You can enjoy perfectly grilled, juicy wild salmon in only 6 minutes

Fresh wild sockeye salmon from Costco Wholesale spends only 6 minutes on a preheated stove-top grill. Here, I served it with Costco pesto and organic salsa, as well as chopped mint and other herbs from our garden.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

We cook fresh wild salmon at home nearly every week during the season, which runs from June to October at Costco Wholesale in Hackensack.

A friend who just returned from a vacation in Alaska reported rivers are thick with salmon struggling to swim upstream and lay their eggs.

The price of fresh wild sockeye fillets has fallen steadily since June, and I've learned a thing or two about cooking this wonderful fish on a preheated stove-top grill.

For one thing, I was cooking the fillets too long -- 8 minutes to 10 minutes.

I reduced the cooking time to 6 minutes, and they came out juicier.

The longer cooking time is appropriate for wild king salmon fillets, which are thicker than sockeye.

Wild sockeye fillets are thinner and smaller than both king and Costco's artificially colored farmed Atlantic salmon, which are probably raised on antibiotics.

I usually get six serving pieces from about 2 pounds of wild salmon, and add sea salt and fresh lime juice before arranging the pieces skin-side down on the large, rectangular preheated grill.

The All-Clad Grill is 20 inches long and 13 inches wide, and the fish cooks best at both ends -- over the burners.

Quick dinners

Besides quick-cooking wild fish, my strategy for putting a meal on the table in less than 10 minutes includes making such side dishes as quinoa, brown rice, pasta and baked or mashed sweet potatoes in large quantities.

Then, you can plate and reheat some, add your wild salmon, enjoy dinner and finish with a big salad of Earthbound Farm Organic Spring Mix, also from Costco. 

In the morning, two organic eggs, sunny side up, are wonderful over sweet potatoes mashed with extra-virgin olive oil, especially when you break the yolks over them.

The All-Clad Grill I use straddles two burners of my stove. I preheat it, use spray oil and turn the heat on both burners to medium-high before adding the fish, skin-side down. After 3 minutes, I turn the pieces, and then again onto the skin for the last minute. If you're serving the salmon with ripe peach halves, grill them first, because they need much more time.

A package of 2 pounds of Fresh Wild Sockeye Salmon yields about six serving pieces.

An electric cooker full of organic brown rice, organic diced tomatoes, low-sodium red beans and chopped fresh garlic, prepared with extra-virgin olive oil. The leftovers allow you to put dinner or breakfast on the table in minutes.

Wild-salmon price goes down, then up

Fresh wild sockeye salmon is veined with heart-healthy fat.

Costco Wholesale has lowered, then raised the price of fresh wild sockeye salmon from the famed Copper River in Alaska.

This past Friday, we bought our fourth weekly fillet from the warehouse store in Hackensack, and paid $10.99 a pound. 

We paid $13.99 a pound a day after this wonderful fish first appeared on May 24, then $8.99 a pound and $9.99 a pound in the following two weeks.

I add a sprinkle of salt, lime juice, Aleppo pepper, and chopped mint and oregano in that order to flavor the fish, which cooks in 10 minutes or less.

The portions are ready to roast in a preheated 400-degree oven.

The fish comes out rare after 7 minutes, above, and medium after 10 minutes.

Right out of the oven, this fresh salmon melts in your mouth. The veins of fat liquify, and the salmon is juicy and fragrant with garden herbs.

We bought this package on Friday and prepared the fish on Sunday.

Fresh wild salmon swims into view

Image by Travis S. via Flickr

There it is. 

In the fresh-fish case at Costco in Hackensack, the first fresh, wild salmon from Alaska appeared Saturday, neatly shrink-wrapped in a foam tray.


The fish has the deep, red-orange color that farmed salmon never achieves, because it is artificially colored.


This wild sockeye salmon comes from the famed Copper River, and carries a price to match: $14.99 a pound. I found a tray for about $20, and plan to serve it for Sunday dinner, along with Black Tiger prawns  I picked up at Costco on Friday (U-8 or eight to a pound).

Last year, Costco in Hackensack had fresh Copper River sockeye salmon starting on June 2 for $9.99 a pound.

Costco has the Copper River salmon for a couple of weeks, if last year is any guide. Then, other wild Alaskan salmon is available at least until September, usually for $8.99 a pound. The fish cooks quickly in the oven with just a little seasoning and chopped, fresh herbs.

(Photo: Copper River in Alaska)

Welcome, Holly

Image by kantokuruza via Flickr

I tried to publish a comment from Holly on whether Costco farmed salmon contains growth hormones, but can't seem to locate the post she commented on. But she is right, if Costco fish didn't contain additives such as antibiotics, the store would say so. The label does say farmed salmon has added color.


Whole Foods Market provides far more information about its farmed fish than does Costco. As a result, I almost always buy wild-caught seafood at Costco.


The good news is that wild salmon from Alaska should start appearing at Costco in a couple of weeks and be available until the fall.

(Photo: Sushi at Costco.)

Fishing for dinner at Costco

Image via Wikipedia

Most of the money I spent at Costco in Hackensack on Thursday was for seafood.

Wild haddock fillets made a great dinner cooked in Mexican green salsa, spooned over steamed yellow rice and served with a salad.

 For breakfast and lunch sandwiches, I got a pound of smoked and sliced wild sockeye salmon from Alasaka  (photo) at $14.79. I refer to this as wild lox.

From the Seafood Road Show, I finally broke down and bought four pounds of frozen Black Tiger shrimp from Vietnam. These big shrimp, which are deveined, come 13 to 15 to the pound at $8.60 or so per pound. I haven't bought them before because they are farmed and that method of raising them has led to habitat destruction.

Unfortunately, Costco, unlike Whole Foods Market, provides little information about the farmed shrimp or fish it sells (beyond saying farmed salmon is artificially colored). Whole Foods says all of the farmed seafood it sells is drug-, hormone- and preservative-free.

Can buying food cheer you up?

Image via Wikipedia

What a miserable day. No sunlight, rain lashing the house and wind making the half-dozen tall cedars looming over my property twist and sway.

By this afternoon, the rain had subsided and I drove the two miles to Costco in Hackensack for its wonderful Kirkland-brand smoked wild Alaskan sockeye salmon. That should cheer me up at breakfast for the rest of the week.

But on this Monday, for the second week, there was only smoked farmed salmon. That wasn't good enough. I asked an employee if there was some of the wild fish in back, and he said, as he did last week, whatever is out there. How long will this drought last?

Why you can't shop in one food store

Image by Getty Images via Daylife

If, like me, you do most of the food shopping in your family, you dream of that one store where you can be assured of getting fresh, healthy food at great prices. Don't hold your breath.

Even a random sampling of how food prices are all over the place will discourage you. At Fairway Market in Paramus on Friday, a 3.5-pound bag of Spanish clementines was $5.99, compared to $3.49 at H Mart in Little Ferry. Fairway's price for one pound of Earthbound Farm organic spring mix was $6.99; at Costco in Hackensack, it's $4.49.

Costco sells three cans of wild sockeye red salmon from Alaska, but you get better value buying one can of Bumble Bee wild sockeye salmon at Fairway or ShopRite for $4.99 (just under 15 ounces). ShopRite no longer discounts this red salmon during its Can-Can Sale, when it has been as low as $2.99.

My wife just called to report the pomegranate she bought for 99 cents at H Mart in Englewood is $2 at ShopRite in Rochelle Park, where she is shopping today.

I'm not sure what you can conclude from these examples and others I am sure you have seen yourself. All I know is that a food shopper's work is never done.

Traveling on your stomach at Costco

Image via Wikipedia

Costco in Hackensack has become one of my favorite places to shop for food -- despite the crowds, the frantic parking lot and some inconsiderate shoppers, who think nothing of leaving a cart up against your fender.

You never know what you'll find there or how far it has traveled. And no store in North Jersey I know of can match the prices for this quality food and produce. It's even a better deal when you consider the cash rebates from the American Express Costco credit card easily reimburse you for the annual membership fee.

The past two Fridays, I saw whole red snappers from Nicaragua in the fish case. Smoked wild sockeye salmon (preservative free) from Alaska is now sold year-round under the store brand, Kirkland. Last night, I finished the last fresh flounder fillet from Iceland we had fried Friday.

Last week, I bought a 12-pound box of oranges from South Africa. The antioxidant-rich acai berry juice in my fridge is from Brazil. For my espresso machine, I've also brought home a 4-pound bag of whole coffee beans grown in Africa. And I'm working on a big wedge of Manchego sheep-milk's cheese from Spain.

Costco sells a ranch full of beef and pork, but all of them are conventionally raised with antibiotics, except for organic ground beef. What you want is the grass-fed, free-range lamb from Australia, usually available as chops or boneless legs.

The store also stocks a lot of terrific food grown domestically, such as the one-pound package of Earthbound Farms organic spring mix I eat weekly.

Of course, there is also the possibility you'll buy and like an item, then find the store no longer stocks it. I recall fondly the fully prepared, drug-free lamb shanks in mint sauce from New Zealand that we enjoyed on a few occasions, but never saw again.

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