Tonight we had smoked salmon, fried potatoes and tomato/cucumber salad. Vince came in from getting the salmon out of the smoker and he said “Do you have anything else you can heat up for dinner?” I thought he had dropped the salmon or something terrible had happened to it. I said “I’m sure I can come up with something. Why?” He said “This looks so good, I may not share with you!” Nice husband, huh? He does make the best smoked salmon!
We use the Smokette Elite from Cook Shack. We’ve had it for 6 or 7 years (or maybe 8 years!). We use it a lot and we love it! For the salmon, Vince uses a large grain salt and sprinkles it on the non-skin sides of the fish. If it has skin, he doesn’t salt that side. If it doesn’t have skin, he salts both sides. He sticks it in the fridge, in a container (9 x 13 glass dish) uncovered for about 15 minutes. Then he rinses it, pats it dry, re-salts it and he might do that again. After the final rinsing and drying, he coats it with brown sugar and lets it sit in the fridge overnight uncovered and then smokes it for a couple of hours at about 200. We like the milder woods – cherry, peach, apple. Too bad we don’t love mesquite since it’s EVERYWHERE around here.
We have homemade pineapple ice cream for dessert and I’m going to spend the rest of the evening knitting.
Erin says
Yumm! Glad you both had a fabulous dinner and will enjoy the night!
Perry says
Wish I liked salmon but the only way I can eat it is in a patty made with canned sockeye. lol…..haven’t had any in a long long time. As for the ice cream, I just wanted to say I made your strawberry ice cream with eagle brand and since I couldn’t find any “big red” in OK, I made it with Welch’s Raspberry Limeade. It comes in a glass bottle and is really really good, and does a great job with the strawberries and eagle brand. Also is yummy to drink. Am going to try the pineapple next. Sure glad there are no calories in this kind of ice cream, right? 🙂
Linda Kay says
Does he smoke it to a certain temperature?
Quiltinggranna says
That’s very close to the way we learned to smoke salmon in Alaska. We use rock salt and brown sugar. But only smoke about an hour, no more. We have brought home about 50 pounds on each of our 3 trips. I cook it many different ways. Smoked salmon chowder is my favorite I think. On a cold winter day, it is wonderful. May get my husband to smoke some this week. And by the way, I miss your weekly menu plans, especially now that you have so much coming in your garden.
Linda Steller says
Oooo. That looks really good. Our local Costco has begun to have their shipments of the wild Copper River Salmon a few times a week, and I’ve been buying it and freezing it in my foodsaver bags. A lot of what is available at decent prices, even around here, is farm-raised fish and I just won’t eat that stuff, so I keep an eye out for the good wild fish. So good for us!