Cold smoked pink salmon is an excellent product that impresses with its sophisticated taste and unforgettable aroma. Such food is to the taste of even the most sophisticated gourmets. The delicacy can become a table decoration not only for big holidays, but also delight guests with the organization of a regular feast. How to cook cold smoked pink salmon? A recipe that will achieve an excellent result, I would like to consider in our material.
Fish cutting
To cook cold-smoked pink salmon, it must be properly prepared for the process. During cutting, the head of a fish is cut off. Then the fins and the tail are removed. Next, parallel incisions are made on both sides of the spine. The ridge is carefully removed without removing the skin from pink salmon. In conclusion, it remains to carefully remove the ribs. If everything is done correctly, pink salmon will be ready for cold smoking.
Pickling
How to cook cold smoked pink salmon? After cutting half the carcass of the fish, it is necessary to generously process it with salt. You can also grate the meat with spices and carefully chopped dill. Such a blank must be placed in a pallet and sent to the refrigerator for a day. The next day, the resulting liquid should be removed, as well as a mixture of dill and spices from the fish. Then it is recommended to wipe the pink salmon dry with napkins and again place in the refrigerator for several hours. It is worth paying attention to the fact that immediately before smoking, the fish should not be wet. In the presence of the so-called juice, the final product will have a rather unpleasant acid taste.
Smoked Smokehouse
For the preparation of pink salmon, you can purchase a factory setting. However, the smoking unit is easy to build on a personal plot. It is enough to dig a trench in the soil with a depth of a few bayonet shovels. Such a pothole should be covered with sheet metal and sprinkled with earth. At one end of the trench it will be enough to install a barrel, from where, in fact, smoke will come. Firewood will be thrown from the opposite side.
It should be noted that with the independent construction of the smokehouse you only have to find the right materials and spend money on firewood. As for the factory smoked cold smoked, the presence of such a unit will save a lot of time and effort. Such installations contain a special smoke generator and compressor, equipped with thermometers. All this directly affects the quality of the finished cold smoked pink salmon.
Expendable materials
It is recommended to cook cold-smoked pink salmon at home using wood chips or sawdust as fuel. The duration of the process and the aroma of the fish will depend on their nature. Experts advise using juniper or alder wood. If there is no access to such sawdust, it is worth paying attention to fruit trees, slivers of which can be cut right on the plot. A good alternative to the above options will be firewood from cherries, apple trees, pears, berry bushes. In order for cold-smoked pink salmon to acquire a piquant aroma, a small amount of fresh oak or blackcurrant leaves should be mixed with shavings from such wood.
Smoke temperature
People who have an impressive experience in making pink salmon by cold smoking say that the nature of the salting of fish is directly related to the temperature indicators of smoke. In other words, the more salty the meat, the cooler the smoke should be. Whatever the case, when cold smoked, the temperature should not exceed 30 o C. The optimal solution is to maintain the temperature at 25 degrees.
Cooking process
Prepared carcasses of pink salmon are placed on the grate of a smokehouse or placed on vertical struts. Fish on top is treated with a small amount of vegetable oil.
The total time that will need to be spent on bringing the product to optimal conditions depends on the size of the carcasses. Large loin parts weighing about 300 grams are treated with smoke for several days. If you decide to smoke pink salmon whole, without cutting them into separate parts, in this case it can take 3-6 days.
It is recommended that fish be taken out of the smokehouse after it has cooled completely. Readiness can be determined by taking into account the following points. Carcasses should have a sufficiently dense and dry surface. Smoked pink salmon cannot be considered finished if the meat is easily separated from the skin. As practice shows, during the process, the fish loses about 15% of the original mass. It is also worth orienting yourself to determine the readiness of the product.
About storing smoked pink salmon
In order to be able to repeatedly serve independently cooked fish to the table, care must be taken to store the product in appropriate conditions. The best solution is to preserve the delicacy in sealed packaging. In this case, the smoked pink salmon will remain fresh for the longest time.
If you do not have access to a special household unit for creating vacuum bags, in this case the fish should be put in a sterile plastic vessel. The container must be tightly wrapped with cling film and sent to the refrigerator. Store fish in the freezer is not necessary. It is enough that the product is surrounded by moderately cold air. Observance of such simple rules will allow for a long time to enjoy the great taste of smoked pink salmon.