Yes! Do you buy "sushi grade"? Or am I getting ripped off?
Is any good quality fish safe if frozen.
some salmon are better than others for sashimi (and raw eating in general)
sushi grade is a marketing ploy designed to rip you off...
sockeye feeds primarily on plankton and krill near the Arctic Sea and as a result have more lean and tasty flavour suitable for sashimi.
salinity of Straight of Georgia is lower than average sea water due to high level of glacial melt water running in from Cascade Mountains.
as a result, fish are more susceptible to parasitic infestation and it is better to freeze them for a week or so before eating raw.
i heard that fish caught in the Pacific are generally cleaner due to both higher salinity and less pollution (like fish farms and pulp mills).
with salmon caught in a river, extra care must be taken before attempting to eat them raw, as salmon's immunity starts to drop once they enter freshwater.
i personally would not eat raw any salmon caught in a river as there are no guarantees that all parasites will be killed via residential freezer.
personally, I try to be on the safe side.
as for freezing:
first, check the temperature on your freezer. it should be as close to -20C as possible. -10C isn't cold enough to kill the roundworm larvae that are in almost all salmon. i freeze for 5-7 days as a minimum. you also want the fillets to freeze as fast as possible so that the ice crystals that form in the flesh are as small as possible. a slow freeze forms big ice crystals which breaks cells in the flesh and make it mushy. i put a heavy aluminum pan in the freezer to prechill and then lay 1/2" thick fillets, no bigger than 6"x6" directly on it. Once frozen I wrap tightly in plastic wrap and eat it within a couple weeks.
not enough freezing is just as bad as too much freezing... between 7-14 days almost always ends up being the ideal.
and if you are worried about possible infection i would stick with farmed salmon... any farmed salmon can be suitable for sashimi but you will notice that the flesh is naturally more tender than wild caught (farmed fish grow very fast at a young age and never have to swim very hard.
Ikura, Chum, Spring, Coho, Sockeye or Steelhead (or any other type of salmon that i can't think about at the moment) all make for tasty sashimi...
