Smoked Salmon Recipe
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Category: |
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Ingredients: |
Ingredients: 4-8 lbs Salmon Fillets (any type of fish fillet is fine as long as you leave the skin on)
1 cup Kosher salt (any salt will do as long as it is iodine free)
1 cup brown sugar
½ cup Soy Sauce (optional)
1 gal. water
Lemon Pepper
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Directions: |
Directions:Dissolve salt and brown sugar in one gallon of water and add Soy Sauce to create a brine solution. Place the fillets in a non-metallic container such as a mixing bowl or 11 x 17 Pyrex baking dish and cover completely with brine solution. Allow the fillets to soak in the refrigerator for 12 to 30 hours. Soaking for much longer than 30 hours and the fillets may become too soft.
Remove fillets from the brine and pat dry with a paper towel. At this point I rub the non-skin side of the fillets with lemon pepper. Allow the fillets to rest on a rack (skin side down) for a couple of hours and develop a pellicle (a salty glaze). This is an important step.
While the fillets are airing, soak the wood chips and fill the water container in the smoker. I use an electric smoker and whatever kind of wood chips I can pick up at the local home improvement store. Most of the time it is hickory chips but traditionalists will opt for alder (not easily found in the southeast). Mesquite works very well, too.
After the fillets have air dried sufficiently to develop the salty glaze, place them on the racks above the water container skin side down (I usually spray the racks with cooking oil to reduce the tendency to stick), add chips to the burner level and cover. Avoid lifting the cover for the first couple of hours. Lifting the lid will add at least 20 minutes to your smoking time.
Depending on how thick the fillets are, the smoking time can take between 2 to 6 hours or until the thickest part reaches 140°F. Two hours should be sufficient if your fillets are less than 1 inch thick. It has taken up to 6 hours for fillets that were 3 inches thick. I will normally charge the smoker 2 or 3 times with wood chips during the cooking time so that I’m seeing a little smoke constantly drifting from the smoker.
You can also use lemon juice and/or hot sauce in your brine for additional flavor. |
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