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Two years ago, after my husband and I sold our house, we decided to give ourselves a small budget to buy something for ourselves. We had been eyeballing a large backyard smoker for some time and decided to splurge a little and buy the smoker of our dreams. The smoker has since replaced our backyard grill, and we cook on our smoker year-round, sometimes several times a week.
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We've mastered the basics from smoked chicken to ribs and even brisket. For a long time, we stayed away from smoked seafood because of where we live. Living in the landlocked Midwest, fresh, high-quality seafood is impossible to come by. We noticed food delivery services growing in popularity in our area, so we decided to look into food delivery.
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You see, we both grew up by the ocean, and both of us have been eating seafood since we were babies. If you were to ask either of us what we miss about living by the ocean, I can guarantee you we would both say "eating seafood!"
We were thrilled to learn that seafood was no longer a distant memory for us. We could place an order online for high-quality, wild-caught seafood, and it would arrive still frozen at our doorstep.
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We can buy frozen seafood locally, but it's never clear where the seafood comes from, and how fresh it is. I want to know that I am getting coho or chinook salmon fillets, not generic pale-colored, thin frozen salmon from the freezer section of my local store.
Instead, now we can order beautiful and flavorful fresh-caught and flash frozen seafood from Global Seafoods that ships quickly and arrives still frozen.
So, we did.
Now that we figured out how to source high-quality seafood, we decided to master our techniques for smoking salmon at home.
Grilled salmon is fantastic in and of itself but learning how to hot smoke salmon can take your home-cooked salmon to the next level. Hot smoked salmon is a little sweet, a little smoky, and a lot delicious.
Smoking requires lower grill temperatures and the use of wood, wood chips, or sawdust that slowly burn while producing lots of flavorful smoke while your meat cooks. The smoke permeates your meat or fish while infusing a delicious smoky flavor into your food. Smoking salmon is a yummy and unique way to incorporate this healthy and fantastic food into your diet.
While you can smoke almost any variety of salmon, a few types of salmon are going to be more forgiving and more flavorful when smoked. Here are our suggestions for some of the best salmon to smoke. Two of the criteria to consider when shopping for salmon is its size and its oil content. Larger pieces of salmon with higher oil content are going to be more flavorful and more tender when smoked.
No matter the type of salmon you choose, the key to the most delicious flavor is freshness. Buying only very fresh salmon, or flash-frozen salmon ensures the best flavor and texture of your smoked salmon recipes. Ordering directly from Global Seafoods guarantees you'll be using the freshest salmon you can buy.
Salmon is one of the only types of food that not only stands up well against cedar, but salmon does better when smoked with cedar. Cedar is a less popular wood for smoking but is an excellent wood for smoking salmon. Aside from cedar planks, one of the best woods for smoking salmon is alder wood chips.
If you must smoke salmon with other types of wood chips, look for a blend of wood to help balance the smoke flavors infused into your salmon. Look for wood chips that include a variety of fruit trees for the sweetness to compliment your salmon. While challenging to find locally, citrus wood, such as orange, is an excellent match for smoking salmon.
One of the best ways to ensure a delicious and moist smoked salmon is to brine your salmon before smoking. There are different schools of thought on how long to bring salmon before smoking. The thing to keep in mind with brining is that a brine is very different from a marinade. Marinades have acidic ingredients in them that can start to cook your salmon during the marinating process. A Brine is not a marinade. You can brine seafood and, in particular, salmon, for much longer than you can marinate seafood.
You don't have to brine salmon before smoking, but brining will help boost the flavor and tenderness of your smoked salmon. Keep in mind that if you plan to brine your salmon, you're going to need to prepare and brine your salmon the day before you plan to smoke your salmon.
There are two ways to brine your salmon, a dry brine, or wet brine. A dry brine involves coating your salmon in a 2:1 ratio of brown sugar and salt and letting it sit in the fridge for up to 12 hours. You then rinse off your brine and let your salmon air dry in the refrigerator for 4-6 hours.
A wet brine is much the same except you first dissolve your sugar and salt in boiling water, cool it down, and soak your salmon in the brine for 12 hours. You then take your salmon out of the brine and allow it to air dry in the fridge for 4-6 hours.
Since hot smoked salmon is the most popular and easiest way to smoke salmon, we are going to share with you our hot smoke salmon recipe.
The first thing you need to do is decide whether you want to use a dry brine or a wet brine. There are no significant advantages to either one, but a wet brine will do better for more tender types of meat, such as fish. Dry brining helps more for tougher cuts of meat, but some back-yard smokers swear by dry brining for smoked salmon. The choice is entirely up to you. We've tried both and think you get a slightly better flavor from wet brining. A wet brine does require more space and more prep time.
This recipe for honey smoked salmon is delicious and straightforward. Your most significant obstacle in making smoked salmon is time. When planning for smoked salmon, give yourself a total of two days for your brine time (12-24 hours), drying time (4-6 hours), and smoking time (4-6 hours). We promise it's well worth the wait.
Smoked salmon is an excellent source of protein, B vitamins, Vitamin D, and Omega 3 fatty acids, which are known to promote cardiovascular health. Due to the brining process, smoked salmon is higher in sodium than unsmoked salmon, which is a consideration for those who struggle with sodium. As an occasional treat or splurge, you should eat smoked salmon without guilt.
There are approximately 160 calories in smoked salmon (1 cup), making it a low calorie and high protein snack or meal.
Hot smoked salmon does come to a safe internal temperature and is cooked. With hot smoked salmon, you are slowly heating the salmon to a safe internal temp while the smoke from your wood chips infuses the salmon with a delicate smoky flavor. Cold smoked salmon is preserved salmon. The salt curing preserves the salmon, but the cold smoking process does not cook the salmon.
Cold-smoked salmon smokes at lower temperatures bringing to mind food safety issues when it comes to eating cold smoked salmon. Cold smoking salmon requires special equipment and safe food handling practices to ensure a properly cold smoked salmon. Be sure to keep your salmon covered and at cold temps and to practice food safety when cooking or handling cold smoked salmon.
While you want to try your smoked salmon right away when it comes off of the smoker, it's best after it's chilled in the refrigerator for about 4-6 hours while the smoky flavor continues to permeate every part of the fish. After chilling your salmon, then you can enjoy the full flavors of your home-smoked salmon.
Buying a smoker and realizing we could buy fantastic seafood from Global Seafoods opened up our meal planning to a variety of new foods we hadn't been able to enjoy in years. We love smoking salmon in bulk so that we can make lots of different meals at home using our home-smoked salmon.
Grilling diver scallops brings out their sweet, rich flavors. Our expert guide shares grilling techniques, chef tips, and the best marinades for perfect scallops every time. For premium scallops, visit Global Seafoods.