Smoked Salmon for Charcutepalooza and Deus Ex Machina in the Guise of Chef Wendy

I don't know how many times I've told my students to be sure to read the whole assignment through carefully before they start working. So I can't explain how it was that I only noticed that Michael Ruhlman does not recommend hot smoking salmon until I was already curing a big chunk of wild-caught B.C. Sockeye. I had been planning to smoke mine in my friend Harriet's "Big Green Egg", but feared it would be hard to keep it below the requisite 90°F; I was, in short, dismayed.

But fate works in mysterious ways. During the one day I had to sort out the problem, I attended a trip to the Stratford, Ontario area (yes, the home of Justin Bieber) to learn about maple producing and cooking. To my surprise and great delight, part of the day's activities included a demonstration by Chef Wendy Seguin at the restaurant and dessert cafe called Let Them Eat Cake of maple recipes – including a cheater's way of smoking fish!

As you can see, from the photo above, with inspiration from Chef Wendy, I have achieved smoked salmon. Today I am taking my cue from all the Scandinavian crime fiction we've been reading around here, so it's served on a Finnish cracker atop a Swedish plate (from Ikea, of course!) As an ex-Montrealer, my very favourite way to eat smoked salmon is on a halved Montreal bagel over cream cheese with just a scattering of julienned green onions and a few drops of lemon juice. As for Jonathan, he likes to toss chunks of smoked salmon into his Kraft dinner (truth!)

Chef Wendy presents her dollar-store smoker.

But back to Chef Wendy Seguin's process. The fish in question was a trout; she suggested curing it for 12 to 36 hours in a mixture of 1 part coarse salt to 2 parts sugar, with spices to taste (no nitrites). She also brushes the fish with maple syrup before smoking.

She gave numerous practical suggestions, such as:

• Slash the skin in a few places to help the cure penetrate.
• Use less cure at the tail and any other thin places.
• If the fish is to be served as an appetizer, it needs little rinsing after curing, but if it is for cooking into recipes, it should be soaked for 10 minutes in warm water to release some of the salt.
• If there isn't enough time to let a pellicule form over several hours of drying in the fridge, the fish can be set on the counter in front of a small fan for half an hour.
  
• The rack upon which it is to be smoked should be brushed on both sides with oil.

She prefers hardwood chips, but not in the rather large chunks that one gets from commercial BBQ suppliers. Instead, she commissioned her husband to request a leftover block of dry but non-chemically treated hardwood from a carpentry shop, and he simply planed it down into an almost hay-like consistency (it must have been rather like a cross between zesting a lemon and grating a carrot).

Instead of a half-hour soak to dampen the wood chips, Seguin simply pops a cup of her wood shavings into a plastic bag with 1 tablespoon of water, and shakes it around until it fluffs up.

Cold smoking maintains a temperature below 90°F. Chef Wendy says one can also hot smoke fish, including salmon, (at 145°F to 175°F), and her method does produce a hot cure. She starts with two large aluminum roasting pans from a dollar store. The damp chips go into the bottom, and a metal rack (also from a dollar store) sits about 2 inches above them, supported by large loose balls of tinfoil.

She cuts a small hole in the second roasting pan, which acts as a cover. The two pans, which now resemble a giant rectangular clam, are sealed with more tinfoil (leaving the top hole open, of course!) She sets them directly on a gas burner on medium heat; as soon as smoke begins to emerge through the hole, she turns the heat down and lets the fish smoke for about 10 minutes per inch of thickness until it reaches an internal temperature of 145°F. (She has done this enough, reading the temperature of the cooker when she opens it, that she can do it by feel now.)

She smokes her fish indoors, either turning the kitchen hood up to full blast or opening windows (the windows must be open if the stovetop hood does not vent outside). She recommends leaving a sticky note to remind oneself that the battery has been temporarily removed from the smoke detector. If commercial wood chips are being used, it's also important to read the bag in case it notes that they are only safe for outdoor use.)

Chef Wendy estimates that her whole kit costs about $10; she saves the pans and foil for future reuse.

The electric wok as salmon smoker.

Since it's still too cold here to open the windows (as evidenced by the icy snow on the picnic table), I modified the Seguin method a little. I had no dry hardwood, so I did buy a bag of applewood chips from the local fireplace shop and soaked them for half an hour.

Having cured the fish using the Charcuterie recipe for about 40 hours with a stone weight on top of it, having soaked the salt off for 10 minutes, and having let it air-dry in the fridge for about six hours, I greased a dollar-store spatter guard (with the rubber handle removed) as the rack for my fish. I put a layer of tinfoil inside my electric wok and laid the damp chips on top, then sat the fish rack on tinfoil balls, à la Wendy.

I temporarily removed the handle from the top of the wok to create an air hole and sealed the wok with tinfoil, as per the photo above. Since the weather was very cold, I simply took a blind guess and turned the wok to about 150°F, imagining that the chilly air would keep the fish from reaching more than 90°F. This seemed to work out just about right, by sheer fluke.

The resulting smoked fish was an honorable first try; nowhere near the quality of our wonderful neighbourhood shop Kristapsons, or the fabulous salmon I've brought sometimes brought home from Nova Scotia smoke shacks, but worthy of eating. The level of saltiness and the colour are just fine. The texture is a little soft, and the smoky taste is too subtle.

I think another time I would give the pellicule more time to form, so as to increase the smokiness. I would also like to experiment with different types of fish, and to grate up my own wood chips. I will certainly also try the recipe without the sodium nitrite, since the salmon's pink enough without it and, frankly, around our place even mediocre smoked salmon won't be around long enough to worry about having it spoil!