Smoking West Coast Salmon

I confess that I entered into the salmon smoking experiment completely daft and ignorant about the mysteries of smoking fish. But I learned. I learned about brining. I learned about the difference between hot and cold smoked fish. I will share this with you in picture format.

I had a coho salmon. It needed to be smoked. I was going to hot smoke it. Hot smoking involves exposing the food to smoke and heat in a controlled environment. Cold smoking refers to the process of curing food with smoke in an environment that doesn't exceed 38 degrees Celsius. Both processes require brining (something between marinading and pickling) before you smoke the fish.

Dan was sweet enough to share his brine recipe with me. His recipe is based on his father's recipe. I added some things to it. The brine involved soy sauce, brown sugar, garlic, celery, bay leaf, salt, and brown sugar. I filleted the fish, dropped it into the brine and popped in the fridge to macerate for 12 hours. Use a non-reactive container like plastic or glass. You don't want to brine salmon for more than three days.

Early the next morning, I woke up and retrieved the fish from the brine. Some people suggest that you should air dry the fish in a cool place with good air flow (you can use a fan) for at least two to three hours so that the fish has time to form a pellicle. The pellicle is a lacquer-like surface that forms on the fish when it's air dried. It helps the smoke adhere to the fish. I was very sleepy at 6 am. I used paper towel. Elegant, I know.

We went outside to plug the smoker in and fill the pan with the cherry wood chips I bought the day before.

Then we put the fish on the smoking racks. I didn't bother to cut the belly bones away when I filleted the fish. The flesh around the belly is the most flavorful part of the fish. You can also tell by my shameless photograph that my filleting job was fairly brutal.

We popped the fish inside the smoker and shivered outside in the damp Victoria early morning.

It was too early in the morning to ponder the postcolonial complexities of smoking my fish in a smoker called the "Little Chief."

Dan told us not to open the smoker door for the first three hours. Every forty-five minutes, Nathan would run out to put more wood chips in the pan.

After nine hours, the fish was smoked. For a first attempt, it was pretty delicious. I tested it out on Sharon, Thomas (a post coming up about them!) and some others. They all agreed it was quite tasty. Sharon told me that her father once smoked an entire turkey. That inspired me. I'll have to do another hot smoking experiment again soon.