"Ora" King salmon
 

I keep coming across this on restaurant menus, supposedly it's "what Waygu is to beef Ora is to salmon/fish". Bred to be fattier than most salmon.

Has anyone had it and is it really good? Disclaimer: although I live in Oregon I do NOT like Pacific salmon...too dense...I really like the softer texture of Atlantic salmon.

I find it a nice salmon and yes, it is a bit fattier than normal salmon but the difference is nowhere near the sort of difference you get between say black Angus and wagyu. I think it’s worth it but it wouldn’t pay over about a 20% price premium.

This sort of reminds me of the Copper River salmon craze of a few years back. The king salmon wild caught in the Copper River in Alaska are slightly higher in fat content. Chefs discovered this, which lead to incredible price markups. (Along with intense marketing by the Alaska fishing community). The result? Salmon going for well over $60 per lb.

In a similar vein, someone thought….hey, why can’t we do this with farmed fish? Thus, genetically modified salmon from the Pacific Northwest, higher in fat content, were taken to New Zealand, grown on farms, then marketed aggressively. In a smart move, they market based on 2 factors. Taste and Health.

The taste part is more subjective. If you prefer a more silky (for lack of a better word), salmon…this may be your fish. If you plan on eating it raw…this may be your fish.

As for the health benefit, fish oil is naturally a good source of Omega -3. Thus, a fattier fish, lends itself to more oil production.This fat layer is found just under the skin, and is released when cooked. (Sorry Corky!!!).

Now, to answer your question. Would I purchase or order it? No. I’m a self described fish snob. What I don’t catch and consume, I order from specific trusted sources. For salmon, I use one specific site in Alaska. Generally Copper River king salmon is just not worth the investment, unless it is on sale. (And beware of places that advertise crazy low pricing on “Copper River” salmon. These salmon are not true CR salmon, but generally caught in tributary rivers and streams).

From a taste and health perspective, I’m just as happy with any wild caught king salmon from Alaska. Unless you are going to order a simple grilled preparation, most places douse fish in elaborate sauces and crazy seasoning. It masks the true fish taste (IMHO).

Sorry for the long winded response!

Good replies above.
I ordered Ora for the first time a few weeks ago (through Goldbelly), and prefer it to any wild Alaskan salmon I have had, and significantly prefer it to any general supermarket farmed salmon. It is worth the premium from time to time.

Thanks all, very helpful responses. I'll just have to try for myself. And being in Oregon we're very familiar with the Copper River hysteria. Actually the best salmon I ever got in a restaurant was Faroe Island, and I have no idea if it's "supposed" to be good or bad but it's the texture I like.

Faroe Island salmon is a very good farmed Atlantic salmon. That, along with salmon from Scotland are my favorite salmon of that variety.
When you try the Ora, please come back and let us know your impression.

I will. Trip is not for a couple of months, and who knows if it will still be on the menu. But I'll also keep an eye out for salmon from Scotland.

I asked my son who lives in Eugene. He says he never orders salmon in restaurants so hasn’t noticed it. Will he find it at Fisherman's Market?

The restaurant is not in Eugene, it's when we'll be on a trip. I reallllly don't like Fisherman's Market, been there a few times (not for many years) and it always just seemed skeevy and dirty, sorry. If he wants to buy nice fish Newman's is the place.

I'm just the opposite. For cooked salmon, I really only like Sockeye or Coho. I won't eat cooked Atlantic salmon. Sushi/Sashimi is a completely different ballgame and I don't mind the softer fattier species.

Not sure how this reflects on me, but I've learned more about Salmon from your one post than I have during my entire life! Had no idea, and I really should be a little more discerning with my future Salmon choices.

RE: Sockeye

Not sure if it's just me, but I kind of like that crab after taste. I've read that it's because they eat crab? How does a fish with no teeth eat crab?

what?? Salmon don't have teeth? :confused:

Ah, that's my assumption? LOL Aside from a necessary culinary appreciation, I could easily be wrong since my knowledge of animals is, to put it mildly, quite limited.

Thanks for the compliment! Couple of things. Salmon do have teeth. They are small and incisor like. As such, there is no crab in their diet.
They do consume plenty of shrimp, which would explain the after taste.

Wait a minute, on the Saratoga thread, you said you LOVED animals!!

I do recall having some fish somewhere that did feed on crab and did have a crab taste, and it was not salmon. It was in Florida. Before I go look it up, I want to say COBA or something like that?

Aha, I was sooo close. Cobia.

Cobia taste great. As do most fish with a crab diet. For those in the northeast, a tautog or blackfish is a prime example.

So what do crabs eat that makes them taste great?

You don't want to know. :D

We animal lovers love animals differently and in our own way. I'd wager that my "love" of animals is as great and intense as anyone's!

They are like the vacuum cleaners of the ocean. Lots of fish scraps from the by product of predator fish kills on smaller fish. Also shrimp, clams, mussels…etc.

…and they have crabs?

Children’s toes. At least that’s what I told my kids to keep them out of the water unless I was with them.

Wow! Had no idea Salmons looked so ferocious, kind of like a toned-down but slightly elongated Piranha? All these years because Salmon meat tastes so good and so colorful, I had always assumed they were cuddly and friendly looking fish, like those happy cows roaming California.

Lol. Too funny!!!

Like Nemo? I know not salmon but for sure cuddly & friendly looking!

Exactly! But, red or orange instead of blue. Nemo was blue, right? LOL Though, dining on Nemo would be something even too weird for me to contemplate.

Mrs. javabytes likes fish quite a bit (I do not), but I recently acquired some for her from my go-to meat guy (who runs a high-end meat business and is fastidious about sourcing) and she said it was among the best salmon she's ever eaten. She grew up on the east coast and is acclimated mostly to Atlantic salmon. She cooked this herself the day it arrived, so it was incredibly fresh... of course what you can get in a restaurant may vary in that regard... but she gave it her strongest endorsement and now I'm in trouble because she's already hooked on Australian wagyu too...

You could try bluefish, but they aren't cuddly.

Ah bluefish....growing up in New England I recall bluefish prepared a very strange way - I seem to recall sweet pickle relish and breadcrumbs? Something like that. Very odd now that I think back.

Most food fish are pretty ugly.

Quick bluefish recipe.
Fillet a 6 lb bluefish
Add seasonings
Grill on a cedar plank for 4 minutes per side
Throw away the bluefish and eat the plank!

Blues have a very bad reputation. They are a “fishy” fish, especially as they get older and larger. The key with them is to handle properly after being caught. Immediately iced and bled. When cleaned, the dark meat blood line must be removed.

What remains is actually quite decent. And young blues at 3lbs, are actually good. The flesh is firm and white. I season them, flour them, and sauté in butter.

The other good thing? They are fun to catch. Pound for pound the hardest fighters in the Atlantic.

Then it must be a regional term/regional fish....I recall bluefish as a kid as being very dark....like the dark part of swordfish, as opposed to the white. Or dark tuna. Even herring have dark and white parts. Or even as a stretch dark meat chicken.

Blues are caught up and down the east coast, from Maine to Florida. They are a highly migratory fish, following and chasing and consuming bait fish with a voracious appetite. Bluefish blitzes are legendary. They literally tear into anything in front of them.
As for the meat, the color is kind of off white or light red with a pronounced dark section. (Called the blood line). The flesh darkens as the fish ages due to their diet.

I have a theory...I was a kid in the 50s -60s and we didn't have a lot of money, so I think buying the "old" dark bluefish was what my mother could afford (Other than that, I don't recall anything except fried fish sticks) - so since we only wanted hot dogs and hamburgs (note the New England spelling and pronunciation) adding sweet pickle relish to the fish made it taste like a hot dog? We used to go clamming...I recall we'd stomp on the mud until they'd squirt then we'd dig them up. Oh, and believe it or not, lobsters were really cheap so we'd have them a couple of times a year. I never had salmon or trout or mussels, many more, until I was an adult.

Where I grew up, swordfish was the regular Friday night dinner. My parents were extremely frugal so I assume it was the cheapest thing in the fish market. I never saw bluefish sold. Friends would bring them back from shore fishing expeditions along the MA/RI/CT coast and couldn’t give them away.

No, it's an inferior product - mediocre farmed salmon propped up by massive marketing hype.

Yes and no.

Then you might like it. To me it was no different than any other farmed Atlantic salmon. Certainly nothing like the PNW chinook it purports to be.

There's a reason corporate-owned fine dining restaurants with advertising budgets market the heck out of Ora king salmon. Think of it as the Silver Oak of salmons.

Inferior to what? Ora King is probably the best farmed salmon available on the market. It has a green rating from the Monterey Bay Aquarium. Other than a handful of other salmon producers, all other farmed salmon is yellow or red.

IMO you can't get a better farmed salmon product on the market than New Zealand King Salmon.

[MENTION=8965]Herb687[/MENTION] are you sure what you ate was Ora King? The biggest hurdle of high end seafood is the traceability and knowing that your hard earned dollars are actually paying for the correct thing.

A new podcast was released that speaks about Ora King salmon - here's a link - listen and learn:


Deep in the Weeds - A Food Podcast with Anthony Huckstep
Listen on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcas...=1000547018912
There are few more important topics than sustainability right now. Especially when it comes to our oceans, waterways and the way we manage our appetite for their glorious bounty. But for Mark Preece (New Zealand King Salmon) setting the standard, and creating best in class fish, by looking after the environment, and the sustainability of the community too is integral with everything they do.

A bit of a thread drift but in the world of farmed salmon I have to throw out a strong recommendation for Creative King Salmon from BC. https://creativesalmon.com/

I don't know how broad they distribute, but our local fishmonger in Seattle has them reliably and it's really enjoyable. Plus, they have a bunch of certifications to stack on top for sustainable, organic, farm-raised salmon.