James Strawbridge, Cornish Development Chef & Sustainable Living Expert, gives us a masterclass on how to smoke your own fish at home.
Generally, the fattier fish with more oily flesh, like mackerel and salmon, are better for smoking but you can also experiment with shellfish or cure white fish. The magical alchemy when you combine salt and wood smoke with fish is something that can make your fish feel meatier and bring out the delicate flavour tones to make a more robust tasting meal. I also often use sugar for my fish curing as it softens the slightly harsh salty flavour and can help encourage the growth of bacteria like Lactobacillus whilst keeping the fish safe to eat.
Safety is a key element of curing and smoking seafood and my advice is to always source fresh, good quality fish in the first instance. Take a trip to your local fish market early one morning or speak to your fishmonger about oily fish. Also carefully follow the instructions on percentages of salt in a cure or smoking times, and maintain good chilled temperatures when storing your fish. Finally, especially with seafood, ensure you clean down your area well to avoid cross contamination.
My most important nugget of advice when considering smoking and curing fish at home is to enjoy it and try to get out fishing first. I’m lucky enough to live near the sea in Cornwall where the fishing is good and we have a strong culinary heritage for cured and smoked fish. You could be lucky enough to have a friend with a boat for a special fishing day-trip and if not treat yourself and book onto a boat next time you’re on holiday and remember to bring a portable smoking stove for the campsite – just in case. The level of excitement catching a fish has never left me, but then getting to take it home, cure it, smoke it and serve it to your friends or family is almost unbeatable.
Hot Smoking
Hot Smoking fish is a method that opens up a whole world of flavour and cooking techniques that can add real depth to fish, but still maintain its delicate flaky texture. Remember that fish doesn’t take much cooking in the pan and the same’s the case for hot smoking, so don’t be tempted to overdo the amount of wood chips you use. Less is more with the smoke.
Hot smoking can be done in almost any grill or smoker and is easier and quicker than cold smoking, which may require more specialized equipment. The result you get is equally smokey, but isn’t dried or preserved in the same way.
CHOOSING YOUR FISH
Pretty much any fish can be hot smoked – including shellfish – but the tastiest and best at absorbing flavour are oily fish. The oil in a fish like mackerel for example, provides a permeable coating for the smoke to really penetrate inwards. Other fishes that are ideal for hot smoking are salmon, mackerel, trout, eel and smaller fish such as Cornish sardines.
EQUIPMENT
To hot smoke, you’ll need two things: heat and a lidded container where the smoke can drift over the fish. A charcoal or gas barbecue, with the temperature kept low and the lid on, is perfect, but a lidded wok or bread tin with a few holes poked in the top will work just fine too. Alternatively, you can get yourself a stove-top smoker or hot smoking cabinet, but DIY contraptions often work just as well.
CURING
It is very important that before smoking your fish you cure it in either a salt water brine or a dry salt cure. This process of preparing the fish is required for both hot and cold smoking techniques and draws out excess water from the fish, leaving you with a firmer and more flavoursome fish ready to be smoked. Basic water brine is made up of water and equal quantities of sugar and salt. The salt and sugar in the brine do more than just flavour the fish. They are part of a delicate balance between removing and retaining moisture in the flesh of the fish. The salt plays the important part of breaking down the proteins, removing excess water, preserving the fish and enhancing the flavours.
BRINE
A basic measure of salt water brine is 2 pints of cold water; 4oz salt and 4oz brown sugar. To add to the flavours, you can also add fresh herbs, spices, hot peppers, garlic, onions, wine, soy sauce or just about anything you want to add extra flavours to your smoked fish.
DRY CURE
The simplest cure, and the one I use most often, is a 50:50 mix of granulated brown sugar and coarse sea salt or rock salt. Feel free to experiment by adding more flavours to the basic cure. Coarse ground black pepper, lemon, lime or orange zest, herbs and spices all work well. For a basic dry salt cure, simply cover the fish in salt and brown sugar. A typical measure is 100g salt and 100g sugar per 1 kilogram of fish.
The easiest way to do it is to sprinkle on a layer of the cure into a plastic or ceramic container, place the fish on top, and sprinkle over some further cure. Generally, a handful of cure will be enough for a couple of small fish, a mackerel or a salmon fillet steak. Wrap the fish and cure up, and place in the fridge overnight. Remove from the fridge, rinse off the cure, and pat dry with kitchen towel. Place back in the fridge uncovered for a minimum of 6-8 hours to allow the pellicle to form – this is a sticky, salty surface layer that helps the smoke particles stick to the fish.
WOOD CHIPS
Think of the smoke itself as another kind of seasoning; as with any seasoning, it’s easy to overdo it and overpower the fish. Here’s a list of my favourite woods for smoking fish:
Oak: the classic bold flavour, great with mackerel and salmon, but easy to overdo.
Beech: Is the best all-round wood. It’s light, subtle and fragrant.
Apple: mild, fruity, wonderful.
Almost any kind of wood will work, but you might wish to use woods like alder or fruit woods. Salmon is often smoked with alder, as this is a tradition that dates back to the indigenous peoples of the northwestern United States.
Tea Smoked Fish
An alternative to wood chips, tea creates a really unusual rich, musky smoke often paired with mackerel and trout. To tea-smoke fish, cure a couple of fillets and then line a large pan with a layer of tinfoil, and then add a handful of long grain rice, a handful of demerara sugar and a handful of loose-leaf tea. Add another layer of foil, but make a few small holes in it so the smoke can get through. Lightly oil the skin side of the fish, and place it on the foil. Pop the lid on and turn the heat on to medium for a couple of minutes until smoke starts appearing. Turn the heat to low for 10 mins, then turn it off altogether and leave the pan in place for another 10 mins, so the fi sh can absorb the smoke. The fish should be perfectly cooked at this point. Make sure you lift the lid off outside if you have sensitive smoke alarms!
The fish can then be enjoyed as is with a salad, turned into a pate, or flaked into pasta.
If you can restrain yourself from eating it straight away, the fish will benefit from 4-5 hours in the fridge for the smoke to mellow and permeate. Wrap it up well in baking parchment and string, otherwise everything else in the fridge will smell of smoke too. Smoked fish will keep a week or two or you can freeze it for up to a couple of months.
Bbq Grill Plank
Plank smoking is a basic technique designed for practical results and perfect for cooking all sorts of fish. Using wooden planks for grilling opens up delicate items to go into a hot smoker without falling though the grill. It can also impart a lovely secondary subtle smoky flavour from the plank itself.
The wooden grilling planks are normally thin pieces of wood, about 6” x 12” in size, that go straight onto your grill and get topped with food.
HOW TO SMOKE ON PLANKS
Before using a wooden plank, you must first soak it so that it doesn’t simply burn in your BBQ or hot smoker. You’ll want to submerge the wood plank in water for at least 30 mins with something heavy on top to stop it from floating. Soaking first helps keep whatever you’re smoking nice and moist, and prevents the plank from catching on fire. You could also soak in fruit juice or cider for something special with a large fillet of fish.
Preheat your smoker or BBQ before placing your food into it.
Plank smoked food needs a little longer to cook than if it was sitting right on the grates. It has the effect of cooking with indirect heat, especially since the plank starts out wet and a little cold. There is one simple test you can always perform with fish to check to see if it is done. You can insert a fork into the centre of the fish for 5-10 seconds. Then pull it out and touch the metal. If the metal feels hot to the touch, your fish will be done. You can also tell because your fish will shrink down slightly and develop a white liquid on the outside and flake easily.