I am sure this is not much of an unkown topic but I thought I would share with you the fact that we had a huge
salmon run this year.

I live in the mountains along the beautiful Nakagawa(Naka river), in Japan. This is the Southern most river in Japan that the salmon climb(about a 100+ miles North of Tokyo.

Of course the most delicious are the females eggs--"ikura". The eggs are washed from their sack with hot tap water. Usually salt and soy and a bit of mirin are mixed in with them to sit for a week in the fridge but they are premium-delicious fresh with some soy and sake and wasabi over a bowl of the fresh harvested rice for a luxurious-"ikura donburi."
The meat from the female is in bad shape and discarded.

The male are kept for their meat. They are cut up and used in a miso stew or covered with a miso paste to keep longer.
The liver is good fried up with tamari & ginger and the sperm is eaten raw, like sashimi, with wasabi.

Many of them are gutted and coated with salt to be hung and dried and eaten during the witner as jerky.
After a month or two of drying, the best is to put them in a smoker for a day.
FABULOUS!

This smoked salmon is delicious as is, with some fine beverage, or used into many creative modern ways of cooking.
It is dried more than common bought smoked salmon and the locals mainly eat it as jerky while drinking sake...

Of course there are many good ways to use the smoked salmon.
PLEASE SHARE ANY IDEAS!