is pickled salmon w/stevia, without simmering the fish, safe

EmOn ↓

Wed, Feb 13 2013, 1:51 pm

So, there are different types of pickled salmon. Some call for simmering the fish in the vinegar solution. Others call for boiling the vinegar solution, then waiting until that is completely cold, before placing that on top of cut up, raw salmon (layered with onions). I was wondering if it is safe to use the latter method while using stevia as a sugar substitute. I thought perhaps what "cooks" the salmon is the vinegar and the salt, and the sugar was just (or mostly) for taste. I also wondered if I needed to salt the fish first. There is a recipe from Joan Nathan on the New York Times website that I was looking at, and it doesn't say to salt the fish first, but again perhaps the sugar makes it more acidic or something. I will be buying a side of salmon that has been frozen, so that the worms that sometimes live in the salmon flesh will have been killed off, but I don't want to make anyone sick (of course), and I don't know if I can get some other rare disease from the frozen, defrosted, and pickled fish.

↑ EmOn

Thu, Feb 21 2013, 3:37 am

Hello all. I found what I consider to be an educated and qualified answer to my question, with some extensive google searching. According to the washington state university extension (it's a community college local to that area) and a couple other colleges, the ingredients in a pickling recipe (other than vinegar) are for flavor, not for preserving. So if you want to change them around, that's fine.

I have a pure stevia extract and used the following recipe, which turned out perfectly, adapted from Joyce Goldstein's pickled salmon recipe: 4 cups white vinegar, 3 cups water, 1/2 tsp stevia extract (equivalent to 2/3 cup sugar), 4 tablespoons kosher salt, 2 pounds salmon fillet, skin and bones removed, 3 tablespoons mixed pickling spices, 9 bay leaves, 1.5 white or yellow onions, sliced 1/4-inch-thick. Layer the salmon, pickling spices and bay leaves, and onions in a sterilized jar (your dishwasher probably has a sterilization setting, but you could put it in boiling water if you want). Bring the remaining four ingredients to a boil in a saucepan, then let the mixture cool completely (I mean completely). Next, pour the solution into the jar until the food is fully covered (and I mean fully). Wait 3-4 days for the salmon to become fully pickled. Joyce Goldstein says it lasts for 3-4 days after that, but in my experience and from all the research I've done there's no reason it won't last significantly longer, as long as you keep it refrigerated and fully covered with the vinegar solution.

The safety information is available in a pdf that you can find if you google pnw0183, apparently written by Dr Rasco, who has a phd from the food science and engineering school at umass.

Also, as I noticed that most of the instructions for pickling on this site are for simmered foods, do keep in mind that thorough freezing (4 days or more) or thorough brining (pamphlet says 5-8 days) is an either/or proposition, where at least one must be done to kill the bacteria if you're not going to simmer the fish.