re: Sushi Grade Salmon Sashimi

The term "sushi grade" can be a little misleading. There is no standard to call something sushi grade. Sushi grade fish is just really fresh fish or a certain grade of tuna which is also a range of grades to be deemed "sushi grade".

For salmon, most sushi restaurants are using whole fish. This is so they can inspect the freshness of the fish. When it is filleted, it's really hard to tell how old the fish was. Give me a whole fish and I can pretty much tell how many days it has been out of the water or at least give you a range of days it has been out of the water. Same with sushi chefs. They can tell how fresh it is by inspecting the whole fish. If you ever get to watch a sushi chef buy fish, you will see him checking the gills for redness, the eyes for clarity, the skin to see that all the scales are on the fish and not falling off, the smell of fish, and also the firmness of the meat. With that said, there are many types of salmon used by sushi chefs here. They can get whole salmon from Chile, Norway, Scottland, and Canada and all are deemed sushi grade if it is really fresh. So all of these countries send in whole fish and also filleted fish. Both can be sushi grade. Usually the whole fish is going to be your premium fish because they get more money for them than the fillets.

To answer your question, any fresh salmon you buy can be considered "sushi" grade. But if you want better quality salmon you will most likely have to buy the whole fish. If you never filleted a salmon, then you will have to fillet it first then take out all the pin bones. The pin bones run down the middle of the fillet and are tiny bones that you have to take out with pliers. There are probably 20+ pin bones to pull out so it can be time consuming.