ITALIAN RECIPES TRADITIONAL AND CREATIVE  The description and the Italian recipes of the sea fish The salmon (salmone) : description and Italian names Salmon live most of their life in the sea, but when they are mature and ready to breed, they enter fresh water to spawn (reproduce), travelling to a stream or pond high in oxygen. The female digs a nest in the gravel with her tail. She then pushes her thousands of eggs into the nest and the male milks the eggs, fertilizing them. Most salmon die after spawning. Salmons have silvery skin with spotted back and fins. The biggest salmon is the chinook, which weighs up to 120 pounds (55 kg). Its meats, always very good, varies from a light pink to dark orange. The sockeye salmon also called red salmon (salmone rosso), always high valued, has thick and very tasty meat, changing colour by cooking and becoming always light pink. The coho salmon or silver salmon (salmone argentato) reaching a length of 2 ft (60 cm), has a red orange meat and is a little lower quality than the others.
The pink salmon or humpback salmon (salmone rosa) is the smallest among the pacific salmons, less valued because its meat is very soft and more friable. It is possible to buy the salmon filleted or sliced. The best quality is in the middle part of the fish. In the fillets the meat colour must be uniform and the flesh must be very attached to the central bone. In the slices the meat must be attached to the cartilage. During all the year we find salmons from breeding, with a meat of less pronounced flavour, but of uniform quality. The smoking method is one of the most ancient conservation techniques, and also nowadays the best European salmons come from Norway and Scotland . While buying control the meat colour: it must be pinkish and uniform, with light orange nuances, neither oozing nor dry at the sides. A too dark colour indicates an exceeding salt quantity, while a too oily surface indicates a not perfect smoking process. The Italian salmon recipes proposed by Italian Homemade Cooking 
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