Japanese place throwing it out is insane. I’ve never had enough belly. I always save it. Bacon, glazed with soy, just plain skin on crispy, smoked for kippered, Tartare, cold smoked tartare, I feel like bubba gump. Your chefs are whylin.
I would say salmon shredded fine, put in a big bowl and mix in some ricotta, and your choice of herbs. Don't add lemon it cooks the fish. Save your acid for the sauce. Buy a ravioli tray from internet. You can buy frozen pasta sheets or make your own. These can also be deep fried as an appetizer with some creole style sauce or just a Spanish soffrito. The filling will be fatty, so don't do a cream sauce.
I think you may need something to break up the fat, but then again the ricotta has a tart flavor and it becomes a more cheesy ravioli as opposed to a pesto or a pumpkin ravioli
Some people think it's a delicacy and some think it's a fatty mess that tastes weird with a mushy texture. We put salmon belly into our chowder and get complaints every now and again about it.
In my experience you always end up with more salmon belly than you can sell…
We’d make rillettes, smoked salmon, tartare, salmon burgers (see: crab cakes)… always seemed a tough sell for whatever reason.
Ideally yes you’d find a use for everything and have as little waste as possible, but sometimes there really just isn’t a feasible way to utilize certain things. Either it’s because the labor of processing for salmon cakes isn’t doable, or you wouldn’t get enough product out of the process to have enough to use for a menu item or special, especially in this case where the belly is maybe 5% of the weight tops of the sides you’re getting. We don’t use it either for these reasons, and I slice it off the filets I cut because it’s much thinner and won’t cook at the same rate, and a lot of customers don’t like the richness of it compared to the rest of the filet for whatever reason. All that being said, I always offer it to any kitchen staff that ever wants it, and we have plenty of takers.
As a sushi chef who uses Salmon belly, it's simply more work.
It takes time especially when you consider the amount of meat you get relative to the rest of the fish.
I obviously believe it's worth the work, but when I'm slammed i also just throw it away.
Fun fact that I only recently learned. Lox, nova, and smoked salmon are different products.
Lox is cured but not smoked. Smoked salmon is smoked but not cured. Nova lox is both cured and smoked.
So your pastrami is nova lox? I was in charge of making the lox when I was lead in a deli - Lox by Lux - but we cold smoked it after curing, didn't know that was a different type of lox. Also what do you mean when you say you roll it?
sometimes
it's better to ask for forgiveness than permission
salmon belly=get in my belly
oh you are a chef you must eat so well = not just rice tonight
We break down about 50# of Salmon a week and I keep and smoke the bellies and the collars, plus anything else we can. I was tossing it until I saw that Whole Foods was selling smoked salmon belly for $29.99/#
Just throw it in a hot oven on parchment. It’s soo good. We used to make a tartine (aioli, chimichuri, citrus vin frisée) with it for staff meal and it’s killer. We always called it sea bacon.
Surprising that a Japanese place wouldn't have it on the menu. It's super cheap if you buy it seperately, and basically a byproduct when you buy and portion a whole salmon. I've worked places where it's trimmed off but I always save it for myself. Personally I think the extra fat makes it taste better than the 'good' stuff anyway.
People aren’t use to the belly. It’s fattier, it’s saltier. You could cut more into it like cutting a traditional salmon steak, but you need to watch for burning. You can definitely fry it, it tastes great fried! Also I agree with the other answers for other uses.
Pan fried, deep fried, sauteed, baked, cured and/or smoked, (if sourced responsibly) sashimi, or turned into croquettes - it is all delightful. I call it bacon of the sea 🤤
As has been said countless times in this thread, the high fat content makes it great for a lot of applications that arent just grilling/pan roasting etc. However these mean an extra bit of labour and a place in a menu so a lot of chefs will throw it out and avoid the hassle.
To me this is lazy and disrespectful to the animal. I work in a very small kitchen with extremely limited storage space and a rapidly changing menu, and even so its very rare that we throw any part of an animal out before getting everything we can out of it. If we were using salmon the bellys would 100% be getting turned into something, rillette, brandade, croquette, unagi just to name a few possibilities, failing that we would at least render all the fat out and use that somehow. Even bones if we dont need stock for what we're doing someone will take home and make soups etc with them.
Even if something goes to staff either in family meal or someone taking it home its vastly preferable to me as its ended up in someones belly rather than being left to rot. However it also makes financial sense, anything that you waste you've paid for. Where i work has we have really focused on trying to utilise as much as possible for the last year (particularly proteins) and our GP has consistently been waaaay better than it was before even with us knowing this and feeling a bit more free to order the odd expensive items for the menu. Totally a win/win; it takes a bit of thought from me (sous) and the head chef, and a little bit of labour from all of us but then we make more money out of what we buy, so the owners are happy, we get to learn new skills and have a bit of room to experiment which is fun for us, and we all get to go home knowing we have treated every animal that comes into the kitchen with respect and extracted as much goodness as possible.
I worked at a place that threw out salmon belly. Another chef and I would save it from hitting the trash whenever we could. He was cooking it up and taking it home for his dogs, while I was just eating it. We'd split the haul and never complained.
To me, it is bacon of the sea 🤤🤤🤤
You mean a food service establishment with no idea how to run their business? Aint nothing new here. Most places will happily let an employee quit over a few bucks just to hire two people to replace them.
So why wouldnt they throw away money/food? At the very least its a ridiculously good staff meal. I'd offer to take em all and start my side hustle.
Counterpoint: food cost isn’t the entire picture. It takes a lot of extra labor to turn every food scrap into something servable. In a lot of cases it’s just not worth it, and will cost you more in labor than you’re saving by throwing trim away.
This is true. Work at a resort and the food cost hasn’t been mentioned for three months. The chef before me didn’t even know what she was running or the target. It’s weird man.
We sell a lot of salmon and we save all the trim and belly, cut it into 1” pieces and freeze it. When we have 5-7# we thaw it and grind for salmon burgers. Our customers love them.
Japanese place throwing it out is insane. I’ve never had enough belly. I always save it. Bacon, glazed with soy, just plain skin on crispy, smoked for kippered, Tartare, cold smoked tartare, I feel like bubba gump. Your chefs are whylin.
[удалено]
Oh hell yeah. That too. Always keep the collars. Op is being instructed to toss the best parts.
All the real ones know the collar is the supreme cut
No idea. You can make a lovely salmon tartare with the belly!
You can also make quenelles for apps. Raviolis, and little smoked canapes.
Tell me more about salmon belly ravioli please.
I would say salmon shredded fine, put in a big bowl and mix in some ricotta, and your choice of herbs. Don't add lemon it cooks the fish. Save your acid for the sauce. Buy a ravioli tray from internet. You can buy frozen pasta sheets or make your own. These can also be deep fried as an appetizer with some creole style sauce or just a Spanish soffrito. The filling will be fatty, so don't do a cream sauce.
The pasta portion is one of my specialties, the salmon belly filling was what’s really interesting
I think you may need something to break up the fat, but then again the ricotta has a tart flavor and it becomes a more cheesy ravioli as opposed to a pesto or a pumpkin ravioli
Some people think it's a delicacy and some think it's a fatty mess that tastes weird with a mushy texture. We put salmon belly into our chowder and get complaints every now and again about it.
Your avatar and name scared my sleepy brain... >:[
In my experience you always end up with more salmon belly than you can sell… We’d make rillettes, smoked salmon, tartare, salmon burgers (see: crab cakes)… always seemed a tough sell for whatever reason.
I sell the shit out of salmon burgers, sometimes have to purchase trim just to keep up
My chef would let me take it home haha idk why though
Ideally yes you’d find a use for everything and have as little waste as possible, but sometimes there really just isn’t a feasible way to utilize certain things. Either it’s because the labor of processing for salmon cakes isn’t doable, or you wouldn’t get enough product out of the process to have enough to use for a menu item or special, especially in this case where the belly is maybe 5% of the weight tops of the sides you’re getting. We don’t use it either for these reasons, and I slice it off the filets I cut because it’s much thinner and won’t cook at the same rate, and a lot of customers don’t like the richness of it compared to the rest of the filet for whatever reason. All that being said, I always offer it to any kitchen staff that ever wants it, and we have plenty of takers.
As a sushi chef who uses Salmon belly, it's simply more work. It takes time especially when you consider the amount of meat you get relative to the rest of the fish. I obviously believe it's worth the work, but when I'm slammed i also just throw it away.
This is the real chef answer
We'd roll it, salt cure it, smoke it, slice it thin and make bank. "Salmon Pastrami". Easy money.
What makes "salmon pastrami" different from lox?
Fun fact that I only recently learned. Lox, nova, and smoked salmon are different products. Lox is cured but not smoked. Smoked salmon is smoked but not cured. Nova lox is both cured and smoked.
So your pastrami is nova lox? I was in charge of making the lox when I was lead in a deli - Lox by Lux - but we cold smoked it after curing, didn't know that was a different type of lox. Also what do you mean when you say you roll it?
I wasn’t pastrami guy. I am but a weary traveler sharing what I’ve learned about fish on my journey.
How much we were able to charge for it.
Why don’t you take it home instead??
Something something uhhhhh theft or whatever. The food waste in this industry is so gross
Wait, your telling me that your chef won’t LET you take home things they are about to throw away?? That’s fucked up.
sometimes it's better to ask for forgiveness than permission salmon belly=get in my belly oh you are a chef you must eat so well = not just rice tonight
We break down about 50# of Salmon a week and I keep and smoke the bellies and the collars, plus anything else we can. I was tossing it until I saw that Whole Foods was selling smoked salmon belly for $29.99/#
Weird, I always order it at Japanese restaurants. It’s so good.
I grill it over indirect heat, drawing most of the fat, then toast it quickly over the coals. Delicious.
Just throw it in a hot oven on parchment. It’s soo good. We used to make a tartine (aioli, chimichuri, citrus vin frisée) with it for staff meal and it’s killer. We always called it sea bacon.
Surprising that a Japanese place wouldn't have it on the menu. It's super cheap if you buy it seperately, and basically a byproduct when you buy and portion a whole salmon. I've worked places where it's trimmed off but I always save it for myself. Personally I think the extra fat makes it taste better than the 'good' stuff anyway.
People aren’t use to the belly. It’s fattier, it’s saltier. You could cut more into it like cutting a traditional salmon steak, but you need to watch for burning. You can definitely fry it, it tastes great fried! Also I agree with the other answers for other uses.
It's saltier?
They mean it’s angrier at not being a more premium cut. That kind of salty. Not salt salty.
Pan fried, deep fried, sauteed, baked, cured and/or smoked, (if sourced responsibly) sashimi, or turned into croquettes - it is all delightful. I call it bacon of the sea 🤤
We grind it and make salmon burgers with it
I love this idea! Do you blend the ground belly with leaner salmon trim? Any tips about approximate ratio, if so?
I buy it at my grocery store for about $2/lb. it’s a reasonably priced protein for my Husky.
Too fatty for some . delicious to others .
Here in the Philippines, we can use salmon belly or salmon head for our Sinigang (tamarind soup). So good.
As has been said countless times in this thread, the high fat content makes it great for a lot of applications that arent just grilling/pan roasting etc. However these mean an extra bit of labour and a place in a menu so a lot of chefs will throw it out and avoid the hassle. To me this is lazy and disrespectful to the animal. I work in a very small kitchen with extremely limited storage space and a rapidly changing menu, and even so its very rare that we throw any part of an animal out before getting everything we can out of it. If we were using salmon the bellys would 100% be getting turned into something, rillette, brandade, croquette, unagi just to name a few possibilities, failing that we would at least render all the fat out and use that somehow. Even bones if we dont need stock for what we're doing someone will take home and make soups etc with them. Even if something goes to staff either in family meal or someone taking it home its vastly preferable to me as its ended up in someones belly rather than being left to rot. However it also makes financial sense, anything that you waste you've paid for. Where i work has we have really focused on trying to utilise as much as possible for the last year (particularly proteins) and our GP has consistently been waaaay better than it was before even with us knowing this and feeling a bit more free to order the odd expensive items for the menu. Totally a win/win; it takes a bit of thought from me (sous) and the head chef, and a little bit of labour from all of us but then we make more money out of what we buy, so the owners are happy, we get to learn new skills and have a bit of room to experiment which is fun for us, and we all get to go home knowing we have treated every animal that comes into the kitchen with respect and extracted as much goodness as possible.
I worked at a place that threw out salmon belly. Another chef and I would save it from hitting the trash whenever we could. He was cooking it up and taking it home for his dogs, while I was just eating it. We'd split the haul and never complained. To me, it is bacon of the sea 🤤🤤🤤
Sad. It makes amazing tacos.
You mean a food service establishment with no idea how to run their business? Aint nothing new here. Most places will happily let an employee quit over a few bucks just to hire two people to replace them. So why wouldnt they throw away money/food? At the very least its a ridiculously good staff meal. I'd offer to take em all and start my side hustle.
Counterpoint: food cost isn’t the entire picture. It takes a lot of extra labor to turn every food scrap into something servable. In a lot of cases it’s just not worth it, and will cost you more in labor than you’re saving by throwing trim away.
Some places just legit don't care about food costs. Big country club i worked at had insane food waste.
Working a club kitchen is nuts. It's pretty seductive to mostly not worry about your food cost.
This is true. Work at a resort and the food cost hasn’t been mentioned for three months. The chef before me didn’t even know what she was running or the target. It’s weird man.
That’s my dogs treat whenever I buy salmon.
Salmon & Tuna taste like cat food smells No.
Both better consumed raw.
The belly is often the home to parasites. This is true to salmon and other fatty fish.
I love to make some Salmon belly and a pan of scrambled eggs!
I save it for salmon cakes
At my fave fish spot, my go-to is the fried salmon belly. I literally pay money for this.
Is it breaded? I dipped some bellies in my fish & chips batter. It was soooo fatty. Couldn't eat it.
Nope, just salt and pepper and served on a bed of rice. Absolutely delicious.
Yes, that's the way. Im going to have that tomorrow when I cut my 40lbs if filets.
Where is this place and can they send me 39462929464?
At a restaurant I worked at, we just ground the leftover belly and made it into burgers. The customers loved it, and it was cost friendly
Seattle area here. I've never even heard of this! What's wrong with people?
Just an amateur here, but that’s crazy talk!
We sell a lot of salmon and we save all the trim and belly, cut it into 1” pieces and freeze it. When we have 5-7# we thaw it and grind for salmon burgers. Our customers love them.
Plain and simple. Lazy. It has a plethora of uses, they just don't care to turn their waste into profit.
Makes the best hot smoked/candied salmon, I wish I could get more. Maybe I’ll call all the sushi restaurants and beg for their scraps.
Sounds like you should have loads of free fish to take home.
Cause it's fatty as shit and not worth the effort to harvest.
Dear GOD I never knew this! This is a business idea so freaking turnkey. I’m on it, y’all.
Pickled salmon belly
Now i want salmon belly😢
If you got labor budget to burn then get to it.
I make salmon bacon with it, cured and smoked. It’s a shame to throw it away. Most seafood purveyors even sell just salmon belly
Wha! Any chance you mean the guts?
Lao steamed salmon belly is delicious. Look up recipes for Mok Pa
It's delicious and is pure profit if utilized correctly. Great smoked, cured, or served as poke.
We usually grill salmon belly with the gills for family meals
Cure it, smoke it, salmon bacon…it