Smoked Fish

[Doug]

OK I promised to post a recipe for smoked fish............

This brine works for just about any fish that can be smoked, but if you are truly hopeless as a cook you might as well just buy smoked fish and save yourself the aggravation, time, effort and expense.

BRINE:

all amounts extremely approximate since I do not measure anything, BUT it truly does not matter a whole lot.

4 litres cold water
1/2 cup salt, any kind at all, don't pay extra for kosher, it is just sodium cholride
2/3 cup white sugar, or brown sugar, or maple syrup, or molasses
1 tbsp soya sauce
1 tbsp lemon juice
some garlic powder, maybe 1/2 tsp, not too much
dash of Worcestershire sauce
anything else your little heart desires in the way of herbs and spices


Mix together the brine ingredients in a large steel or glass bowl. Do not use an aluminum bowl or you will poison yourself.

If you have skinned your fillets, at this point it is time to repent your sins and your penance is to drink the brine. All of it. Now go fry your fish.

BUT if you have left the skin ON the fillets you are good to go. You may put the whole fillets into the brine, SKIN side up, or you may cut the fillets into chunks and put them in the brine, SKIN side up. make sure all of the fillets are covered in the brine. If they are sticking up, put a plate or similar object into the bowl to keep them under the brine. Put the bowl into the fridge for an absolute minimum of four hours, 12 is better, 24 is about maximum.

Drain off the brine, and EITHER;

1. rinse the fillets with cold water; or

2. do not rinse the fillets with cold water.

The experts say to rinse. After hundreds of batches of smoked fish, I say do not rinse. (I have done it both ways.) Take your pick.

Lay the fillets out, skin side DOWN, on paper towels or newspaper/etc, for about an hour, or a lot less time if it is really hot (more than about 22 degrees C).

Then take the fillets and put them on oiled racks in your smoker, and follow the instructions for your smoker. EVERY smoker is different.

Enjoy!

Doug

[mikemicropterus]

Thanks Doug, I was just going to put it in the smoker as I have never smoked fish made lots of jerky though. Now I will try your recipe.

[Doug]

Keep an eye on it. If you already know your smoker well, that is a bonus. But some, especially the Brinkman's and other charcoal-fired smokers, do get mighty hot if the operator is not on top of things, and the fish gets dried out instead of properly smoked. I do not have a thermometer, but suspect the ideal smoking temperature for fish is probably right around 200 F.

You want the final product to be cooked the whole way through without being either "mushy" or tough. Sometimes hard to do with fillets having radically different thicknesses - thinnest stuff cooks fastest of course.

In my Luhr-Jensen "Big Chief" electric smoker, I generally put thick fillets (salmon, lakers) in for three pans of smoke, roughly three hours. Or if I am going to CAN the smoked fish, I only put it through a single pan of smoke, and it goes into the jars smoked but not completely cooked. Canned smoked fish is one of life's little delicacies.

Doug

[mikemicropterus]

Doug how thick do you cut your chunks and what do you use when you CAN them some kinda of pickling stuff???
Do you put them in a CAN or like a pickling bottle???
I have a big chief also thanks for all the info..

[Doug]

Depends on the fish. Most species I just smoke the whole fillets. Bigger fish like salmon I cut the fillets into chunks a few inches long. If you are going to serve it as finger-food, then just cut it into chunks about an inch wide, for "individual" servings.

I use Mason jars in a pressure canner, but the term for that is still called "canning."

Doug

[Doug]

Sorry, you also asked about what goes into the jar. (I almost said "bottle" which is what down-easters call jars. So we can fish into bottles and jars, don't you love the English language!

In STERILE jars I put enough fish to fill to about 1/4 inch from top, then a quarter-teaspoon of Hy's Seasoning salt. That's all for "normal" smoked fish, or for that matter canned fish that I ddi not smoke first.

But I have also added sweet onions, leeks, sherry, maple syrup, garlic, and other items to give me different flavours. One batch I did up two winters ago was smoked ling with onions - delicious, and I guarantee that you can count on the fingers of one hand the number of folks that have ever done up "that" recipe!

Doug