If you're in an area where people catch a lot of salmon, this is probably a pretty common sight. Here in Northern California we call this "dumpster salmon" and you can guess why.
There's *lots* of excellent meat left on there, and you can certainly grill it:
Then put it on a taco or over rice or whatever you like.
That's always been my favorite. And that's great, but it's hard to handle more than you can cook right away. But as I recently discovered you can easily smoke it too! It makes what I call "salmon m&m's":
It's mostly as good as regular smoked salmon, the only downside is that it's not in big sexy pieces. But the meat sure is plentiful. And if you ask someone who just caught some salmon if you can have their dumpster cuts they'll usually be glad to give them to you, since no one likes wasting any meat from these amazing fish.
Here's how I've been doing it, very open to suggestions.
- start with a salmon carcass. Some people filet their salmon with the guts in, and if that's the case you'll need to clean out the guts.
- then tidy it up as much as possible. I like to chop off the head and tail.
- it's much much easiler to remove the meat from the ribs if it's cooked, so I throw it on the bbq for a bit. Doesn't have to be too long, just trying to firm up the meat.
- then pull the meat from the bones using a fork. It should come off really easily, if not throw it back on the BBQ.
- then put it on a brine. I've been using a 6:1 brown sugar to non-iodized salt brine with a bit of water added to make it a liquid. I think the liquid permeates the fish a bit better. I've done quick brines (4 hours) and long brines (18 hours), both are good.
- I've been lightly rinsing the brine off in a collander, but curious what people recommend for this step.
- then into the smoker it goes. One thing that really helps is those bamboo rollers that sushi chefs use, which hold the meat nicely on the smoker racks. I've been smoking for 5 or 6 hours at 140 degrees F using apple wood pellets.
Here's all the meat I got from 3 carcasses after BBQing. It's hard to tell from the pic but that's a tall pile.
Smoking it up!
Here's those 3 carcasses on the smoker racks:
And I've been adding bellies and collars too, giving it a quick grill and adding it to the goolash. But these can of course be smoked whole if you'd like.
Anyone have any suggestions?
There's *lots* of excellent meat left on there, and you can certainly grill it:
Then put it on a taco or over rice or whatever you like.
That's always been my favorite. And that's great, but it's hard to handle more than you can cook right away. But as I recently discovered you can easily smoke it too! It makes what I call "salmon m&m's":
It's mostly as good as regular smoked salmon, the only downside is that it's not in big sexy pieces. But the meat sure is plentiful. And if you ask someone who just caught some salmon if you can have their dumpster cuts they'll usually be glad to give them to you, since no one likes wasting any meat from these amazing fish.
Here's how I've been doing it, very open to suggestions.
- start with a salmon carcass. Some people filet their salmon with the guts in, and if that's the case you'll need to clean out the guts.
- then tidy it up as much as possible. I like to chop off the head and tail.
- it's much much easiler to remove the meat from the ribs if it's cooked, so I throw it on the bbq for a bit. Doesn't have to be too long, just trying to firm up the meat.
- then pull the meat from the bones using a fork. It should come off really easily, if not throw it back on the BBQ.
- then put it on a brine. I've been using a 6:1 brown sugar to non-iodized salt brine with a bit of water added to make it a liquid. I think the liquid permeates the fish a bit better. I've done quick brines (4 hours) and long brines (18 hours), both are good.
- I've been lightly rinsing the brine off in a collander, but curious what people recommend for this step.
- then into the smoker it goes. One thing that really helps is those bamboo rollers that sushi chefs use, which hold the meat nicely on the smoker racks. I've been smoking for 5 or 6 hours at 140 degrees F using apple wood pellets.
Here's all the meat I got from 3 carcasses after BBQing. It's hard to tell from the pic but that's a tall pile.
Smoking it up!
Here's those 3 carcasses on the smoker racks:
And I've been adding bellies and collars too, giving it a quick grill and adding it to the goolash. But these can of course be smoked whole if you'd like.
Anyone have any suggestions?
