Ray’s Team Goes Snorkeling With Salmon!
Fresh Fish Series: Last of season Copper River Coho at Ray’s
The summer fresh season is winding down for this year’s Fresh Fish Series, but we’re going out with a bang! Our friends in Alaska, Mike and Nelly Hand of Drifters Fish will be setting nets on the Copper River Delta searching for the last of this year’s salmon species to swim up the river, and be delivered to Ray’s this weekend!
Copper River Coho aka “silvers” may not receive the hype that its bigger brother King salmon gets, but it has made the long journey back to its spawning grounds, and although silvers are more lean than kings, they are fit and full of the same healthy protein and omega-3s.
Make your reservation for Saturday, September 9 and Sunday, September 10 in our first floor Boathouse, as our Coho will be air flown and delivered to Ray’s fresh on Saturday. Our veteran fish monger Thai Hong will be filleting Saturday afternoon for evening service and we have a gorgeous preparation in store for you:
Crispy Copper River Coho salmon with a rich, creamy corn sauce, roasted cauliflower dusted with fennel, arugula and pepitas.
For Boathouse reservations call 206. 789.3770 or click here.
See you this weekend!
– Steve Hauch, Executive Sous Chef
Fresh Fish Series: NW salmon season has arrived!
Fresh fish season is rollin’! The 2017 salmon season opens today.
What do you know about salmon? We may turn to the ol’ “interwebs” to discover salmon is full of the omega fat we prefer to eat, and that king salmon is the biggest in the family. You’ll read that they are born from eggs and immediately escape the fresh water river into the salty ocean. Then salmon return back to the same river to spawn as big fatty adults. After swimming around in the great Pacific Ocean for years, how do they know where to come back? Maybe by a built-in magnetic field, or a strong sense of smell they follow. All are still theories; we just don’t quite know.
So if a salmon’s life cycle begins and ends in the same place, what does that do for their genetic make-up? Each river has its own type of salmon profile. The taste, fat content, color and size all attribute from the characteristics of their native river. Copper River for example, provides an extremely fatty, darker colored salmon. Some of these reasons are due to the size of the Copper River, how strong the river flows, and how rugged it is. The vast gorges make for a difficult river to swim up. For that, the Copper River salmon need to grow stronger and store more fat to swim deep into their spawning grounds. All of these salmon share the same strong genetics and pass them down to the next generation.
There have been many chefs at Ray’s and they’ve spent their time perfecting salmon preparation. We utilize almost all salmon species for their many characteristics. For smoked salmon, we love to use Coho or Keta from the Yukon River. They accompany our in-house smoking process so well. Periodically you’ll find the deep red flesh from Sockeye available, and always King salmon. King salmon fetches a fair price for its grand size, its beautiful scales, and the strong flavor it provides, thus being the most popular of them all. I wonder how Coho feels about this? That’s for another segment.
Fisherman will be out searching for King salmon to start the season. Coho, Sockeye, Keta, and Pinks will follow. Salmon runs fresh through the summer and as always, we’ll provide you with wild salmon from the Northwest all summer long. The flavor profile will change based on time of year and region from which the fish originates. So come taste it often and become a “real” Northwest salmon expert.
Until next time…
Steve Hauch, Executive Sous Chef
