At Alaska West, our guests have the opportunity to take home some fresh salmon fillets at the end of their trip. Many of our guests choose to take advantage of our smoked fish program as well, a program we’re pretty proud of.
Some of our guests even prefer to take a few fillets home and fire up the smoker themselves for a tasty reminder of the Kanektok during the off-season. Our good friend Ed Novinksy is one such guest and was kind enough to send us some before and after shots of his fillets. Thanks Ed and nice work!
What the h###?? Who cut the belly meat and “wings” (pelvic fins) off those fillets?
The belly is the most oily, rich part of a salmon…hot-smoking a fillet without it is like trimming the fat off a prime rib before broiling it…sheesh, you guys.
Great point Woodstock!
We actually cut the bellies off before filleting the salmon. We smoke the bellies separate for that exact reason.. they’re delicious! We actually use the smoked bellies for our appetizers/snacks at Alaska West.
We find this to be the quickest method when filleting many, many salmon in a day, rather than butterfly filleting each one.
Great point and thanks for the input!