Until recently, I didn’t even know there were people out in the Big Wide World who regularly DO remove the bones from canned salmon. My mom always left them in when she made salmon patties. I leave them in for salmon patties (they add delicious CRUNCH!, not to mention the calci-yum, heh) and take them out if I use the salmon in noodle dishes such as my famous, incredible, not-to-be-missed Tuna Helper with Salmon Instead. (Oh, the inventiveness!)
My dear todd33rpm says HIS mom removed the bones. My own SONS, blood of my blood and all that, have abandoned their loving mother and gone to the Other Side, the No Bones Salmon side. I can hardly believe it, the ungrateful scoundrels. Sharper than a serpent’s tooth, those two.
Anyway, a poll: Do you remove the bones from canned salmon? Always? Sometimes? Etc?
My grandmother’s recipe for fried salmon patties calls for the removal of all bones, the salmon skin and egregiously dark portions of salmon meat, in addition to the onions, garlic, green bell peppers, flour and egg (and dash of tabasco).
Striking out on my own, I figured out pretty quickly if you chop up the salmon meat (bones, skin and all) with a fork real fine before adding the other ingredients, the taste and texture is essentially the same when cooked. So if I’m cooking salmon patties for myself, I don’t bther to remove the bones an stuff. If I’m visiting with my grandmother and cooking breakfast for the family, I’ll use her recipe to the letter.
Ever since I was a kid, I’ve had a dislike for most kinds of fish and seafood, which I trace directly to taking a bite of salmon and finding tiny bones in my mouth. Over the years I’ve been able to acquire a taste for some types of seafood, such as clam chowder, shrimp, etc., and I’ve never had a problem with canned tuna, but I still have a hard time eating any kind of fish in filet form.
I haven’t had salmon patties in forever. Mackerel either. Now I want some.
Anyway, my mom, so far as I know, removed the bones. I didn’t really watch her cook and if Askia is right and the texture is pretty much the same if mashed together, I doubt I could have told the difference. If I were to cook them, they’d definitely be deboned though.
I take out the vertebra and skin but leave the little splintery bones. Those are just so brittle and I’m just so lazy that it doesn’t seem nearly worth the effort.
I make a pretty good salmon loaf (on the rare occasion when I actually cook something that isn’t frozen), and I leave in everything. The bones in freshs fish may be dangerous, but canning softens the salmon bones to the point that they are not unsafe to eat. And, as bodypoet noted, they provide a good source of calcium.
When I used to use commercial canned almon for my salmon patties I always took out the skin and the biggest bones and crunched the smaller bones up fine as I mixed the patties. This was how my mother did it. The last few years, though, my folks have gone to Klamath, Oregon every year or two for 6 weeks and caught their own salmon and canned it. Some they smoke, then can (for delicious smoked salmon dip), the rest they just cook and can plain. Home canned salmon makes the best salmon patties in the known universe.
The first time I made something with canned salmon, I carefully removed all bones & skin, not realizing I could leave them in. It took me about 1/2 an hour. I was seriously starting to consider using canned salmon too much work when someone revealed to me you can mash the bones up with the flesh & eat them. Adds a ton of calcium, too!
However, I still remove the skin and the vertebrae, leaving the dark flesh and the little bones in. The vertebrae gross me out a bit.
My mom made this amazing nacho cheese, salmon and rice casserole, but what’s always stopped me from making it is that I couldn’t abide the notion of having to pick through the salmon for bones and skin. It’s always confused me that they’d pack food like that with all kinds of inedible gunk.
But if I could actually just dump the whole can in, this makes the recipe much more attractive.