it’s heavenly!!!!
The salmon is done and the smoker is a broken in!!!!! Can you tell I’m excited and giddy? Just a tad. That I am my friends. That I am.
So, I basically followed this recipe. It called for a gallon of water, 2 cups of brown sugar and 2 cups of table salt. I’ll give the ingredients a negative 10 on the difficulty scale of 1 to 10.
I soaked a 1.5 lb filet of wild Alaskan sockeye salmon in the brine for an hour and then let it air dry for another hour.
The pink salmon meat glistened and begged me to consume it right after the brining but I was strong people. I held out. All them meatings (misspelling intended) of Eaters Anonymous paid off as my hunger mounted exponentially. The glutton that I am!
Once the hour had passed and the salmon had dried, I placed about three tablespoons of alder flavored woodchips in my smoker followed by the drip pan and finally the grill with the salmon layed atop it.
I turned my stove to medium heat (it’s a Viking so a little below medium sufficed) and once I saw a wisp of smoke, I closed the smokers lid and let it do its job.
At the 30 minute mark, I noticed that my apartment began smelling like an evening ski house in the middle of December. It was lovely.
Did a fireplace grow in my apartment overnight and I forgot to take notice of it? No, ladies and gentleman. No such luck. The smell of the wood chips smoldering left me in a snowy daze. I was a happy camper.
It was also at the 30 minute mark that I inspected the smoker and noticed that it was allowing a good amount of smoke to escape. As per the manufacturers troubleshooting instructions I “tweaked” the smoker by opening it halfway and bending the lid every so slightly that it was actually difficult in closing afterwards. But the smoke was kept prisoner from that point forward. Mission and tweak accomplished.
The salmon smoked for a total of about 90 minutes. And it tastes like heaven. A smoky, charming, softened heaven. For those friends of mine who were lucky enough to travel and fish in Alaska with me - do you guys remember that Ron, the lodge owner, smoked and cured two types of fish for us? One was a loxy cured kind. And the other was a smoky soft kind that came in flavors like lemon pepper, cajun, hickory and au natural. My salmon today is most like the au natural salmon that Ron made for us. Its every bit as fresh and soft and tender and tasty.
I’m letting it cool now. As it cools, I’ll be running to Whole Foods for capers, cream cheese, creme fraiche and red onions. I already have challah bread in the house for this meal. Stay tuned for more photos.
