Quality of raw salmon fillet as a predictor of cooked salmon quality

Fillets stored at 4 °C for 2, 9, 14 or 16 days were evaluated raw by professional chefs and also as cooked samples by trained sensory panel. Firmness, reddish colour, glossy appearance, and odour of seawater were important attributes of raw fillets to ensure high quality. Odours of seawater, acidity, sourness and staleness as well as firmness were discriminators on quality of cooked samples. Colour had less impact on quality of cooked samples. The two evaluations had similar results on which samples had high vs low quality, but chefs were less critical to the low quality raw samples than what was the case for the panel evaluating cooked samples. Fillets stored for 16 days at 4 °C were not acceptable for food consumption when cooked, but chefs did not give these samples scores that could indicate unacceptable quality. In the first PLS component 69% and 63% of the sample variation were described by Panel and Chefs, respectively.