Value for Money

This week Value for Money looks at Smoked Salmon

Tesco Value Smoked Salmon
€4.99 for 200g
€24.95 per kg

Highs: This places commendably little emphasis on the luxury traditionally associated with smoked salmon. While the other brands bang on about how proud they are to be serving you only the most noble of salmon caught in the cleanest of seas, Tesco focuses entirely on the low price. And it is indeed a very low price for a lot of salmon.

Lows: Whether it provides any value is another matter. This was the only brand to list sugar amongst the ingredients, but the strongest flavours were smoke and salt. And it has to be said that the smokiness tasted entirely artificial. The individual salmon pieces were a little fatty and a lot slimey and a lot of chewing was required to get through it.

Verdict: Cheap but joyless.

Star rating: *

Hederman's Wild Smoked Salmon
€17.63 for 235g
€75 per kg

Highs: This is on the opposite end of the scale from the Tesco Value offering in terms of quality (and, to be fair, price). It looks great, smells wonderful and tastes amazing. It has a smoky flavour which is powerful without overpowering the salmon flavours completely. It is wonderfully textured and succeeds in being moist without being slimey.

Lows: It is undeniably pricey, however, and may not be as widely available as some of the more mainstream brands, although PriceWatch has seen it in a growing number of outlets of late. It is also unsliced and there is a very real danger you'll eat most of it yourself as you make your posh canapés.

Verdict: High quality and high price.

Star rating: *****

Nolan's Sliced Wild Salmon
€11.19 for 200g
€55.95 per kg

Highs: This is probably the most widely available of the brands tried and it tastes absolutely fine, if a little bit unmemorable. It has a gentle smoky flavour and is not excessively salty. The pieces are sliced nice and thin and there are a lot of them, so it should go a long way at a party.

Lows: The flavours might be a little too mild for some tastes. Some of the slices proved to be ever so slightly fatty - not too much so, but enough to make them surprisingly chewy for wild salmon. The slices were stuck fairly securely together and didn't take too kindly to separation, which was a little bit of a chore.

Verdict: Widely available and fine tasting.

Star rating: ***

Marks & Spencer Organic Farmed Salmon
€5.79 for 100g
€57.90 per kg

Highs: This salmon has by far the strongest fishy taste of all the brands reviewed and were it not for the light pink colour could almost be mistaken for mackerel. These thin slices will make a fine starter for two not-particularly-hungry people. M & S's organic salmon fillets are excellent - the closet thing you'll get to wild salmon, year round - so PriceWatch was expecting equally good things from the smoked equivalent.

Lows: Which made the reality so disappointing, perhaps. It is quite salty and far too gently smoked. Four slices of salmon for almost €6 seems a bit steep and the packaging said it was Irish or Scottish farmed salmon. Well, which is it? Surely if it's farmed it would be easy to identify which farm it came from?

Verdict: Middling and of mysterious origin

Star rating: **

Sally Barnes Woodcock Smokery Smoked Salmon
€14.85 for 160g
€92.81 per kg

Highs: This award-winning salmon is nice and meaty and beautifully smoked. It has a complexity and depth most of the other brands entirely lack and, coupled with its wonderful texture, it is a joy to eat. A side of this would make for a pretty good and very posh present to a foodie with impeccable taste.

Lows: It is the most expensive of the brands tried so it's not something you'll want to be serving willy nilly. Like the Hederman's option it comes unsliced, and while that makes it more authentic and probably helps it retain a certain freshness, it is a bit of a pain if you can't find a knife sharp enough with which to cut genteel little slivers.

Verdict: Excellent tasting.

Star rating: *****