I Tested 4 Salmon Types, Only One Wins

[00:02] be pretty confusing. So, today we're tasting four different types of salmon side by side to see how they really compare. Now, let's go. The four fish we're going to work with today are as follows. First up is Atlantic salmon.

[00:14] This is farm-raised salmon and almost all Atlantic salmon sold in grocery stores today is farmed because wild Atlantic salmon populations are commercially harvested. And you know, in my personal experience, the benefit of

[00:28] just regular old farmed Atlantic salmon is A, it's cheap and B, it's really high in fat, so it's hard [music] to mess up. You really can't overcook it. Well, you You can kind of think of it like chicken thighs, right? There's just more fat in

[00:42] there, therefore it's hard to overcook, whereas something like chicken breast is to something like wild salmon, which is really lean. Next up, we have Wester Ross salmon. Wester Ross salmon is also

[00:54] farmed, but it's a premium Scottish Atlantic salmon raised in sea lochs in the Western Ross region of Scotland. And what makes Wester Ross salmon special is [music] it's raised with slower growth methods and really more careful feeding,

[01:06] which gives it a firmer flesh and richer flavor than just your basic farmed Atlantic salmon. The third on our list today is wild sockeye salmon, which have a deep red color from their natural diet of krill and plankton. The flesh is

[01:19] generally much, much leaner than farmed salmon and it's firmer with a more like your basic Atlantic salmon. So, wild salmon is definitely the healthiest one on the list, but it's got a huge downside because of the lack of fat

[01:33] within the meat, it's incredibly easy to overcook. And our fourth and final salmon is king salmon, chinook salmon. Chinook, chinook, chinook, I don't know. And king salmon is a wild Pacific species prized for its size and its

[01:45] richness. It's got the highest fat content of all Pacific salmon species. The flavor is rich and buttery and often considered one of the most luxurious experience, it tastes amazing whether you have it raw or cooked and because of

[01:59] divine. It melts in your mouth. The downside is it's like literally the most expensive salmon you can buy. Now, as far as what you're going to pay at the four types of salmon, first off with the Atlantic here, it can be anywhere from

[02:13] $8 to $15 a pound, but you're definitely going to see it towards that $8 to $10 cheapest salmon on the list and that is why it's so popular. Next with the wild salmon here, it can be anywhere from $15 to $25 a pound. It really depends where

[02:28] you get it. And the Scottish Wester Ross salmon is very similar to the wild and you'll find it anywhere from $15 to $25 a pound as well. And finally, the king salmon, which is anywhere from $20 to $30 a pound, but honestly, I just got

[02:41] that one at Central Market here in Austin, Texas and it was $39.99 per pound, but Central Market is just ludicrous, right? So, there's a big to give these four different salmons a proper taste test, I'm going to cook

[02:53] them all the exact same way, which is my patented pan-fried salmon technique and it's one to remember. Now, before moving on, one thing I've learned over time is that comfort at home matters. And it doesn't matter if I'm cooking, working,

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[04:22] back to the salmon. [music] Now the first thing I like to do is lightly oil it looked better for the thumbnail, but it's just got a light coating of oil on it. And then what I like to do is flip this over and make sure that your salmon

[04:36] is really nicely scaled. It's very easy to see if the scales are on it because lot of times when I buy it from the fishmonger, I have to scale it more one. And then this is my patented bacon of the sea move. We're just going to

[04:49] score this skin a little bit right down the middle. And then a little bit again right there. And then straight through right there, which is going to give us these little four strips of bacon we can pull off

[05:01] first shared this technique back in like 2021 or maybe even 2020. I was banging when salmon skin is done right is actually incredible. It is the bacon of the sea. And sometime later I saw Gordon Ramsay banging on about bacon of the

[05:16] >> [music] >> Let it be known it was here first. Proud moment of my career though. Having Gordon Ramsay steal your That's That's top. That's great. And now I'm just taking some nice flaky sea salt here.

[05:28] And I'm just going to season this up all the way around just like so. Now we you're cooking salmon, the heat is very important. You want to keep it on medium oil and lay in your salmon. Make sure it

[05:41] you don't splash any oil on yourself. And then with your spatula, just put enough to damage the flesh, but it just helps that skin get a really good cooking salmon in a pan or any other type of fish for that matter, you can

[05:56] simply just look at the side and when it's cooked about 1/3 of the way up, you this piece of salmon and for most regular size pieces of salmon, will take about 3 minutes. And another pro tip I got for you, look at your spatula and

[06:09] you'll see that it's curved a certain way, flip it upside down so when you go to scrape out that skin, it just releases so much easier. Then just flip it over and you're ready to go for the next step. Which is to reduce the heat

[06:21] about a tablespoon of butter and we're going to begin basting for about 2 minutes. Just make sure you wait till that butter is nice and hot and foamy and bubbly before you start basting. And that's it my friends, now just remove

[06:34] that from the pan and let it rest for a few minutes and that's how easy it is to make incredible pan-fried salmon. And I followed the exact same process for all four pieces of salmon we'll be trying today. [music] It is time now to finally

[06:46] give them a taste. All right, I got Marcus here to taste all the salmon with [music] and we're going to start with the Atlantic salmon. Now first off Marcus, check this out. So, you can just rip off that little bacon strip right

[06:59] there. There's your bacon of the sea. Let me get the other one. Nice crunch on that. I mean, if anything is bacon of the sea, don't know, I love crispy salmon skin. Some people are grossed out by it, but

[07:13] delicious. And it's texture of salmon, it's way too good to not make. Now let's get a look here inside of our Atlantic salmon. I actually overcooked this one a little bit. I let it sit on a little too long, but actually still feels pretty

[07:26] obviously that's going to be more tender. of lemon on here if you want, whatever. It's delicious. It's good. It's actually cheapest salmon, it's [music] everything I want and need in a piece of salmon.

[07:40] video, like what if we like the cheap salmon the most? And I don't know because that's super tender and it just me. It's like not overly fishy or underly fishy, just like perfect little

[07:53] piece of salmon. Has its identity. [clears throat] It's very luscious, >> fatty. It's good, right? >> It's perfect. Yeah. Tatiana? Bacon of She's real. It's not a fake hand. It's not a fake

[08:06] hand. Next up we've got our wild salmon. Let's see how we did with this one. salmon. I tried to really cook it to only about 120 so it wouldn't [music] get crazy overcooked. Seems pretty flaky. All right, let's give it a shot.

[08:19] Here we go, wild salmon. Wow. Flavor's actually pretty different. Just a little bit cleaner to me, but the downside is there's no fat in there so it's a lot >> Just noticeably leaner. It's a smaller piece of fish. It's not bad. It just

[08:32] doesn't have that rich, fatty, you know, melt-in-your-mouth thing that, you know, unfortunate. >> Still tastes good. Taste good though. Taste good. Next up we got our Scottish salmon here. There you go.

[08:45] Although I will say when cooking the Westeross salmon, it was really sticky. It was so hard to release that from the pan without damaging the skin, whereas don't know why, but There you go.

[08:59] Now let's flake into this thing. Again, tried to pull that at like 120 and you can see it's still looking really nice and tender. See if I can just flake a coming apart nice [music] and easy. All right, Marcus, here we go. Get some of

[09:12] that's going to be That's going to be money. Woah. Mhm. Woah. Woah. Like pudding. >> Holy smokes. Dang, dude. I mean There are levels to this. So you try the

[09:24] that's good. Like can it get much better? It can, man. That not only >> tastes better to me, but it's so melt-in-your-mouth tender this one. Like and just buttery and flaky and delicious. We do cook this one a little

[09:39] >> than the Atlantic, but it is crazy. Yeah. The lusciousness in this, it's twice as luscious. Kind of want to try the Atlantic again after trying that. darn good, actually. Trying to figure out which one I actually prefer, to be

[09:53] cook on the Scottish, but they're both great. Yeah, honestly, they both taste good. It's just the Scottish one is just falling apart, melting in your mouth. I do notice [music] that the Scottish skin is tastes way more fishy than the

[10:07] >> And finally, last but not least, we have our king salmon here. Wow, that man, this thing feels crispy as hell. The sign of things. Let's try this bacon of the sea on the king. Oh. Oh. That's crazy how long that stayed.

[10:21] [music] That's like fresh off the oven crispy still. And and the crunch on that it's done really well. It's like glass-like, like super crunchy, delicious. Not fishy at all. Just straight crispy. Tastes meaty to me,

[10:35] >> I don't know how it maintained it. >> That is wild. >> Now, let's flake into this thing a little bit. Oh, dude, Marcus, I can just tell just pushing into this. Look Look, you guys, I'm I'm just barely pushing

[10:48] literally melting apart. All right, here we go, king. Whoa. Very different. Man, when you try the other three and then you try that king, What the hell? That is crazy. Man, if the last one was

[11:01] pudding, this one is like sauce. I'll be honest, I prefer it to be slightly firmer than the belly that I just had, cuz it was straight-up legitimately fish pudding. Yeah, like I mean, this it just melts in

[11:14] for most people, they might even prefer the Atlantic cooked more, just cuz it's like what they're used to. I could see a lot of people trying that cooked like restaurant would do it, and then I don't know, for some reason not liking it just

[11:27] cuz it's so different. But I mean, it's incredible in my eyes. It's good. I your mouth at different temperatures just because it's so soft. It's like the softest fish I've ever had. So, for me, with all of them, I'd probably I'm a

[11:42] cheap dude, so the Atlantic is great and then a great price. I'd probably go for go for the more expensive [music] one. Yeah, I mean Atlantic salmon, you know, it is good. If you look into that world though, there is a lot of just like

[11:56] horrible things going on when it comes to raising, you know, farmed salmon and it can get pretty gross. So, if you eat a lot of that, maybe don't look that like something you should eat raw. I mean, it's it's delicious and incredible

[12:09] like this, but it's such a fine quality of fish like it belongs in sushi if the way I look at it. Westeross is also really good. A Skuna Bay is another one friends. I hope this helps you understand salmon a little better, so

[12:21] next time you go to the store, you know what to buy. Make it.