I wrote about the Pink Invasion in the
July issue of Seattle Magazine. Truth be told, since that article first appeared I've been too busy fishing for pinks to do much blogging. Fishing...and filleting, brining, and smoking. Repeat. My freezer is rapidly accumulating a two-year supply of smoked salmon.
This is a fishery that hardly existed a generation ago in Puget Sound. As such, in this age of general decline, it feels like a special gift. And it's not too late to get in on the action. Read the
article and then check out these
tips for smokin' yer own.
Beautiful fish. I love smoking fish on my Weber Bullet and use a lot of alder and lilac wood (free and plentiful - scraps from pruning). I don't bother with wood chips or soaking, just use chunks. For fish it rarely takes more than one fist-sized chunk.
ReplyDeleteNext time I will try the dry "brine", sounds like it would work well - very similar to making gravlax. Can you clarify what you mean by "pickling salt"? And do you happen to know the salt/sugar ratio by weight?
Kari - I've used green alder too. It's fun to experiment with different varieties. The fruit tree are good--apple, cherry, etc. Morton sells a big box of what they call "pickling salt," which is what I used most recently, but usually I just use plain kosher salt. Avoid iodized salt, which supposedly can give the fish an "off" taste.
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