I was invited to attend a get-together of some online friends out of state. I’ve not met any of them in person, which seems to be pretty common in the social media age. In order to help make a good impression, it is a southern thing to bring something along to eat. I’ve decided to bring along my smoked salmon and a salmon spread made from it.
Smoked salmon was the second thing I started smoking. The first being pulled pork made from pork (boston) butt, which I hope to share with you another day. Anyway, what got me started on smoking salmon was Alton Brown of Good Eats fame. He did an episode about how to smoke some salmon on the cheap. I was inspired. I had eaten smoked salmon in the past, and loved it. What if I could make my own?
In Alton’s episode, he used a cardboard box, a hot plate, a cast iron pan, a grill grate, some dowel rods to support the grate, and some sawdust for smoke. He also added a small battery operated fan to circulate the smoke. I figured if he could produce some good food with something so primitive, then I should be able to do something similar in a real smoker.
Good Eats – Where there’s smoke, there’s fish This link points to a Food Network page with the highlights of the episode. Recipe here. I’ve taken his method and modified it a bit.
Below is what I do.
Obtain salmon.
This can be fresh caught, if you are lucky to live in a place to get it. For the rest of us, it will be market purchased. The fish available at the store is wild caught or farm raised. I’ve always used farm raised Atlantic salmon, as it is usually cheaper where I live. I’m not sure if the enhanced flavors of wild caught salmon would survive smoking, but I hope one day to find out. I usually buy my salmon in full-length filets that are skinless and have had the pin bones removed. I get it for between $7.00 – $8.00 a pound, most recently at Costco. I try to get two of them of about the same size. If you can’t, that’s ok.
Make a cure.
I used 1 cup of Kosher salt and a half cup each of white and dark brown sugar. In the one I’m making below, I substituted light brown, as that’s what I had in the pantry.
Mix it up thoroughly.
Get the cure on the fish.
I put down a very wide piece of aluminum foil, with a layer of plastic wrap over the top of that. The plastic wrap keeps the fish from taking on the flavor of the foil and helps to hold things together.
Put about 1/4 of the cure down first. Spread it evenly
Put the first salmon filet on the cure
Cover the salmon with about half of the cure
Put the other salmon filet on the first. You see the second one is smaller. I wasn’t thinking about it when I bought them, otherwise I’d get them closer in size.
Cover with the remaining cure. Try not to put as much on the thinner parts of the meat, as they will get salty.
Wrap the plastic wrap and foil over the fish. Get it as tight as you can.
Wrap the fish in two more layers of foil. Trust me here, the first layer of foil will leak. Wrap these tightly.
Lastly, put the fish in the refrigerator. If you can, put something heavy on them. They will need to sit in there for at least 12 hours. 24 hours is even better, if you can flip the fish over and have some way to collect what drips out.
Here is what it looks like after 16 hours
I carefully cut the filets in half, so they will fit in my smoker and be easier to work with. Next, I rinse them off under the tap to get all the cure off of them.
This is how much liquid was pulled from the fish
I place them on my smoker’s racks and pat them dry with a paper towel.
Notice that I’ve got a piece of foil under them. This is to catch anything that might drip off of them. Also notice, I’ve got the racks suspended by paper plates. This is to increase contact with the air to allow the fish to dry a bit.
Why dry the fish? As they dry, the proteins at the surface contract a bit and concentrate. This produces a sticky finish to the outside of the fish, called a Pellicle. The Pellicle will help to hold on to the smoke and will help to keep the fish from drying out too much. It can take between 1 – 3 hours to get the Pellicle formed. If you are in a hurry, I’d say give the fish about an hour and get it in the smoker.
Speaking of in the smoker, here we go. I put the smaller filets in the bottom and the larger at the top. This is to allow the top filets to get a bit more heat, so they cook the same as the bottom ones. Does it matter? I’m not sure, but I’m going with it.
The smoker is set for 150 degrees F. I’m using apple wood chips, as fruit woods tend to give a nice flavor. I have also used cherry. Feel free to use oak, hickory, or other hard woods. I’d avoid mesquite as that’s a bit of a strong flavor for fish.
I’ve got my remote thermometer hooked up and now we watch and wait. I check the wood chips every half our or so to make sure there is plenty of smoke. I’ll pull the fish out when it reaches 150 degrees. If it is taking too long, you can turn up the heat to 160 or more, but you will have a little less smoke on the meat.
This batch took 3 hours. I’m still learning this new smoker, and I’ve discovered it doesn’t like to smoke at low temperatures. My old smoker had a similar problem, but not as pronounced. To get some additional smoke on the fish, I cranked up the heat to 275 F to get the heating element to run for longer. I did this three times and it seems to have made enough smoke to get decent flavor on the fish.
I wish you could smell this.
I wrap up the filets in foil and put them in the refrigerator. They can be kept up to 3 days, but usually they usually don’t last that long. Smoked salmon is a favorite with my family and I make it for family get-togethers. I usually don’t bring any home.
I used this smoker. Masterbuilt 30 inch