Smoked Fish and Seafood Recipes

Recipe for Smoked Salmon

Freezing your fish first will help to break down the meat's enzymes making it easier to accept a brine and speeding up the curing process.
Brine Ingredients:
2 Cups of brown sugar
1/3 Cup of salt (pickling or coarse)
2 Tbs. garlic salt
2 Tbs. onion salt
2 Tbs. celery salt
2 Tbs. dry mustard
2 Tbs. coarse black pepper
Mix ingredients together in a large mixing bowl. As this is a dry brine recipe, no liquids should be added. You will need a large 2 inch deep pan to cure fish in. Place fillets skin side down in your pan and coat heavily with brine ingredients. Cover with a piece of foil or Saran wrap and place in refrigerator for 24 hours. After salmon has cured for 24 hours remove from refigerator and rinse fillets off in cool water. Pat dry with paper towels and place on smoker rack. If you like a stronger tasting smoked salmon as I do, you can pepper lightly and brush fillets with liquid and brine left over in the bottom of the tray you used to brine your fish. Use either alder or apple wood for smoking. Smoke to desired doneness. Depending on the size and thickness of the fillets you are smoking, it can take anywhere from 4-6 hours to smoke.

Recipe for Smoked Salmon

Salmon fillets
water
brown sugar
salt
smoking chips

Mix 1 bag of brown sugar with 3 cups salt and 1 gallon of water. This is your brine mixture. Pour brine over fillets until completely covered. You might need to weight down the fillets with a plate or bowl if they float. Soak brine covered fillets in the fridge for 8 hours. We usually do the soak overnight and start the smoking process in the morning. Rinse each fillet under cold running water for 15 seconds each. Pat dry with paper towel and place on waxed paper covered cookie sheets. Lay cookie sheets out while fillets "glaze". This takes about 3 hours. Fillets are done glazing when they are tacky to the touch. Put fish in smoker, larger and thicker pieces closest to the heat. Smoke at 125° for 5 to 6 hours or until done. Change chips every half hour or as needed. About 1 hour from being done make a syrup of brown sugar and water. Baste fish with syrup mix.