Home smoked salmon detailed recipe with a very easy smoking room

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

Let me explain. It requires few steps which are all as easy as each other, but which are spread over time, You will take a total of 4 to 5 days between the first step and the minimum rest period after realization.

You also need the right equipment To smoke your salmon, A smoker. You can Possibly use a Weber type barbecue, which has a lid.
For my part, I bought a smoker from the Barbecook brand, the OSKAR model the average size (no sponsor here, just the model I), bought on sales at around 200 €.

Information on the smoker and the smoking process

A smoking room makes it possible to smoke the ingredients according to two different methods: either hot smoked, or cold smoked.

Hot smoking

For the hot smoking method, We make embers as for a barbecue. In these embers, We place wooden shavings previously molded and locked up In a perforated metal box or aluminum foil papillote in which small holes are made on top. Then the floor above is a large bowl water possibly scented with bay leaves, rosemary branches … This water allows to have ambient humidity and to regulate the temperature which I am not shown too much.
And Finally the grid with our smoking food.
The latter is thus while being smoked at low temperature +/- 100 °.

I will soon share my recipe for hot smoked salmon which, cooked gently in this smoked and humid environment has an incredible tenderness and perfume.

Cold smoking

The cold smoking method used here is completely different even if We use the same device. We place wooden sawdust in a serpentin specific. And eu Above the smoking food on a rack. We Put fire at the start of the serpentinfor example by putting a small candle heating flat under the start of the serpentin. Sawdust will gradually be built up for several hours And will thus give smoked taste to food.

So there is here no cooking, This is why cold smoked meats or fish should be preputted. This is why here the salmon is cooked with salt as for a gravlax salmon before being smoked.
You can also smoke cheese or even salt with this technique. No precriber in these cases.
Cold smoking can therefore not be done when it is too hot. The temperature must be less than 20 ° in the smoker.

I give you here The recipe and all the secrets of my neighbor Guillaume which is a real smoked salmon pro.

1st step: the preparation of the salmon

Choose a Very thick and not too fatty salmon fillet.

As the process is the same you use A whole salmon net (or 1/2 salmon), we a smaller piece, I encourage you to do this with a whole net, 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 the end of my half salmon a little, on the thinner part on the tail side of the blow. It made me a meal!

Keep the skin but remove the edges. Arm yourself with patience and a kitchen pinner, failing that tweezers, and remove the edges one by one.
The edges are all on a line along the net. Pass your finger on this part and as soon as you feel a stop, delicately remove it without damaging the flesh from the fish.

Then rinse the fillet and sponge it with absorbent paper.

2 ° Step: salting

We are talking about dry salting or salumage, That is to say that there is no liquid element to salting. The objective is to extract humidity from the fish to avoid the proliferation of bacteria.

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 grains of crushed pink peppers and berries, dill and cling film.

The salting process:

• Use a large and long dish to contain the salmon fillet.
• Place a stretch movie lengthwise Without cutting the end because we will wrap the fish at the end.
• Cover with salt then place the salmon fillet, Side skin below.
• Then The flesh of the fish is sprinkled with a thin layer of brown sugar Who helps to alleviate the aggression of salt on the flesh and fix the colors of the salmon.
• We Generously covers with the coarse sea salt, or a mixture of sea salt, pepper or 5 crushed bays, chopped dill). In the photos I then made strata roughly mixed but it comes back to the same.
• Fold the cling film on the fish and wrap well To pack the salmon.

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

3 ° Step: Drawing

Take the salmon out of the refrigerator and rinse it well under clear water to remove all the salt.

Please note, as salting is to cook but also remove the water from the fish, you may have “juice” in your cling film.
And don’t be afraid if the fish is all hard. It’s surprising, even worrying, but it’s normal.

Then place your salmon in a large and high dish and immerse it in water. Leave 1 hour in the water by changing the water twice, every 20 minutes.
Sponge with absorbent paper. Still don’t worry, the flesh remains as firm as before deslating.

4 ° Step: Drying

Replace the salmon fillet in your dish and leave it in the open air in your refrigerator for 12 hours Before going to the crucial stage, cold smoking.

This step is not to be overlooked because smoke being hydrophobicthat is to say that it is rejected by humidity, If your salmon is still too wet, smoke and therefore all the aromas of smoking wood will not enter the flesh of salmon And you will not have this smoked taste that we are looking for.

5 ° Step: Cold smoking

First choose your smoking wood.

The most common are the beech, alder, pommer or cherry wood But you can also find sawdust of fir wood, olive tree, juniper, oak, whiskey barrical, vineyard …
Everyone has their own smells and will bring a different little trick to your smoked salmon. You can also make mixtures. I admit that I have not tested so I don’t know how to tell you if you can feel a difference in taste.
Personally I have at the Maison de la saw -Bois de Beêtre and Aulne. They are found on the internet or in shops that sell barbecues.

Put the sawdust in your serpentin, Without tasting not too much to ventilate the density of sawdust.
Place a flat heating candle at the start.
Place the salmon on the skin side on the gate. Some people hang it on a hook. Either the smoke must better wrap the flesh but I have always had little that the net breaks this way, so I have never tested.
Then Put fire on a candle, make sure that sawdust are starting to consume itselfclose the lid and come back after a few hours. The smoking time is ideally about 7 to 8 hours, or depending on the more or less present smoke taste you want, from 5 to 10 hours.

Check from time to time that the sawdust continues to consume itself little by little and that there is therefore smoke in your smoking room. There is nothing else to do, just wait.
Unless you like smoked salmon with a very full -bodied taste, do not exceed 12 hours of smoking.

6 ° Step: rest

Wrap smoked salmon in cling film and put it in the refrigerator for 48 to 72 hours Before tasting. That Allows you to obtain a more uniform taste, smoked at will even at heart.

Optional : You can brush the top of the salmon with 1 tablespoon of olive oil, spread over all the flesh with the back of the spoon, a brush or your fingers. This prevents the salmon from hardening.

7 ° Step: Enjoy!

Serve with toast of sandwich bread or homemade blinis, a small well -scented dialing sauce of which you will tell me news.

The well -wrapped smoked salmon in the preserver refrigerator easily 2 weeks.