Pacific salmon net attention at the table
By Allyson Wright
King. Silver. Copper River red. Even the many names for salmon are succulent and pleasing in the mouth, promising a sensory experience that mere “bass” or “carp” could never fulfill. Served naked but for a sliver of lemon, or grilled to perfection on a cedar plank, our love affair with salmon goes back centuries. “It all began with Native Americans. They caught salmon on the Columbia and hung them over racks to smoke. This has been going on forever,” says Mik Bryant of the Oregon Lox Company in Eugene.
Oregon’s waters are home to four species—chinook, silver, red, and chum. When Lewis and Clark wintered on the coast in 1805, they dined on abundant salmon. Tribes along the length of the Columbia River ate it fresh and smoked, as they had for generations, but now, the annual catch is hard to predict. In 2008, the Oregon salmon fishery failed, most likely due to environmental factors. When local fish are scarce, seafood aficionados can turn to farmed fish, or “wild” (ocean-caught) Alaskan salmon, but neither of Eugene’s specialty seafood retailers carries farmed salmon. All salmon sold at Fisherman’s Market comes from fishing families that owner Ryan Rogers knows well. A commercial fisherman for 25 years, Rogers opposes selling farmed fish. “The flesh color is a result of their diet,” Rogers says. “With farmed fish, had they not been fed red dyes they wouldn’t be a red-fleshed fish.” There’s also a lessening of nutrition—farmed salmon live in cages, leading to concentrations of waste, and lower levels of healthful Omega-3 fatty acids.
Most salmon sold in the Northwest is wild-caught; virtually all Atlantic salmon is farmed. As a rare exception, the Oregon Lox Company sells a smoked fish made of Atlantic salmon from Chile. “The Chilean salmon are very high in oil content and very standard in size, so they make production very easy,” says Bryant. “Oil content is important for smoking. It brings out the flavor of the salmon. If it doesn’t have a lot of oil content it gets very dry, like a steak that isn’t marbled correctly.”
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Compared to red meat, salmon is a lean protein, but oils and fats are essential to the taste. The fat content of salmon varies by species, lifespan, and environment. Generally, fish that spend more years in the ocean accumulate more fat, as do fish faced with longer migrations to spawning streams. The thin gray line seen just under the skin is stored fat. Avila explains that fat stored in the belly area, where the fish tapers, is creamier and lighter in flavor than the gray fat. The belly area has more of this fat than the forward flanks, so it won’t dry out while thicker parts finish cooking.
To create a mouthwatering salmon dish, start with a high-quality fish. Local fishmongers usually have the freshest salmon due to faster turnover. Avoid whole fish with a sticky film on the skin, or cut fish that shows any opening of the grain between muscle layers. These are signs of rough handling and the passage of time, both of which lead to bacterial breakdown of the meat. This is why salmon flash-frozen at sea often tastes “fresher” than yesterday’s local catch.
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Christopher Avila of Newman’s Fish Company says, “There’s a difference between ‘fish smell’ and ‘a fishy smell.’ People pleased with what they’re selling will be glad to let you smell.” Color is harder to judge, even within a single species. A “blonder” chinook may look less appealing than a pinker cousin, but the lighter fish has a milder flavor and more buttery texture.
Salmon dishes vary from simple broiling to complex pairings with seasonings and sauces. Along with thousands of user-rated recipes, the Internet offers videos that demonstrate techniques for filleting and boning. Rogers’ website, plankfish.com, offers modern variations on a Native American tradition of baking salmon with Western red cedar to impart a sweet smoky flavor. “Plank cooking is an extension of that tradition,” Rogers says.
The perfect wine to serve with your salmon carries the words “salmon safe” on the label. Over 60 wineries in Oregon and Washington (and at least one hop-grower) have earned this certification by using agricultural techniques that protect water quality and preserve salmon habitat.
Above all, don’t feel shy about experimenting. Imagine salmon potstickers, steamed in wine instead of water. Substitute lime or tangerine for basic lemon. Soon you’ll have red-ribbon and silver-medal salmon specialties of your own.
Bold as Broadley A hole in the clouds over Monroe, Oregon
By Boris Wiedenfeld
In the Willamette Valley, the name Broadley is synonymous with pinot royalty, but you wouldn’t know that by talking to Morgan Broadley. He is the second generation at Broadley Vineyards and as down-to-earth as they come.
His parents, Craig and Claudia Broadley, who are still very much involved in the business, started Broadley Vineyards in 1982. After acquiring a taste for pinot noir in the San Francisco area in the 1970s, Craig and Claudia decided to look for a place to start a pinot noir winery on a shoestring budget. California vineyard land was much too expensive, and they also thought that the climate was not really right for true pinot noir.
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So in 1980 they moved, together with 10-year-old Morgan, to Monroe, where land was a whole lot cheaper and the climate a lot closer to Burgundy than Napa. In this cool valley, though, site selection is likely the most important factor in planting a vineyard. The Broadleys found a hillside in Monroe that seemed just right: the vineyard is in the rain shadow of Green Peak and Mary’s Peak, and some old-timers say there is a sunny “hole in the clouds” that naturally forms because of convections—airplane pilots used it decades ago to help them navigate and get into Eugene.
Morgan, who now splits his time between working in the vineyards and sharing winemaking duties with his father, says that he learned everything he knows about the art of winemaking from his parents. “Now, I also have to listen to others in the industry, too,” he adds wryly. “I have to research other wines by drinking them and trying to understand what the winemaker was trying to do in their winemaking. Tough work!”
Though he’s been helping out in the winery since he was a kid, he didn’t get seriously involved until 1994. That was the year of Broadley’s fabled “Claudia’s Choice,” a wine that put them on the map. Henrik Mansson of Wine Spectator magazine gave that wine 97 points, a rating that is usually reserved for European wines costing hundreds of dollars, and wrote: “Simply extraordinary. . . . If this is West Coast Pinot Noir, the French should start worrying because the length, the structure, the sheer acidity are just remarkable here.”
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The year 2007 was a challenging one for Oregon vintners, due mostly to a two-week rainstorm right around harvest time. Many in the wine industry think Broadley made some of the very best pinots in the state that year. Whereas many wineries produced mediocre and somewhat diluted wines, Broadley managed to make elegant, subtle, and complex wines with near-perfect balance that outshone many of their Northern neighbors with big names and even bigger price tags. “I love our ’07s because it was truly a challenging vintage,” Morgan says, “It took all our skills and knowledge to make the wines we did. I think it is some of our best-made wine to date.” One trick, he says, was discarding unpromising grape clusters. “One of the things Craig and I did was to spend a lot of time, to personally go though the vineyard and drop anything that didn’t look great. Also, we didn’t press anything—we just drained fermenters. We didn’t want to pick up any green notes or unripe flavors.”
When asked about his winemaking philosophy, Morgan states: “I think I’m trying to make a wine that reflects the taste of the vineyard and not the barrel. I like some acid and balance in my wines. A wine that goes well with food. A wine that will taste good upon release but will also have enough [substance] to age nicely.” That sounds like a recipe for success.
Pinot perfection
Broadley Vineyards
Winery and tasting room
265 S 5th St. (Hwy 99W), Monroe
Tasting Room open by appointment
541/847-5934
“It all began with Native Americans. They caught salmon on the Columbia and hung them over racks to smoke. This has been going on forever,” says Mik Bryant of the Oregon Lox Company in Eugene.
