Salmon on the smoker has been long overdue. I’m going to try my best not to crap on the quality of the salmon throughout this post, but it was evident in not only the preparation but the finish. So I’ll say it up front, and hopefully not too much throughout. Find yourself a quality fish monger, inspect the quality of the fish and especially for salmon – it shouldn’t smell too fishy. As you’ll see in my first picture, I definitely could’ve done better.
The Prep Table
I’ll be learning real quick the difference between the farm raised and wild caught salmon. I can’t wait to get some legit salmon from a specialty shop that knows what they’re doing. I was feeling fish on the quick this particular day, so this was what was offered. Wasn’t great, but I’m a try to make it great.
My buddy Doug has done a salmon or two. Probably 8, that all look spectacular. He does the full fillet, I bought mine sectioned out. Being the first run salmon, we can only get better. These were also quite thin, so the wet brine wasn’t going to take as long either. I woke up in the morning, and threw a healthy syrup/water mix and stirred in the kosher salt/brown sugar and let her sleep until later in the day.
I had a jug of habanero syrup in the fridge that needed to be used. Much to the chagrin of my “New England” brothers, I used local syrup. Let that brine ride.
The Process
Of all the salmon recipes I’ve looked at, ain’t no fillet look as sad as this one above. Now, MrsForensicBBQ and I post nearly all of our cooks here, good or bad – we’re realists. When something looks ‘eh’, or ‘meh’ – we’re going to tell you. We also know not everyone is salmon fishing and grabbing the freshest thing swimming. We can put perfume on a pig, we can make it work – that’s half the magic of the cook. Let’s do exactly that.
We’re going to low smoke this thing until 145F. We’re going to mix up a batch of glaze and impart a little bit of fresh taste every hour or so to make sure we get some max flavor. This one took about 2 hours, so pay attention – stay hungry, and respect the smoke.
I hate adding a picture and some weird edit in the screen shot I took. i.e. “Choose sidebar display”. Better people than I would remove it, but to appease the handfuls of people that come say hi here – I’ll just be honest and say “oops”. Real simple two-part mix, and brush every hour. Or 45 minutes if you’re watching the Auburn-Alabama NCAAB game like I was.
The Result
When it hit the 145F (maybe about 148-150 in spots) – Pulled her off and whipped up some instant mashed to complete the dish. Threw some herbs de provence atop – because that stuff is delicious – and we’re ready to try some syrup/orange smoked salmon. The texture was good, it was flaky, it was flavorful – but I couldn’t personally overcome the look and the “what-could-have-been”. I can’t wait to give salmon another whirl, and get some real quality fish and do it right.
Truth be told, I ate the whole damn thing because it was good. It was damn good – but I know it could be better. Keep on coming by, because we’re going to knock salmon out of the park next time!