Home-made Hot Smoked Salmon - yes you can

I love hot smoked salmon. I can take or leave the cold smoked, but the hot (ie cooked) smoked salmon I find versatile and scrummy and I’m told the oils are good for the brain and for your mood.  So the perfect food. 

Except that it’s really expensive.

So I’ve been making my own. Sounds difficult, but is not!

Firstly, you’ll need something to smoke in.  You can buy something new, but I bought something old – from the Sally’s around the corner.  A decades old roasting dish.  I only use it for smoking, so it doesn’t matter how tarnished it gets and it does the trick beautifully. 

That plus tin foil and something that will smoke when it’s hot are the only essentials.  The rest are choices. 
Here’s how I do it.

I line the roasting dish with tin foil.  Then sprinkle that with something to burn.  I’ve been using this wood recently. 

But in the past, I’ve tried rice.  You need something to slowish burn – so wood or rice are good.  Then some flavours – the wood is pre-flavoured being lovely manuka and kanuka. I’ve also soaked it in booze (pinot gris – cougar-juice as someone advised me the other day – or beer work well).  If you do soak in booze, then let it dry afterwards.  Or at least semi-dry.  Try rosemary or tea (green or earl grey maybe) as flavour enhancers.

On top of that, you need another piece of foil.  If you’re lucky enough to have a metal rack that fits in your dish, this is where it comes in. I don’t, so it’s foil for me!

On the foil goes the fish (pin bones removed with tweezers if it’s salmon).  I used to oil the foil, but forgot to once and the fish didn’t stick so now I skip that step. 

There’s more options for flavour here.  Some add salt, pepper and a bit of sugar.  Chilli flakes would be good.  Or one of those steak rubs.  I’ve been using the smoked salt Smoke & Spiced Solar Salt from The Original Smoke and Spice Co.  It’s brilliant.

Once you’ve flavoured the salmon – or not, it’ll be grand without more flavour – it’s time to get hot.  I put the whole thing on the very  hottest element and turn the element up.  Once it starts smoking, which can be a matter of a minute or so, I turn it down to low (though it’s quite a big element, so it’s still pretty hot) and time the fish for 5 minutes.  No more. 

If you can avoid peeking, please do.  The smoke can ruin curtains! 

Once the 5 minutes are up, turn the heat off.  Don’t lift the lid!  Then let it cool.  And enjoy.  In pasta, on pizza, in salads, on crackers, make it into a mousse with crème fraiche.  Try this terrine.  Put it in pie.
 

I have done this with white fish, which also worked well.  I made that into traditional fish pie, in combination with fresh fish. 

Some Like it Hot

It's been a week of chillis.

People know about my chilli obsession.  So much so, that I am often presented with them when there are too many in someone's garden. Suits me fine.  These from my friend's mum!

Chilli 1 - sausage
During a visit to the Harbourside Market beside Te Papa on Sunday, we purchased a piece of chilli sausage from the caravan of Milan Malivuk – branded Little Wolf (a translation of his surname). It's lovely dried spicy pork sausage which can be eaten as is or cooked in meals. So Pav stirred it into a stock, onion, chickpea and canned tomato soup. No need for other flavours as the sausage releases its spices (mainly paprika and garlic I think, but it's a secret of course) to flavour the entire soup. Marvelous, fuss-free eating. These are handmade, preservative-free and worth finding at the market, Moore Wilson's or the Mediterranean Food Warehouse.

Chilli 2 - sorbet
Then, after Pav went on tour, I went back to the Boys of Breaker Bay and made dessert again. This time poached pears and chocolate chilli sorbet (dairy free). The recipe as written doesn't contain chilli, but that's never stopped me.

Poaching pears is simple – peel fairly ripe pears, trim the bottom so the pears will sit up unaided, poach in flavoursome, preferably sweet, liquid (almost anything will do) until tender. You can scoop out the core of the pear from the bottom, but I never do. I'm not that posh.

I poached these beurre bosc pears in sugar and water and a pinch each of cinnamon, ginger (of course!) and chilli powder.

I love dark chocolate and chilli and so should you! Chilli and chocolate are double fun – the double aphrodisiac of the chocolate and the chilli justifies this combination alone. However, I believe that chilli is also an anti-inflammatory, a pain killer and an anti-depressant. Added to what we know about the revitalizing powers of chocolate, what more excuses do you need!?

This is the easiest 'ice' I've ever made. Sugar (1/3 cups brown, 1 and 2/3 cups white), water (4 cups), cocoa (2 cup) and vanilla (1 tablespoon). Melt the sugar in the water over heat, then add the cocoa and simmer for 2 minutes, stirring constantly. It thickens slightly. Add the vanilla and then chill for at least 2 hours. Then churn in your available method – machine or by hand (freeze in flat metal dish for 2 hours, break up firmly with whisk or fork, freeze for 2 hours, break up, repeat a few times). Churning in a machine produces a smoother mixture, but it's not so much better that you shouldn't do the other if you're an ice cream maker-free household. I added the chocolate/chilli nibs as the mix churned. A good half teaspoon ground up, I'd say.  See picture of chocolate/chilli nibs.

I served the pears with the sorbet and some of the left over syrup reduced by fast boiling. The more the sorbet melted, the more the essential oils of the chillis were released. Essentially it got more exciting as the temperature increased. As it should. Tee hee.

Chilli 3 - Larb Plaa
Then, a few days later, my chilli-enthusiast friend and I snuck into Ban Mai Thai at 111 Vivian St for a quick dinner. We only stayed for a main-course-sharing session, so I can't give you a full review, but suffice to say I've been about 4 times over the last few years and these guys never fail to deliver great tasting food for good prices.

This was no exception. We ordered two hot and spicy dishes and the outstanding one was the Larb Plaa, which was fish fillet with chilli, lemongrass, onion, kaffir lime leaves, galangal, lime juice and herbs. It was hot-spicy-hot, but layered with levels of flavour so that there was still something to roll around the tongue. The fish had been shredded and mixed with the other flavours to make the dish like a warm salad. The beef and pepper dish was also tasty, but the fish was the winner on the night.

Hot flavours for a cold mid-winter week. I wonder how I can get chillis into my breakfast next week?