Compare chum salmon and pink salmon

Red fish is not only a del­i­ca­cy, but also a very use­ful prod­uct. It con­tains a huge amount of vit­a­mins, fat­ty acids, trace ele­ments and oth­er impor­tant nutri­ents. How­ev­er, “red fish” is a com­mon name for a huge num­ber of salmon vari­eties.

So, salmon, pink salmon, sock­eye salmon, salmon, chum salmon, trout and many oth­er vari­eties can be called “red fish”. And they are quite dif­fer­ent from each oth­er. In addi­tion to chum salmon and pink salmon, they are very sim­i­lar and often “replace” each oth­er on store shelves.

There­fore, the house­wives may have a rea­son­able ques­tion: “What is bet­ter and more use­ful — chum salmon or pink salmon?”. Let’s take a look at this mate­r­i­al.

Keta

Keta is a large Pacif­ic salmon. For habi­tat, she choos­es cold waters and does not breed in cap­tiv­i­ty, so she is prac­ti­cal­ly not caught in EU. Chum salmon are mined in Alas­ka, from where they are trans­port­ed all over the world in fresh-frozen form.

The size of the chum salmon is a record even in the fam­i­ly of salmon fish. It grows up to 1.5 meters in length and can weigh up to 15 kilo­grams. Actu­al­ly, the large dimen­sions of the chum salmon, com­bined with excel­lent nutri­tion­al qual­i­ties, make the chum salmon a valu­able com­mer­cial fish.

In gen­er­al, keta is char­ac­ter­ized by the fol­low­ing fea­tures:

1. Bright pink col­or of meat, which is espe­cial­ly notice­able in fresh and light­ly salt­ed fil­lets. Dur­ing heat treat­ment, the sat­u­ra­tion of the shade is slight­ly lost, but the taste is pre­served;

2. Sub­tle, incon­spic­u­ous aro­ma, which is quite dif­fi­cult to feel;

3. Dry, fat-free tex­ture. Thanks to this, the salmon fil­let is per­fect for cook­ing steaks and heat treat­ment — the fish retains its shape both when fried and boiled, even in rel­a­tive­ly small pieces. How­ev­er, like oth­er red breeds, the tex­ture of the meat is ten­der and melt­ing regard­less of the cook­ing method;

4. The calo­rie con­tent of the chum salmon fil­let is 125 kcal per 100 grams. Of course, it varies depend­ing on the method of prepa­ra­tion. For exam­ple, when fry­ing with oil (which is not rec­om­mend­ed, because the orig­i­nal taste of the fish is lost), the calo­rie con­tent increas­es.

5. The main advan­tage of chum salmon is a lot of vit­a­mins in meat. So, it con­tains B5, B6, B9 and B12. In addi­tion, chum salmon, like any oth­er red fish, con­tains essen­tial unsat­u­rat­ed fat­ty acids for the body, includ­ing Omega‑3 and Omega‑6.

So, let’s sum up.

When choos­ing chum salmon, it is advis­able to buy fish from the autumn catch. It is tasti­er than caught in the spring.

caviar

Chum caviar is a valu­able, del­i­ca­cy prod­uct. It dif­fers not only in excel­lent taste, but also visu­al­ly very beau­ti­ful. Chum salmon caviar is large, bright red. The size of the eggs is about 4–5 mm, the shell is quite dense, so that they do not burst when cook­ing.

Chum caviar is char­ac­ter­ized by a high pro­tein con­tent. More­over, it is eas­i­ly digestible, quick­ly digest­ed and does not cre­ate a feel­ing of heav­i­ness in the stom­ach. In addi­tion, it con­tains many vit­a­mins and oth­er ben­e­fi­cial sub­stances.

It is also worth not­ing that many peo­ple con­sid­er chum caviar to be more deli­cious than oth­er salmon fish.

Pink salmon

Pink salmon is one of the most com­mon and inex­pen­sive salmon fish. It is caught in EU and is often grown on spe­cial farms. There­fore, the price for it is low, and you can find it in any gro­cery store.

More­over, unlike oth­er salmon fish, pink salmon is eas­i­ly avail­able in a vari­ety of forms. You can eas­i­ly buy her car­cass, already decap­i­tat­ed and gut­ted, salmon, canned food, light­ly salt­ed and even steaks — “wash­ers”. How­ev­er, in the lat­ter form, it is of lit­tle use. The fact is that pink salmon is a small fish. Usu­al­ly it grows up to 70–80 cen­time­ters and reach­es a weight of up to 5–6 kilo­grams. There­fore, the “wash­er” steaks from it turn out to be too small.

In gen­er­al, pink salmon is char­ac­ter­ized as fol­lows:

1. Pale pink meat. How­ev­er, it is pre­served dur­ing heat treat­ment and inten­si­fies to a deep red when salt­ed;

2. Del­i­cate aro­ma in salty and fresh form, which is enhanced by boil­ing or fry­ing;

3. Rel­a­tive­ly fat­ty meat. How­ev­er, it has a rather dense tex­ture that some peo­ple may find dry. Espe­cial­ly strong “dry­ness” becomes notice­able after heat treat­ment, in which fish oil is smelt­ed from meat. The taste is bright and rich;

4. The calo­rie con­tent of pink salmon is up to 150 kcal per 100 grams. Of course, it increas­es with some forms of cook­ing (for exam­ple, fry­ing with oil, which is not rec­om­mend­ed). Slight­ly salt­ed and steamed pink salmon may well be con­sid­ered dietary dish­es.

5. Pink salmon is very rich in trace ele­ments. Its fil­let con­tains iodine, man­ganese, chromi­um and flu­o­rine in an eas­i­ly digestible form. Pink salmon fish oil con­sists main­ly of vital fat­ty acids, includ­ing Omega‑3 and Omega‑6.

So, let’s sum up.

You can dis­tin­guish where pink salmon was caught by the col­or of the abdomen. If it is white, it is an ocean fish. If yel­low­ish or green­ish, it is returned to fresh water. Pink salmon meat slight­ly dif­fers in taste depend­ing on the habi­tat, but it is worth deter­min­ing the appro­pri­ate option based on your own impres­sions.

Pink salmon caviar

Pink salmon caviar has the low­est price. The size is medi­um (the diam­e­ter of the eggs is 3–4 mil­lime­ters). The col­or is more orange than red.

The taste of caviar large­ly depends on the qual­i­ty of salt­ing. By itself, it has a sub­tle, not too pro­nounced fla­vor and aro­ma bou­quet. The eggs are dis­tin­guished by a rather dense shell that does not burst when cook­ing or dec­o­rat­ing a dish.

Comparison

So, let’s com­pare these two types of salmon fish and deter­mine which is bet­ter.

In gen­er­al, pink salmon is a “red fish of gen­er­al con­sump­tion”. The rel­a­tive­ly low price and wide rep­re­sen­ta­tion in stores make it acces­si­ble to every­one. But chum salmon, although con­sid­ered some­what tasti­er and more valu­able, is a lit­tle less com­mon and has a high­er price.