Smoked Salmon

[Calpyro]

Well, after the success of the Thanksgiving turkey, I decided to resurrect an old family recipe for smoked salmon. I like it so much that I wanted to share it with everybody and possible get a few tips.

1.Soak salmon filets for 24 hours in a brine. I like to put the salmon and brine in large Zip Lock bags. I submerge the bags in water to squeeze all of the air out.
Brine:
2 cups brown sugar
1 cup honey
2 cups kosher salt
1 tsp. chili pepper
1 tsp. fresh ground black pepper.
1 quart of water
Warm mixture in sauce pan until sugar and honey are dissolved. Cool mixture before brining fish.

2. After 24 hours in the brine, pat dry with paper towels and let the filets dry for a couple hours until they have a glazed appearance. This is an important step that prevents the meat from forming an ugly white goo on the surface when smoked.

3. Smoke for 10-12 hours at 175-225 degrees. Adjust smoking time to suit your preference for moist or dry meat. Make sure that the wood used for smoking does not produce so much smoke that it overpowers the meat. I use mesquite charcoal for the heat and a little alder wood for flavor.

4. Late into the smoking process, with only a couple of hours to go, glaze the meat with a warm mixture of:
1 cup brown sugar
1 cup honey
1 tablespoon butter
1/2 tsp. salt
Warm glaze until clear and brush over meat several times over the last few hours of smoking.

This recipe makes a great smoked salmon that looks a good as it tastes.
Good luck.
Cameron

 

[Bird]

That does sound good, Cameron. It's been 12 years now since I smoked fish, but I got a recipe from a fellow in Alaska whose smoked salmon I liked, and now I've lost the recipe. It was similar to yours; brown sugar, salt, and water, but also included lemon juice, and I don't think included your other ingredients. But the process was the same, except we never used the glaze you include. And while the recipe was for salmon, and I used it on a lot of salmon, I found the same recipe worked great on white meat fish, too; sheepshead fillets and shark steaks, in my case. I used to like to carry my lunch to work; smoked fish, cheddar cheese, and crackers.

 

[Chuck52]

Do you smaoke the fish enough to keep unrefrigerated? My thesis advisor was from Washington state and he would sometimes get care packages from home of canned smoked salmon. It was almost dry, and a small flake on a cracker was enough to get the old taste buds singing. I can't abide the Norwegian style stuff that's almost like sushi.

Chuck

 

[Bird]

Chuck, I don't know enough about the different methods. When my parents lived in Alaska, there was a place in Anchorage that smoked and canned their salmon for them. It was a very moist, but thoroughly cooked, smoked salmon that I thought was excellent. When I was smoking my own, it was what I'd call medium dry, and I don't know how well or how long it would have kept unrefrigerated. After smoking (and cooling), I put it up in Zip Lock bags in the freezer.

We were once taken by friends to one of those fancy restaurants that folks like us don't normally frequent. You probably know the kind; where they had an orchestra, brought each lady at the table a long stemmed rose on a pillow, had a menu with no prices on it (if you have to ask, you can't afford it), and they brought a cart to the table with black caviar and smoked salmon; sorriest smoked salmon I ever ate. As you said, it was more like sushi; severely undercooked./w3tcompact/icons/frown.gif And I can do without black caviar, too/w3tcompact/icons/laugh.gif, but the steaks were great.

<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1>Edited by Bird on 12/05/01 09:57 AM (server time).</FONT></P>

 

[Chuck52]

Yep. Been to a couple of those places. The only time I ever tried caviar, though, was on a plane trip. I was making a business trip to Holland to look at some instruments. The trip was paid by the company, and I couldn't believe how much the business class tickets were. Then the flight for the first leg of the trip from the local airport was cancelled because of "mechanical trouble"....they do that a lot when they don't have many passengers. I went up to the desk and showed them this big wad of tickets and somehow I ended up in a first class seat. How the Other Folks do live! Leg room! And you could actually eat the food! They can keep the caviar though. Anchovy paste is cheaper and tastes the same to me.

Chuck

 

[jfakerj]

I used to brine but change to dry salt. It much easier and faster. It's just as got if not better than brine. This is a variation from the commercial boys ( I used to be one)

mix 1/2 fine rock salt and 1/2 brown sugar - amount deppends on the amount of fish

add white pepper to taste I add quite a bit

put down some salt mix then fish. then cover with salt mix. you can put in layers or single layer.

let sit out for about 2 hours depending on the size of the fillets, alittle more for really thick and a little less time for thinner.

take out of salt and rinse well - pad dry
I then coat the top with honey and let sit out for 1/2 hour or so untill slightly glazed. you don't have to use honey if you don't want

I use a big chief smoker and usually use three pans of chips(2 apple and 1 hickory or for milder 1 alder) At todays temp. about 40* I'd smoke for about 4-6 hours.

Jerry