Wild Pacific Salmon

This post contains three experimental recipes:

1. Steamed Lemon Dill Salmon
2. Brown Sugar Soy Baked Salmon Sandwich
3. Baked Pesto Salmon

A few days ago I purchased a fillet of Wild Pacific Sockeye Salmon from Whole Foods as it was on sale.

Sockeye Salmon in it's true form :)

First, I want to make a point that the salmon was MSC certified. MSC (Marine Stewardship Council) is a third party eco-labeling program that can confirm the fish or any other kind of seafood was caught in a sustainable manner. For more info check out: http://www.msc.org/

My fillet with dill I put on top to infuse some flavour.

The state of the world's fisheries is dim as the world's fisheries are collapsing due to overfishing. As a huge seafood lover, I don't want the world to run out of it. This is just my little individual effort in being a good citizen of Earth by buying fish that was caught in a sustainable manner. * And yes, I am aware individual efforts alone are not enough and doesn't truly solve the problem, but it is a step on doing something right in my opinion.

Anyway, with my piece of fillet, I got a decent slice for only $5 and it fed me for 3 different meals. Don't forget to ask your fish monger to descale your fish! Because I forgot and I had to descale it myself :( #firstworldpains. If that happens to you, don't worry, it is actually quite simple. All you have to do is take a knife and rub it against the scales (so from the back of the fish to where it's head would normally be).

*It has come to my attention that some people leave the scale on so it would be easier to peel off the skin. I didn't know some people preferred the salmon without the skin, so with my advice above, disregard it if you don't like the skin :)

 My first approach was Steamed Lemon Dill Salmon. I used:

• fresh dill and parsley (4:1 ratio)
• lemon
• pepper
• dash of salt
• dash of garlic powder (fresh garlic probably would have been better, but I was lazy and starving)
• vegetable of your choice - I chose zucchini since it was in the fridge. 

Before steaming

I simply put my salmon in a metal dish skin side down and squeezed lemon juice on top. I think took the herbs, rolled and squished it into a ballish-roll shape and started chopping. This method helps you chop more of the herbs at one time. I put the herbs and seasoning on top and some herbs that are not chopped on top as well.  I also added some sliced zucchini. I steamed it for about 10 minutes. *The length of time depends on the size of your fish. You usually can't go wrong with 10 mins. 15 minutes for larger size. I'm no expert at timing, as I usually guesstimate. If you want a more accurate time, try the internet or asking your fish monger :P

Steamed, flaky goodness~

The salmon retained a bright orange colour (though the camera could not capture it). And the taste? AMAZING! It had such an amazing salmon flavour, probably the best tasting cooked salmon I've ever had! The texture was also incredible! I highly recommend people trying a wild sockeye salmon (MSC certified would be great too!). I was quite happy with the turnout of this experimental recipe.

When cooking seafoods, dill is one of the best herb to season it with, it's something you can't go wrong with. If you are super interested other herb choices, check out: http://www.simplyseafood.com/newsletters/0708/freshherbsandfish.html



My second approach is a Brown Sugar Soy Glazed Baked Salmon Sandwich. For this you will need:

• > Brown Sugar
• > Soy Sauce
• > Butter - I'm using a butter substitute called Earth Balance, it is not margarine. 
• > 2 slices of Bread of your choice - I chose sourdough bread because it is my favourite!
• > a Spread of your choice (eg. mayo) - I will be using Avocado as my spread. It's healthy, yummy and still delivers a creamy texture
•  > a Filling of your choice (eg. lettuce, tomatoes, onions...) - I'm using apples because I didn't have anything else in my pantry, but it goes to show that even without the typical stuff you can be creative and experimental! 
• > Black Pepper

 I roughly followed this recipe : http://www.potsandpins.com/blog/2008/01/baked-salmon-wi.html
I put the oven to about 300F because my salmon fillet was thinner than the recipe above. I put some olive oil on the skin and greased the pan as well and baked it for about 8 mins skin side down. On to the marinade....
Note that this person's salmon is huge compared to mine, so I significantly reduced the amount of marinade. While the salmon was baking, I used about 2 teaspoons of brown sugar and a dash of soy sauce. I also added about half a teaspoon of butter and mixed it together. You can add or reduce anything according to your taste, but make sure it is the brown sugar that should be the main character (after all this is a brown sugar focused glaze!) After about 8 mins I put the glaze on top and baked for another 8 mins. Save what is left for later.

 I scooped a bit of my avocado (just about the same amount of a spread such as mayo) and tried mashing it on my bread (you can toast or not toast it. I did lightly toast mine if you were wondering).

 That however failed, so I decided to mash it in the same bowl  the glaze/marinade was in to get more flavour with my avocado spread.I then thinly sliced some apples and arranged it on top of the spread. I only used about 1/4 of the apple. I ate the rest with my sandwich.


When the salmon was finished (you can check by poking around the middle with a fork or chopstick to see if it is flaky), I placed the salmon on top, put some pepper on top and ta-da! I noticed as it was baking some white substance was coming out of the fish, but I think it is just the fish oils solidifying from baking.

Yummy fragrant goodness!

The taste? It was quite good! I think I could have marinaded the salmon ahead of time so it could have more of the brown sugar flavour though. But it still turned out well!

Lazy girl's pesto sauce.

The last thing I made with the salmon was a Baked Pesto Salmon. This was probably my most lazy and uncreative frontier. Honestly, all I did was crank the oven to about 300F and put this on top of my salmon ------------------>

 Yeah I know, lazy. I basically baked the salmon, skin side down and greased the pan and skin with some olive oil and put some salt on the salmon (which I did not do, but you should if you wanna make this) and a layer of pesto on top.

Result! Baked Pesto Salmon

I also put the rest of the zucchini and seasoned with salt, pepper and garlic powder. It was still good, but not the best out of the three.




So after all the salmon I have, I realized that even though something tastes amazing, having salmon so many times in a row can actually be too much. I am a person who doesn't like eating the same stuff over and over and I love having a variety of foods in my diet. I kinda had to finish the fillet by myself though because I didn't want the salmon to lose its freshness. I believe it is best to keep the fish in the fridge for a maximum of 2 days!

So there you have it, a long post about the wild pacific sockeye salmon with three recipes to try! :) Hope the oceans will still provide us with many fishes and seafood for generations to come!

Happy Lunar New Year and 祝你年年有'魚'! 

(Wishing you plenty of fish every year :P)

http://www.davidsuzuki.org/blogs/panther-lounge/2012/01/nian-nian-you-yu-plenty-of-fish-year-after-year/