Home Cured and Smoked Salmon

Home Cured and Smoked Salmon

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Home curing and smoking your own salmon has to be one of the most rewarding recipes you could possibly try. Even better, it is probably one of the easiest.

What I really love about making home smoked slamon myself, is that I can choose how much I cure it. A shorter cure will leave you with a really soft texture, a long cure will draw out more moisture and leave you with a much firmer result.

The process of curing is about removing moisture from the meat or fish you are curing in order to kill bacteria. For meats the curing process will take days, weeks or years, however for fish fillets curing times are hours. During the curing process you can play with flavour for your meat or fish by adding ingredients like fennel, black pepper, dill or even vodka and gin. Something you can't do with shop bought smoked salmon.

You can do this in two main ways:

There are two options for curing:

I cure all of my home smoked salmon using the second method.

I use the ProQ Cold Smoke Generator (CSG) and wood dust to smoke my salmon. The CSG is a simple device that allows a very slow burn of wood dust, generating smoke, but not emitting much heat at all. Smoking like this in the Egg will not raise the internal temperature more than a few degrees. You're aiming to keep the temperature inside the Egg below 30°C but ideally less than 20°C.

The length of time you smoke your food for determines how light or heavy the smoke flavour is. The choice of your wood dust will also affect the flavour with some wood smokes being more subtle than others. A good all rounder is oak, the one I use the most.

Add flavours to your cure. A plain cure is just salt and sugar but you can add all sorts to this to give a different flavour (and colour). How about a beetroot and gin cure, or a fennel cure?

Choose the wood you smoke the salmon over. Oak is fabulous but try beech or alder or a mixture. This is where you get to experiment and see what you like.Weigh the salt so you have just the right amount to cure the salmon. This method will take longer to extract the moisture but the extended curing time will allow more flavour to develop if you're using seasonings.

Time based curing where your fish is completely covered in your cure and you determine the moisture content of your food by how long you leave it. This method allows much faster cures as moisture will be drawn out of the food much more quickly. The down side though is your seasonings will have less time for their flavours to penetrate the food.

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Prep Time 20

Cook Time 8

Cure Time 12

Total Time 20 20

Course: Main Course

Cuisine: British

Ingredients Equipment Method Video Notes

Ingredients

1 full side of salmon
250 g salt I use PDV salt bought in bulk
250 g sugar brown or white
10 g fennel seeds coarsely crushed, optional
100 g oak wood dust for the smoker

Equipment

Grill Temperature

20°C

Surfaces

Method

Fillet and pin-bone a full side of salmon (or get your fishmonger to do it for you).
Mix together thoroughly the sugar, salt and fennel, if using.
Take a non reactive, flat container to cure the salmon in and sprinkle 1/3 of the mix on the base of the container.
Lay your fillet on top of the cure, skin side down.
Now cover the flesh side of the fillet with the remainder of the cure.
Place the container into the fridge and allow to cure for 6 hours for a moist cured salmon. Should you want a firmer texture you can extend the curing time, experiment with cures up to 24 hours.
Once cured, take the fillet and wash off all the cure under cold water. The mixture will be sticky as you wash it off, this is normal.
Pat dry the the fillet and place on a rack in a flat tray and place back into the fridge overnight to allow the skin to dry and a pellicule to form (sticky surface to which the smoke will adhere).
Setup your Big Green Egg with the ProQ CSG filled with sawdust smouldering and placed either on top of the charcoal or on top of the fire grate if you've emptied the charcoal. Set up your cold smoke generator with oak dust (or your desired wood flavour).
Place the stainless steel grid into your Egg and place the salmon directly onto the grid.
Close the lid of your Egg and open the bottom draft door about 2cm and the top about ½ cm. You're looking for smoke to sit within the dome but little wisps escape.
Leave the salmon to cold smoke for up to 8 hours.
Once the salmon is smoked place either into a bag or vac pac it and place into the fridge for 2 days to allow the smoke flavour to mellow.
After 2 days your salmon is ready to slice thinly and serve. It's easier to slice towards the tail end, starting at the tail end of the fillet.
This recipe, Smoked Salmon Baskets, is always a favourite in our house and it's so easy to prepare and make.

Video

Notes

You can cure the salmon for anything from 6 to 24 hours. The longer you cure the salmon for, the more moisture will be drawn out of the salmon. The salmon will change in texture as the moisture is drawn out, making the flesh of the salmon firmer. I personally love a less firm salmon so I only cure for 6 hours. I've done cures of 24 hours and find the salmon too dry.

Home smoked salmon will last a few weeks if kept in a sealed bag in a fridge. I vac pac mine and have eaten it after more than 1.5 months with no ill effects.

Serve your salmon with coarsely ground black pepper and slices of lemon.

The ProQ Cold Smoke Generator is available online. HotSmoked.co.uk are my favourite vendor as their service is excellent and their choice of wood dusts fabulous.