Salmon and trout - close cousins and different from other fish - are distinctively rich, oily, and sometimes downright fatty, full of flavor but almost never “fishy.”
At this point in time, all Atlantic salmon-regardless of which ocean it comes from-is farmed. It’s not bad stuff, eating wise-it has a lot of fat, so it’s easy to cook- but there are questions about what it eats and how raising it affects the environment, as there is with almost all aquaculture (and agriculture) these days.
Pacific salmon, on the other hand, is always wild and is preferable - though the season for fresh fish is limited to mostly spring and summer, and some species are better than others.
Sockeye (my favorite) and king (the most popular) are the best; coho is also good, chum is not bad, and pink is usually canned.
But unless you live in the Pacific Northwest, buying fresh wild salmon (most of which comes from Alaska) is occasional and expensive; deceptive or well-intentioned but ignorant purveyors will often tell you that their
Alaskan salmon-or even farmed salmon-is “king.” In a supermarket, you’ll rarely be offered anything fresh but chum and farmed Atlantic salmon. Top-quality fish markets offer real king and sockeye, and label it so, but usually only for a few weeks each summer. Frozen king, sockeye, and coho can be good, but it’s still not common.
The chances are good, then, that you’ll be buying farmed salmon fillets or steaks. Full-service fish markets and good supermarket counters scale their fish before cutting it up; since salmon skin is delicious, especially when it’s crisp, this is a bonus.
If you buy some that still has scales, you have three choices:
Scale the fish yourself, which, for whole fish or fillets, is not difficult (it’s nearly impossible to scale steaks once they’ve been cut); skin the fish, also quite easy to do; or, easiest of all, cook the fish with the scales on and discard the skin.
In a way, this last is a nice solution, because the scales give added protection against overcooking, and the skin peels right off afterward, taking the scales with it.
You can use any cooking technique you like for salmon, as long as you don’t overcook it. The time varies according to your taste. Many people-myself included-prefer salmon cooked to what might be called medium-rare to medium, with a well-cooked exterior and a fairly red center. (This is essential for wild salmon, which is usually quite lean.)
I use a knife to peek at the center of a piece of salmon to judge its doneness. Remember that fish retains enough heat to continue cooking after it has been removed from the heat source, so stop cooking just before the salmon reaches the point you’d consider it done.
The trout you’ll find in stores is almost always farmed. In fact, unless you’re a fisherman, or know one, you may never eat wild trout. Until recently, most farmed trout was almost tasteless, and overrated compared to salmon.
But there are now some farmed varieties of trout-steelheads, Arctic char, and orange-fleshed rainbow trout- that look and eat a little like salmon. These are best treated as salmon, and can be used in any salmon recipe. The trout recipes I offer here are designed for wild trout or store-bought-that is, farmed-trout.
