I’m always scared when I get invited to dinner parties, I’m afraid to be offered smoke salmon. What? Why? What is wrong with you?! Some of you are thinking. The reason for this fear is that most people buy very bad smoke salmon of industry produced quality. I just hate those, they mostly tasteless with non identifiable smoke flavor and often made from poor quality salmon. On the other hand a good, flavourful smoke salmon is either difficult to come by or very expensive. God damn it! I still want to eat some. The solution? Making it myself.
I looked around and I learned about hot smoking vs cold smoking, brining, drying, pellicule etc… It was a lot of information to take in, but if I wanted to be able to fill my need for good salmon, I had to get through all that. For my first attempt at smoking something I went with hot smoking. At that time I bought off the internet a Cameron stove top smoker and smoked salmon, pork, vegetables, lots of food. It was fun and loved the result, but I really wanted to cold smoke stuff. Obviously, leaving in a flat in central London, buying a garden cold smoker was out of the question.
One day, browsing on the net I found the solution to my problem. The proQ cold smoke generator. this very small apparatus generates smoke for 8 to 10 hours without generating heat. Check this youtube video bellow.
I was also very cheap, around £25, I had to get me one! I ordered mine and anxiously waited for it to arrive. In the meantime I read around about cold smoking and especially cold smoking salmon. Everything I could land my hands on. One beautiful day it arrived. This was a year or so ago, and since then I smoked salmon several time including a 5 kilos batch last christmas. I actually bought my first vacuum sealer to be able to transport smoke salmon.
As I was saying in my previous post about sous vide scallops, I picked up a nice salmon filet, 2 kilos worth from my fishmonger las Wednesday with the idea to smoke it, here’s how it’s done.
Important: Salmon must be kept refrigerated at all time before and after smoking. If using liquid brine, it must be used between 1.5°C and 4.5°C, too cold it will slow down the curring process, too hot and you’ll be in the danger zone.
Homemade smoke salmon.
- Salmon fillet.
- For the brine.
- 1 cup Salt.
- ½ cup white sugar.
- ½ cup brown sugar.
- Dill.
- Black Pepper.
- Oak sawdust.
Prep: Freeze the fish a couple of days before brining. freezing ruptures cell walls and kills parasites.
The first stage before smoking anything is to brine the product. You can either do a wet brine or a dry brine, personally I prefer the dry one. On the worktop of your kitchen lay down some cling film. In a bowl, mix together the salt, both the sugars, the black pepper and the chopped up dill. I divided the sugar between white and brown, because brown sugar add flavour to the party. sprinkle a good layer of the mix directly on the cling film.
You can add spices or even honey to this brine, on the web you’ll find hundreds of different recipes. I prefer the simpler version, I don’t want to kill the flavour of the salmon
You would have prior to that, made sure that there no bones left on the salmon fillet and that it was properly cleaned up. If so, place the salmon skin side down on the salt layer. sprinkle the rest of the salt on the flesh side of the fillet. make sure that it’s covered completely with the salt mixture. Close the cling film around tightly applying some pressure on the fish.
Now you have two option, the first one, you cover the filmed fillet with silver foil and place it in a dish with tall edges to make sure that the juices are not going to drip in your fridge. Or you have a vacuum sealer like I do and in that case you can put the fillet covered with the cling film in pouch and vacuum seal the whole thing.
Whatever option your choosing, reserve the resulting package in the fridge and place some weight on top ot it. Weighting the fish is important. It help extract the moisture. I used a chopping board weighted with a cast iron skillet to weight mine.
The first stage is done. depending on the size and thickness of the fillet, you leave the fish in the fridge between 6 to 12 hours. If you like a firmer salmon you can go up to 24 hours, but rincing the salt will take more time. I left mine for 18 hours. It was quite thick and I like firm fish.
Stage two starts. After the curing periode you need to rince off the cure off the fish. Remove the fillet from the cling film, do this on top of the sinc, they will be lots of liquid. rince with cold water. do not scrub off the surface of the fish try to be gentle. remove as much salt as possible, you can leave it in a dish with cold water up to two hours, changing the water every 15 minutes, taste the fish if it’s still too salty, put it back in the water for one more hour, not more than 6 or the fish will start absorbing water like a sponge. If you’re squirmish and can’t taste raw fish, cook it slightly in a microwave or in a pan. But if you’re like me and love sushi, it shouldn’t be a problem.
Stage 3 is upon us. Drying the fish. Drying the fish has an important function. It creates what is called a pellicule on the surface of the fish. The pellicule is a thin layer of protein. which will act as a magnet for the smoke. it’s a very important step. Place the fish in the fridge to dry for 12 hours.
Stage 4. Final stage. Smoking. As I said earlier I leave in a flat, so I had to come up with a solution to be able to smoke. I’m using a simple cardboard box. Inside it I placed a metal container in which the cold smoke generator rest. I made a little tent with silver foil to make sure that no dripping would kill the smouldering sawdust. I pierced holes on the side and inserted metal rods that are used to hold a rack. I placed the whole thing in my bathroom with the window wide opened. People often ask me if having the whole flat smelling of smoke doesn’t bother me and the truth is, the smoke generated is not huge, with the window opened the smell disapear quite fast, after a day it’s gone. When I smoked the 5 Kilos of salmon last Christmas I had the stupid idea of doing it in my oven, now that was a bad idea, it took around 3 month for the oven to loose its smoke smell, I can tell you that I didn’t bake any cake during that time. So my advice will be to have enough areation, if you have a balcony it’s even better. For the container, I use a cardboard box, but any container would do, I seen people using old filing cabinet or even old fridge. Just be careful that you isolate the smouldering sawdust from any flamable material.
Let’s get back to stage 4. I start the smoke, by igniting the sawdust and leave it to do his job for the next 10 hours. That’s usually the time it takes to smoke the fish, but for the latest one I wanted to try to leave for 24 hours, after the first quantity of sawdust burned out I replaced it and ignited it again. 24 hours later I had smoke salmon. I cut some slices to eat raw and a fillet to cook and refrigerated the rest after vacuum sealing it.
It tastes great, homemade salmon is the best smoke salmon you’ll ever had, you’ll never buy it from the store after tasting it. Beside the fact that doing your own is very cool, It is way cheaper than buying it already made. You can control the whole process, you can cure it exactlty the way you want it using any aromatics you want. you can use any types of smoke you’d fancy, for this recipes I used oak, but dozen of different saw dust are available. That’s freedom for you and freedom taste good.
Being crazy about sous vide, I had to cook a piece in my waterbath. I cooked it at 47°C for 30 minutes with just a knob of butter and black pepper. It was suculent and melting tender. add to that a nice oak flavour, it was the ultimate sous vide salmon.
I gave a piece to a friend and he enjoyed it with his girlfriend. He sent me picture of his diner. He told me that it was the best salmon he had for a while.
Enjoy!
English
French
