Homemade smoked salmon Very easy detailed recipe in the smokehouse

Making smoked salmon yourself is incredibly easy for absolutely delicious results and so much cheaper than smoked salmon from supermarkets or caterers! It just takes time because the process is quite long.

Let me explain. It requires a few steps, each one as easy as the next, but which spread over time, You will need a total of 4 to 5 days between the first step and the minimum rest period after completion.

You also need the right equipment to smoke your salmon, a smoking room. You can possibly use a Weber type barbecue, which has a lid.
For my part, I bought a Barbecook brand smoker, the medium-sized Oskar model (no sponsor here, just the model I have), bought on sale for around €200. You can use the principles of this recipe but without smoking the salmon, by making gravlax salmon. If you like I have a great recipe for gravlax with beetroot.

Information on the smokehouse and the smoking process

A smoker allows ingredients to be smoked using two different methods: either hot smoked or cold smoked.

Hot smoking

For the hot smoking method, we make embers like for a barbecue. In these embers, wood shavings previously molded and enclosed are placed there in a perforated metal box or a foil packet in which small holes are made on the top. Then the floor above is a large bowl water possibly scented with bay leaves, rosemary branches, etc. This water provides ambient humidity and regulates the temperature which does not show too much.
And finally the grill with our food to smoke.
The latter will thus cook at low temperature +/- 100° while being smoked.

With this technique, I make a hot smoked salmon which, cooked gently in this smoky and humid environment, has incredible tenderness and aroma.

Cold smoking

The cold smoking method used here is completely different although we use the same device. Sawdust is placed in a coil specific. And had top the food to be smoked on a rack. We sets fire at the beginning of the coilfor example by putting a small tea light candle under the start of the coil. The sawdust will burn little by little over several hours. And will give a smoky taste to the food.

There is therefore no no cooking here, this is why cold smoked meats or fish must be precooked. This is why the salmon here is cooked in salt like a gravlax salmon before being smoked.
You can also smoke cheese or even salt with this technique. No precooking in these cases.
Cold smoking cannot therefore be done when it is too hot. the temperature must be below 20° in the smoker.

I deliver to you here the recipe and all the secrets of my neighbor Guillaume who is a real smoked salmon pro.

1st step: preparing the salmon

Choose one very thick and not too fatty salmon fillet.

As the process is same whether you use a whole fillet of salmon (i.e. 1/2 salmon), we have a smaller piece, I encourage you to do this with a whole fillet, smoked salmon keeps very well.
The only limit for size is the diameter of your smoker. As you can see in the photos, I had to cut a little bit off the end of my half salmon, on the thinner part on the tail side. It made me a meal!

Keep the skin but remove the bones. Arm yourself with patience and a pair of kitchen tweezers, if not tweezers, and remove the bones one by one.
The edges are all on a line along the net. Pass your finger over this part and as soon as you feel an edge, gently remove it without damaging the flesh of the fish.

Then rinse the fillet and pat it dry with absorbent paper.

2nd step: salting

We talk about dry salting or brining, that is to say that no liquid element is added to the salting. The goal is to extract moisture from the fish to prevent bacteria from growing.

The ingredients we need are coarse salt (ideally sea salt which is less aggressive than coarse mineral salt or even fine salt), a little brown sugar.
And optional: a few peppercorns and crushed pink berries, dill and cling film.

The salting process:

• Use a dish large and long enough to hold the salmon fillet.
• Place a stretch film lengthwise without cutting the end because we are going to wrap the fish at the end.
• Cover with salt then place the salmon fillet there, skin side down.
• Then we sprinkle the flesh of the fish with a thin layer of brown sugar Who helps to reduce the attack of salt on the flesh and to fix the colors of the salmon.
• We cover generously with coarse sea salt, or a mixture of sea salt, pepper or 5 crushed berries, chopped dill). In the photos I made strata then roughly mixed but it amounts to the same thing.
• Fold the cling film over the fish and wrap well to package the salmon.

Place in the refrigerator and leave in the salt for +/- 7 hours. The ideal salting time is 5 to 10 hours.

3rd step: desalination

Remove the salmon from the refrigerator and rinse it well under clean water to remove all the salt.

Be careful, as salting involves cooking but also removing water from the fish, you risk having “juice” in your cling film.
And don’t be afraid if the fish is all tough. It’s surprising, even worrying, but it’s normal.

Then place your salmon in a sufficiently large and high dish and immerse it in water. Leave in the water for 1 hour, changing the water twice, every 20 minutes.
Pat dry with absorbent paper. Still no worries, the flesh remains as firm as before desalting.

4th step: drying

Return the salmon fillet to your dish and leave it in the open air in your refrigerator for 12 hours before moving on to the crucial step, cold smoking.

This step should not be neglected because the smoke being hydrophobicthat is to say that it is repelled by humidity, if your salmon is still too moist, the smoke and therefore all the aromas of the smoking wood will not enter the salmon flesh and you will not have that smoky taste that we are looking for.

5th step: cold smoking

First choose your smoking wood.

The most common are the beech, alder, apple or cherry wood but you can also find sawdust from fir, olive, juniper, oak, whiskey barrels, vines, etc.
Each one has its own smells and will bring a little something different to your smoked salmon. You can also make mixtures. I admit I haven’t tested it so I can’t tell you if you can really feel a difference in the taste.
Personally I have beech and alder sawdust at home. You can find them on the internet or in stores that sell barbecues.

Put the sawdust in your coil, without packing too much or aerating the density of the sawdust too much.
Place a tea light at the beginning.
Place the salmon skin side down on the grill. Some hang it on a hook. Either the smoke should better envelop the flesh but I have always been afraid that the fillet would break this way, so I have never tested it.
Then light the candle, make sure the sawdust starts to burnclose the lid and come back after a few hours. The smoking time is ideally around 7 to 8 hours, or depending on the more or less present smoked taste you want, from 5 to 10 hours.

Check from time to time that the sawdust continues to burn little by little and that there is therefore smoke in your smoker. There’s nothing else to do, just wait.
Unless you like smoked salmon with a very strong taste, do not smoke for more than 12 hours.

6th step: Rest

Wrap the smoked salmon in cling film and refrigerate for 48 to 72 hours before tasting. That allows you to obtain a more uniform taste, smoked to perfection even at heart.

Optional : you can brush the top of the salmon with 1 tablespoon of olive oil, spreading over all the flesh with the back of the spoon, a brush or your fingers. This helps prevent the salmon from hardening.

7th step: enjoy!

Serve with white bread toasts or homemade blinis, a little sauce flavored with dill which you will tell me about.

Smoked salmon, well packaged in the refrigerator, will easily keep for 2 weeks.