Smoked pink salmon is a simple but incredibly delicious dish that will appeal to almost everyone. It can be an ideal appetizer or an independent dish, as well as a fragrant addition to almost any side dish. The article describes in detail how to cook cold smoked fish at home, and also describes what and how much is needed for this.
Selection and preparation of ingredients
So that smoking is not only incredibly aromatic, but also extremely tasty, the choice of fish should be approached with the utmost seriousness. For cooking, you should buy only high-quality and fresh pink salmon, characterized by elastic, but soft flesh. At the same time, the product must not be frozen, otherwise the traditional taste of smoked meats will be greatly distorted.
The most suitable fish for smoking has the following characteristics:
- dense and elastic skin, well adhering to the pulp, without spots, cracks and other injuries;
- pink abdomen, slightly flattened;
- elastic pulp, which instantly recovers after pressing;
- bright light red gills;
- weight in the range of 0.8–1.5 kg.
Important! Fish must exude a pleasant aroma. Examples with an uncharacteristic odor, especially ammonia, should be discarded.
Preparing pink salmon for smoking is quite simple, for this you should follow these steps in sequence:
- Rinse the fish under cold running water.
- Make a straight cut from head to tail.
- Pull out the insides, rinse the pink salmon again under running water, and then dry well with paper towels.
- Perform a shallow incision in the area of the spine in the inside.
Cold smoked pink salmon recipes
There are a lot of various recipes and methods for making smoked pink salmon on the net, including also using the hot method. However, not every one of them can be called really popular. This is due to many reasons, including all kinds of errors in the processing of raw materials, as well as pickling before direct cooking. Below is a description of the two most successful of them, based on the simplest cooking method.
Classic recipe with smoke generator
1 kg60 hours
pre-peeled pink salmon
1.3 kg
Nutritional value per 100 g:
Rub the fish well with salt, and then put it in a deep container with a lid for 2 days (the ambassador should be done at a temperature of +15 ... + 18 ° С). Its bottom must be slightly sprinkled with salt.
Remove the salted pink salmon and dry it at room temperature. Put the fish in the smokehouse for 12 hours. The smoke generator mode must be set so that fresh smoke is fed into the chamber every 7 minutes.
Get the smoked products, and stand them for about an hour before use.
Rub the fish well with salt, and then put it in a deep container with a lid for 2 days (the ambassador should be done at a temperature of +15 ... + 18 ° С). Its bottom must be slightly sprinkled with salt.
Remove the salted pink salmon and dry it at room temperature. Put the fish in the smokehouse for 12 hours. The smoke generator mode must be set so that fresh smoke is fed into the chamber every 7 minutes.
Get the smoked products, and stand them for about an hour before use.Did you know? Pink salmon is considered one of the oldest creatures on the planet, its ancestors appeared in the Mesozoic era (about 140 million years ago).
Video recipe
Smoked in a box
1 kg 8-15 hours
pre-peeled pink salmon
1.3 kg
Nutritional value per 100 g:
Divide the pink salmon into fillets and head, and then salt everything well. Put the blanks in any kitchen bowl for 4-8 hours (depending on the size of the fillet). As the juice is allocated, it must be drained.
While the fish is being salted, you need to make a smoking cabinet. To do this, take a cardboard or wooden box (10-15 cm more than pink salmon), and then approximately in the center, at the same level, you need to make 4-8 holes on each side. After that, dense metal wire or wooden sticks should be installed in parallel holes.
Put the pieces of fish on the net.
Close the box tightly, make one small hole in the lid, and one in the side, and put it in a separate place. Turn on the smoke generator, connect an air compressor to it, and set the minimum air supply mode on it. Connect the pipe from the smoke generator to the box, through the side hole.
In such conditions, the workpiece needs to be smoked for about 4–7 hours (depending on the size of pink salmon). This method is express smoking technology, as it allows you to get the finished product in about a day.
Divide the pink salmon into fillets and head, and then salt everything well. Put the blanks in any kitchen bowl for 4-8 hours (depending on the size of the fillet). As the juice is allocated, it must be drained.
While the fish is being salted, you need to make a smoking cabinet. To do this, take a cardboard or wooden box (10-15 cm more than pink salmon), and then approximately in the center, at the same level, you need to make 4-8 holes on each side. After that, dense metal wire or wooden sticks should be installed in parallel holes.
Put the pieces of fish on the net.
Close the box tightly, make one small hole in the lid, and one in the side, and put it in a separate place. Turn on the smoke generator, connect an air compressor to it, and set the minimum air supply mode on it. Connect the pipe from the smoke generator to the box, through the side hole.
In such conditions, the workpiece needs to be smoked for about 4–7 hours (depending on the size of pink salmon). This method is express smoking technology, as it allows you to get the finished product in about a day.Important! For smoking, only chopped wood chips and exclusively hardwood trees should be used. In this case, the raw material must necessarily be dried in a natural way, otherwise the final dish will get an unpleasant aftertaste and aroma of tar.
Video recipe
Smoked pink salmon is an incredibly simple dish that almost everyone can do. You can make it without any problems, since you can pump fish with a minimum set of equipment made from improvised materials. But in order to make smoked meats really tasty, special attention should be paid to the quality of the raw material.
