers of the fish. These fish when pan fried need to have butter or oil added to the pan to avoid flaky pieces of salmon flesh stuck to the pan as it cooks.
You’ll improve the process by preheating the oil so the oil doesn’t dry up and stick to the pan, causing sections of flesh to adhere and pull away. How hot does salmon need to be to cook properly? Below 110°F or 43°C, the salmon might as well be raw. The flesh is soft and makes good sashimi, but this isn’t wise if you’re preparing fish without the expertise of a chef.
At 110° to 125°F or 43° to 50°C, the salmon is medium rare. The meat is mostly opaque but is juicy and moist. Within this range, you’ve retained its juices and fleshy texture. Above 125°F or 50°C, the fish is medium to well-done. It will start to become flaky, but that’s not a problem if you don’t burn it or lose flakes that stick to the pan.
It will start to develop a chalky texture, but cooking it too long or letting it get too hot is what will ruin the salmon. The salmon muscles will start to contract, and albumen will get pushed out, creating white lumps on the outside of the salmon. One solution for this is patting down or rinsing the fish before serving, just after you take it off the stove immediately.
A better option is to dry the fish and press it between paper towels to make it as dry as possible before putting in the pan, so that less energy is needed to sear the meat. And don’t give in to temptation to constantly flip the salmon. It’ll cook more evenly and less likely to fall apart if you cook it slow and steady, instead of constantly flipping it over.
You prevent chalky salmon by not cooking it over 140°F or 60°C. The longer it sits at this temperature, the dryer and chalkier it becomes, turning into that healthy but unattractive salmon piece on the buffet line often covered in sauces to make it taste better. You can reduce the odds of getting it above the 140°F range by keeping the skin on when pan roasting.
It is better to cook it with the skin on and then remove it than over cook it and try to rescue it. The skin and the underlying layer of fat essentially insulates the fish and slows down heat transfer, making it hard to overcook. The same principle is used when putting planks on the grill on which to grill salmon.
What if you don’t like skin? You can get the same benefit from battering or breading it, though the breading needs to be of the right consistency to not flake off worse than pieces of salmon would. You can also reduce the risk of overcooking the salmon by cooking it with the skin on but mostly skin side down. When it is skinless side of the salmon fillet is done, flip it over and cook the skin side for at least thirty seconds. Cook time goes up with the thickness of the fillet.
