My dad used to take me and my brothers fishing when I was young. Having a portion of Cree Indian in our blood (My great grandmother was full-blood Cree), my dad would preach on about how the First Nations would fish and then smoke their catch. He has a “Little Chief” electric smoker and I remember the smoker going after our day of fishing and that smoke getting deliciously in your hair, clothes, and of course the fish (which was Northern Pike as we lived in Alberta).
Fast forward 25 years and I now have a commercial smoker on my back deck. Paul and I have smoked duck, chicken, all our bacon, pork tenderloin, beef brisket, sausages, and everything else that can be hot smoked. I like to smoke Salmon 4-5 times a year and freeze it. It is amazing mixed in cream cheese on a hot bagel or tossed with an Alfredo sauce with penne. Feeling I already mastered this type of cooking, I decided to move on to ‘cedar planking’ a salmon on the BBQ. Having never done it, I bought the salmon, the cedar boards and I soaked the boards in wated as directed. When I went to prep the salmon, I realized that it didn’t come with the skin on and unsure if the planking would work, I decided to throw the salmon in the smoker and chip up the cedar wood with some hickory and go with ‘old faithful’.
I like to cut up my salmon into portion pieces now. About 8oz. each. I brine it in a mixture of water, sugar, salt, brown sugar, and maple syrup. The salt and sugars do magic in the pieces. I then take the pieces out, put them on the smoker racks and let them air dry for an hour or two until the moistue starts to move out. Important to have the racks elevated on a cookie sheet so they don’t sit in their own sweat.
This wood was a big cedar plank moments before. I took my heavy cleaver to it. Split like ‘butter’.
Here is a picture of the salmon drying pre-smoker. The stuff in the jar is maple syrup and brown sugar. Once the smoke is doing its thing, I baste it with this. The stuff starts to taste like candy. Delicious. I will do this everytime from now on. Makes a huge difference. Nice thing is when it dries, it isn’t sticky.
The finished product. I like getting the salmon at Costco. It tastes great and it is CHEAP!! If you can get fresh, that’s best of course, but if you don’t have a dad dragging your ass to the lake to tell you about the ‘good old days’, this works too. I’ve done trout, halibut, and other hearty fish. It all smokes like a dream.