– Ingredients –

A lot gets said about salmon. There’s the colour for a start – is it supposed to be bright pink or is it naturally pastel pink, with extra pinkness being a fraudulent addition based on what we, the demanding consumer, expect? Surely it depends on what the salmon themselves eat, and this depends on where they live, which in turn depends on what type of salmon they are? And what about smoked salmon? I heard recently they often use a chemical cure to ‘smoke’ the fish (which, according to traditional fish smokers, fails to penetrate the fish properly to give you a pure smoke flavour). Then there’s gravadlax, which isn’t smoked but cured, hot-smoked salmon, which isn’t cured but smoked…

It all gets seriously complicated seriously fast; although I don’t doubt any readers’ dedication to food, it’s the time to spend reading and researching it that is probably far more difficult to come by. It also seems like a lot of people (supermarkets) are out to trick us with devious tactics just to plump up sales. With the wild salmon season starting I thought I’d clear up a few issues and give you a recipe so you can enjoy the salmon without reading an encyclopaedia first.

I remember a while ago Bird’s Eye started their ‘Frozen Food’ campaign, focusing on the rate at which foods decay and how freezing locked in freshness (a slight fabrication, but that’s a story for another time). All too much alliteration for me. They showed a chap fishing for salmon, on a sort of foodie fact-finding mission. He questioned the nature of the colour of the fish, and was informed that farmed fish is a bright pink because their feed has a synthetic colourant, astaxanthin, added to it. The natural colour of wild salmon is dark, reddish pink, due mainly to their natural diet of shrimp and small crustacea. Organic Scottish salmon, a seriously anaemic shade of pinky-grey, is a conundrum once more. The juvenile fish are given a colourant – phaffia – an industrially produced yeast which contains naturally high levels of astaxanthin. It has to be farmed to make it organic so that its feed can be controlled. Seems a bit daft really, but that’s how organic certification works. So, the actual difference between farmed and organic salmon is very small – their existence is only marginally more pleasant as they are less-densely packed in ‘sea-cages’. It’s like saying organic chickens should be allowed to walk, but only a few metres, and only inside a cage.

Now, the problem with farmed salmon is little things called PCBs (I know, I know – but you can win this battle); polychlorinated biphenyls are banned in most countries, but were used for quite some time as coolants in electrical equipment. Through various means (more often than not being dumped in the sea as industrial waste) the chemicals accumulate in our oceans – they then move into the food chain through trawling – unusable trawled fish are turned into meal which, you guessed it, is used as feed for the farmed fish. PCBs are stored for the most part in the fat of the fish – the less swimming a fish does, the fatter it gets, hence the fatty lines down the side of your organic salmon fillet. Research has shown that high levels of these chemicals can affect the human immune, reproductive and nervous systems. Nice, huh?

A wealth of chemicals can also be used when farming fish, on both organic and standard farmed salmon. Admittedly, they are permitted to be used less often on organic fish, but when the chemicals take so long to break down it dwindles into insignificance. These chemicals do long-term damage to the environment and are just another piece of a puzzle which really portrays organic salmon in a totally different light. Isn’t organic farming supposed to help the environment, not wreck it? I am in no way frowning upon organic farming, or organic procedures in general, but for me, the purest form of organic must be that which is wild. There is no greater guarantee (although there is no labelling, and no certification), but we must use our common sense. This is clearly increasingly difficult in an age when such deception is employed so often in the production of our food, but try we must. It does seem that the term ‘organic’ has been very loosely used in this instance – further research on this one makes for interesting reading; here is a quote from a great piece about this from Joanna Blythman, from the Observer:

“Another unusual feature of the Scottish organic salmon scene is that inspections to ensure adherence to the Soil Association’s aquaculture standards are carried out by Food Certification (Scotland) Ltd, an organisation set up by conventional salmon farmers which also polices the conventional salmon-farming industry. In land-based agriculture, the Soil Association has been punctilious about using either its own or outside inspectors whom it regards as being rigorously independent of the conventional farming industry. Food Certification (Scotland) Ltd currently has 10 members on its governing board, five of whom used to be, or still are, involved in the conventional salmon-farming industry. Peter Bridson insists that since Food Certification (Scotland) Ltd is a professional, independent body there is no reason why there should be any conflict of interest in the Soil Association using it.”

Nothing too suspect there then…

Wild salmon is a different creature altogether. It’s texture is firmer, with much more of a distinct muscle structure holding it together. Gone are the ghoulish grey rivers of fat, replaced by richly-coloured lean flanks. In most cases, fat does equal flavour, but not here – there has to be some sort of balance to this equation. So, a recipe then, to really scream about how delicious and great wild, fresh salmon is. Remember though, wild salmon stocks are limited and although we read about it less often than cod, it is no less worthy of respect. Salmon was the expensive fish until fairly recently, and it was expensive for a reason.

Pan-fried salmon with sauté potatoes and a zesty green sauce

You could use almost any fish for this recipe – as long as it’s sustainable.

Feeds two

Cooking time: 35 minutes

Ingredients
A large potato per person (no such thing as too many sauté potatoes)
A few slices of bacon, snipped into 1cm pieces
2 WILD WILD WILD salmon fillets

For the sauce
Zest of 1 lemon, 1/2 an orange and 1 lime
A handful of fresh mixed herbs, such as parsley, tarragon, thyme, oregano or sage
1 tbs capers, soaked in water for 10 minutes
Juice of 1 lemon
3 tbs olive oil

– Author –

William Leigh Purchase Ingredients