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How to smoke fish
technique
recipes
instructive pictures
On the Dutch part of my site there
are some recipes for smoked fish. I have received several requests fo an English
version of these recipes, so here you are.
Smoking is a very ancient way to
conserve food. In the past, when most of the cooking was done on an open fire,
the process of smoking was simple: after salting and/or drying, the fish (or
gammon, or whatever) was hung in the rising smoke. In fact, since the place of
food preparation could be very smoky (in primitive houses the cooking was done in
the same room where one lived and slept, with just a hole in the roof instead of
a chimney), almost everything tasted of smoke.
When you could afford charcoal, which was more expensive than plain wood, you had less
smoke.
Nowadays the fire is locked up in the kitchen-range, so giving your food a
smoked flavour has become more of an undertaking. It is no use hanging your food
under the range hood, because the "smoke" that rises from the pots and
pans is water vapour.
There are basically two methods of
smoking food: on low temperature for a longer period of time, and for less time
at a higher temperature. Whatever method you use, you need something that can
produce smoke. Let's keep it simple to start with: wood produces smoke! (You
didn't know that, did you!) However, you can't just use any piece of wood you
can lay your hands on. Do not use the remains of an old decrepit chair to smoke
food on, because the wood was probably treated with paint or varnish or other
substances that cause unhealthy fumes. It is safest to use sawdust or woodchips that are
especially produced for smoking food. They come in several kinds, like
birchwood, oak, or beech.
The Chinese use another medium to smoke their food: a mixture of uncooked rice
and black tea with spices. You get very tasty results with that.
On this site are two recipes for
smoked fish: smoked salmon the Western way, and smoked cod the Chinese way.
These can be found here.
Cold-smoking. This process is more
difficult than hot-smoking. The fish is smoked at a temperature of 30 dgC at the
most (85 dgF). It takes a long time to smoke the food (anything from 12 hours up
to 4 days), and a constant eye has to kept on the temperature and the smoke. The
result is conserved food with a delicious smokey taste. I have no experience
with cold-smoking myself. Fish is not the only cold-smoked food, think about
ham, bacon, sausages.
Since the purpose of cold-smoking is to conserve the food, it is not wise to cut
it open to see if it is done. To know if the food is smoked enough you have to
weigh it when it is fresh before salting it, and after smoking. During the
curing fish loses 13 to 20% from its weight, meat and poultry can lose up to 25
%.
Hot-smoking is done at higher
temperature, fish between 65 and 71 dgC (150-160 dgF), meat is smoked at even
higher temperature, 93 to 107 dgC (200 to 225 dgF). The result is also clearly
smoked, but the food has not been conserved, you'll have to treated it as cooked
food (keep in the refrigerator, eat within a day or two). Depending on whether
the food has already been cooked, the time needed to smoke your food varies
between ten minutes up to several hours.
You can buy special smokers, or you
can use an ordinary pan. I have described the process below, you can find
pictures on this page.
The
Smoker. My smoker is nearly
twenty years old. It has the size of a shoe-box. There are other models, some
are flatter and wider. In my smoker I can smoke two layers of food in one
go.
A smoker consists of the box, a fitting cover, a dripping tray, and one or two
gridirons. Most smokers are provided with a burner for meths or burning paste,
but I often use the stove.
If you want to save yourself some dirty cleaning, line the bottom of the smoker
with a piece of aluminium foil (shiny side up). On this foil you sprinkle some
sawdust or very small woodchips especialy for use in a smoker. Then you put the
dripping tray in the smoker. That is needed to collect the dripping fat and
moisture. The greased grid with the food you want to smoke is placed on tn
the dripping tray, then you close the smoker.
Do not be impatient and open the smoker too soon just to take a look, because
then the smoke will escape. When the smoking is done, open the smoker somewhere
outside, or under the working range hood.
Smoking
food in a pan. You do not HAVE to buy a special smoker. You can get
the same result using one of your ordinary pans. The only extras you need a lot
of aluminium foil, and a grid that fits in the pan. Do NOT use aluminium pans or
Teflon pans for this.
You start with two large sheets of alufoil which you use the cover the inside of
the pan with. Arrange them crosswise, and shiny side up. The sheets must be so
long that they hang over the side of pan. Now you sprinkle the woodchips on the
bottom. place three small empty cans (for tomato purée) on the bottom, and on
this a plate that functions as dripping tray. On the plate you place a grid. If
you haven't one that fits, improvise one with bamboo skewers that have steeped
in water for 30 minutes. Cover the lid of the pan also with alufoil.
Place the pan on a high burner. When the wood starts to smoke you set the grid
with the food you want to smoke on the plate, and you close the pan with the
lid. Krinkle the alufoil of pan and lid together. If you are using a pan for the
first time, you can leave just one small opening so you can check whether there
is enough smoke, but not too much.
To open the pan you go outside, or you open it under the working range hood.
Take out the grid with the food. Because the pan was complete covered with
alufoil, all you have to do now is fold the foil together and throw it away.
Your pan is still clean!
Smoking
on a BBQ. You can also smoke food on a barbecue. What am I saying?
The essence of barbecued food is the smokey taste! But to really smoke your
food, you'll need a cover to trap the smoke. It will have to have some vent
holes, because the heatsource is in the barbecue too. To get the smoke, soke
wood chips or chunks for 30 minutes to three hours in water - or brandy, or
portwine. You can buy "smoke-boxes" for in the barbecue, made of some
perforated metal, which you place between the smouldering charcoal. You can also
sprinkle the steeped woodchips on top of the charcoal. Use the so-called
"indirect method": place the fuel to the left and right in the
barbecue, and in the middle you put a dripping tray filled with water. The food
is placed over the dripping tray. Then you close the barbecue, and the smoke
will circulate around the food. The temperature must not be too high.
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Pre-salting.
Whatever method you use for smoking food, first you will have to prepare the
food by curing it with fry salt or brine, or the result will disappoint you. When you are cold-smoking,
curing is very important to garantuee that the food is conserved in the proper
way. When you are hot-smoking it is necessary for a good flavour.
One of the methods is dry curing. The fish or other food is salted by placing it
for a certain amount of time in a mixture of coarse sea-salt, sugar and maybe
spices/herbs and citrus peel. Other methods are strong brine (water with 80 to
90% salt) and a weaker brine with les salt but the addition of sugar. Whatever
method you use, timing is very important. When the food has not been salted long
enough, the end-product will not be conserved well enough (when cold-smoking).
Has it been salted too long, you end up with uneatable food. But you can vary
the degrees of salting and smoking: lightly salted and heavily smoked food
tastes different from heavily salted and lightly smoked food. Please consult
tables in books for the exact timing and recipes for brine.
Drying.
When the food has been salted, it needs to dry. First rinse of the food under
running water, and pat it dry. Then the food has to dry. You can place it
uncovered on a grid in the refrigerator for several hours. The Dutch climate is
not suitable for drying foods outside in the wind.
There is a lot more that can be said
on curing and smoking food. There are several books and sites on this subject.
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