My brother gave me some King Salmon he caught up in Oregon. Salmon is one of my favorites and a very versatile fish.

So far I've had it roasted with Herbes de Provence.
Sashimi, raw sushi style
Smoked with alder and mesquite
Salmon Misozuke, a Japanese miso sauce which I've made into a glaze
Salmon lomi lomi, Hawaiian style ceviche
Salmon caviar
Swedish style gravlax, which I'm munching on now with toast, red onions, tomato and chèvre. :D

"Where's onepixel?"

"Oh, he had to go upstream and spawn!":D

Yum. That fresh King Salmon is way better than the farm raised Atlantic salmon available everywhere.

Nothing quite like a fresh Oregon Salmon......(maybe Alaska) but damn we have nice Salmon.

Nothing quite like a fresh Oregon Salmon......

Up until I was about 40, all I had ever eaten was frozen or canned salmon and tuna. The wife and I were invited to a poker party one night, and the host's parents had just returned from Oregon with fresh salmon and tuna that were fresh off the fishing boat, packed in an ice chest, and brought here. They tossed it on the BBQ, and had a dipping sauce on the side if you wanted it.

I used to ho-hum salmon, but never again!!

Yum. That fresh King Salmon is way better than the farm raised Atlantic salmon available everywhere.

We love it too, but it's $30 per lb here.

I don't know that I have ever eaten fresh King Salmon. Here in land locked Missouri we never get any of the good stuff. But I have heard the crappie are biting.

I'm going to catch hell for this, but the flash-frozen salmon and tilapia they have at Wal-Mart is pretty darned good. Certainly not fresh, but better than a lot of frozen seafood. I made some Sunday night.

Here's a interesting variation on baked or seared salmon (this works well also with the ubiquitous farm raised Atlantic Salmon).

Use salmon fillets with the skin on, but scales removed. Season with salt, pepper, maybe a little dried dill weed. Heat up an iron skillet very hot. Put in a small amount of vegetable oil. Sear salmon with skin side down until skin is brown and crispy. Put the iron skillet with salmon into a preheated 450 degree oven for about 10 minutes per inch of thickness. Serve skin side down with lemon and make sure to eat the skin. It's crispy, rich and very flavorful.

finnbow, when I broiled some salmon, the skin got all crispy. It was like bacon! Man was it good!

There is nothing like fresh anything, especially fish. I would never make the things mentioned with frozen or "colored added" farm raised fish. It's just not the same.

I used to fish for salmon quite a bit. The past two or three years the salmon season in California has been closed due to poor returns. Oregon and Washington are still good. I have a brother-in-law who is a river guide in Oregon and a brother in Washington who used to work for the fisheries. So getting into fresh fish is relatively easy. I just have to go and wet a line.

finnbow, when I broiled some salmon, the skin got all crispy. It was like bacon! Man was it good!

Actually one of my favorite Sushi rolls is a salmon skin roll. They crisp up the skin real well and make a "hand roll" with it. Terrific.

I dig salmon skin sushi. In a "temaki" hand roll, one of my favorites. Bacon of the Sea.

We had two nice Kings on the line last year, had to let them go. Only an idiot would plan an Alaska trip and miss King season by a couple of days. We put one in the boat, an absolute beauty. The charter guide wanted us to see a marvelous fish. I wish we could have brought him home.

We bring home a lot of Chinook. Cooking it is a waste. We mostly made it raw.

I will go back there some day.

We buy our Salmon (here on Long Island) right off the boat. No farm raised Atlantic Salmon for us, just fresh caught wild Atlantic Salmon. The difference in taste, color and texture is enormously better.

I dig salmon skin sushi. In a "temaki" hand roll, one of my favorites. Bacon of the Sea.

We had two nice Kings on the line last year, had to let them go. Only an idiot would plan an Alaska trip and miss King season by a couple of days. We put one in the boat, an absolute beauty. The charter guide wanted us to see a marvelous fish. I wish we could have brought him home.

We bring home a lot of Chinook. Cooking it is a waste. We mostly made it raw.

I will go back there some day.

A number of years back, I was in Alaska on business for 3 weeks that happened to coincide with King Salmon season on the Kenai River (around July 4th). My girlfriend at the time had a family friend with a camp on the river just outside of Soldotna. At that time, you were allowed 5 Kings a year, only 2 of which could be out of the Kenai River. I got my limit - one was 30 pounds and the other 45. Lots of good eating there.

I used to do quite a bit of Salmon fishing but not in 4-5 years.
I am very fortunate that my dad is in the meat business. I can get Salmon just hours after it's been caught. And in the process I save a few middle men with HUGE mark ups. A few times I've just been handed a full fish and told...."this one's on us". It's great sometimes to "know people". Some of my favorite ways to cook would be with crushed walnuts and butter wrapped in tinfoil and baked. I also love to paste it with some mayonnaise mixed with some other goodies (not too much) and throw in some lemon and orange slices also wrapped in tinfoil on the BBQ or baked. Both are very simple and quite tasty.
I sometimes make it a Cajun style.....mmmmm I'm getting hungry.

...We bring home a lot of Chinook. Cooking it is a waste. We mostly made it raw.

I will go back there some day.

I only eat salmon raw if it's caught in the ocean or in the immediate tidal areas near the river mouth. Once they start moving upstream there are to many parasites/bacteria/pollutants that you want to avoid ingesting.

Hope you make it back to Alaska! My brothers and I are planning a fishing trip to Alaska. I'll be fly fishing not only for Kings, but for wild rainbows, steelhead, Dolly Varden, and will mostly catch and release, but I will bring back a fish or two.

Once they start moving upstream there are to many parasites/bacteria/pollutants that you want to avoid ingesting.

Good point. I'm not worried about pollutants, parasites I could do without. We were on the open water near Sitka. Neat town.

I read somewhere that "sushi" sold in the US must be frozen at least briefly. Parasites, particularly from the open ocean. Tapeworn, etc. I have eaten tuna right off-the-line, but mostly wrap and freeze. Never got sick, but I believe the risk is there.