I’ve tried two different types of canned salmon and both were horrible. I tried Chicken of the Sea pink salmon, which was more expensive than tuna but not too bad, and had a shitty texture and taste. I also tried Pillar Rock fancy red sockeye salmon, which was the most expensive one I could find. This one, although it says ‘ready to eat’ also had bones and other unidentified connective tissue in it. It didn’t taste bad, but the texture almost made me hurl. Any suggestions for salmon? If canned isn’t an option, what is the quickest and easiest way to cook up fresh salmon? Thanks.
Gotta agree with you on the taste/texture of canned salmon. I worked in a salmon cannery in Alaska to put myself through college (a great suggestion to any one looking for a good summer financial aid package). I didn’t actually work the canning part of the operation, but I knew enough about what went on in there to never eat the stuff again. Stick to fresh (if you can swing an Alaska connection to get the stuff that’s flash frozen within a few hours of catch, that’s the best). Barbeque is the easiest, use a foil bag to keep most smoke out and juices in. Season to taste. Something that can help keep the salmon from getting dry is to use a light spread of mayonaise inside the fish prior to cooking. Don’t know if that’s what you’re looking for, but I hope it helps.
Oh yeah, the best salmon is silver, followed by king, then sockeye, pink, and chum, in that order. I’ve become a bit of a salmon snob, so I don’t even eat pink or chum. Waste of good protein in my book.
Get a Foreman grill and cook it on there. 5-6 minutes and it’s done, and really tasty. Not nearly as convenient and not as cheap as the canned stuff, but way more palatable.
Mustard and a “pill popping” strategy of eating will do the trick. I can’t stand salmon but since eating is about feeding and not enjoyment, I get by with this approach. After doucing the “fillet” in mustard, I mush up the salmon (so that it doesn’t need to be chewed) and spoonful by spoonful I place some on my tongue and take a shot of water to get it down.
Try Royal Pink Alaska Salmon. It’s available at Sam’s in 6 oz. cans. No bones, etc.
I remember quite a few years back buying some salmon that had to be the worst… and I’ll always remember the name “BY THE SEA”… cause that’s where they picked up the fish carcass…by the sea… man that stuff was the shits! … I actually like Salmon and eat it from the can, as well as fresh… ah! the west coast…
Shoot, I just consider the bones as an extra source of calcium. As for the skin, I don’t mind it. Not much different from eating salmon skin rolls in a sushi restaurant.
So what kind of stuff did go in the the salmon cannery that you wont eat it anymore?
-Jason
Do a search for salmon and see my post (under the name “chardon”) about what happened to me when I ate some Bumblebee pink salmon. Bottom line: never EVER eat pink salmon. Stick with red.
I’m not a huge fan of canned fish either salmon or tuna. However, I’ve come with a decent recipe that is pretty tasty. I take one can of canned fish (either type) a couple of saltine crackers, and one whole egg, could probably use egg whites only also, probably take two of those, and season to taste. Heat a frying pan, and spray with no-stick spray and cook. Flip 1/2 way just like a pancake. I find this meal falls in to the category of protien/fat meal, when combined with a salad. If you want to add some flavor and a few x-tra calories, top patty with no-fat ranch. Hope this is a useful idea. Peace
Well… I suppose it’s mostly typical “factory folklore” stuff, but I saw it first hand. Guys would get cut by the fish slicers (but no one lost any fingers, thankfully), and bleed into the fish. Slimers would let fish pass untouched (slimers had to slice the blood line insode the fish along the spine and scoop out the sludge). Didn’t realy matter how bad the condition of the fish, they just got processed anyway. Then there’s the whole thing about bones and skin being cooked into the cans that I just cant’ stomach. I worked at another fish processing plant in southeast Alaska that basically just froze the fish. They were a lot more picky about the quality (since you could see the whole fish, poor quality was more obvious). We’d get at least 3 fish a day with huge tumors in them – golf-ball sized things. Well, do you suppose the other guys pulled those fish from the lines? Geez, that’s stuff I’ve tried to forget for years. Any way, there’s a reason that the canned salmon is cheaper than fresh – it’s usually the poorer quality fish, like half dead before they were caught. Turns my stomach just thinking about it.
I’ve got news for you guys…if you think salmon canneries are disgusting and you’ll never eat salmon from the can, imagine how much worse meat and poultry are, then you’ll be eating the fish 24/7. I buy the 14.75oz cans of pink salmon, throw out the bones, mash it up in some mustard or low-fat mayo, and suck it down. I can’t afford the same quantity of the fresh stuff. There are horror stories from every food industry.
I’m sure you’re right, but seeing it first hand just made it too real for me.
If you can get it, get it smoked. It doesn’t require any cooking and is DEE-LICIOUS. Careful where you get it though. Most retail places are way too expensive to buy it in quantity and you probably don’t want smoked fish from some grease-monkey’s backyard oil-pan smoker. Best bet-catch it and smoke it yourself. That is, if it’s practical for you, of course.
grilled salmon steaks
I’ll never eat canned salmon again. Please…save the chicken and meat horror stories, otherwise I’ll be living on protein shakes for the rest of my life. All of this does bring up a good point, though: the food industry is pretty f&**ed up, isn’t it? I feel like I should either start growing/killing my own food so I know what I’m eating. Then again…I’ve been eating the same foods my whole life and so far nothing has killed me. Hmmm.
I just got my first issue of Mother Jones magazine, and it has an article about the dangerous nature of working in a meat packing plant. It is a good read and it really makes you wonder what goes on in those plants if they won’t even stop the processing line for serious bodily injuries.
Keep in mind that if your buying farmed salmon
it’s fatty acid profile is going to suck compared to wild.
About those protein shakes: Have you seen what goes on in those dairies??? You better milk your own cow my friend! (Just kidding!)
Actually, our food supply is safer now than at probably any time in history, unless you were a farmer and growing your own. The French devoloped all their sauces as a cover for rotted meat. I think it was Upton Sinclair who did an expose on slaughter houses around the turn of the century which led to government inspections. Unfortunately, inspection rests on meagre sampling so we are still largely at the mercy of the food handlers’ sense of ethics, but we are still way ahead of our forefathers. What really irks me is that irradiation would cure alot of problems cheaply, but the anti-nuke know-nothings miseducate the public about it. Imagine never having another salmanella or e. coli outbreak and strawberries that remain fresh for weeks!
(Imagine companies picking strawberries when they are actually ripe instead of when they are green because they no longer have to consider the amount of rotting that occurs in shipping non-irradiated fruit.) We don’t have these things because some people insist on connecting irradiation with the dangers of nuclear reactors and bombs–and the public is too poorly educated to dismiss the lies.