How to make COLD SMOKED SALMON (EASY!)

hey guys welcome back to another episode of dishes and fishes where i show you how to cook and set hooks today i want to show you how to make one of my favorite appetizers that i don't see many people making and i want to change that cold smoked salmon cold smoked salmon is awesome because it's kind of a more elevated snack that you can serve to your guests and you can serve it in a lot of different very delicious ways i think a lot of people are hesitant to make it because they think it's a lot of work but in reality it just takes a lot of time it takes about three to four days to properly cure prep and cold smoke the fish all we're doing is curing it to remove the moisture and then applying smoke flavor to it through the use of a cold smoke generator which doesn't actually produce heat it just produces smoke so before i show you how we got to the finished product let's take a look at where our salmon came from all right guys so i'm outside of tony seafood in watertown oakville connecticut it's a local seafood business owned by a great family and they get some of the best product in the area they have everything from fresh fish and shellfish they make their own lobster pot pie they have a smoker where they serve smoked mackerel hot smoked salmon smoked trout they have fresh maine lobsters they even get seasonal fishes like striped bass black fish and some other cool stuff now to make cold smoked salmon you do not need sushi grade salmon you can actually do this with any salmon i just like to get the best quality salmon that i can when i make this recipe so tony's got me a canadian ocean raised salmon it's got a much higher fat content than the salmon that you buy in the store which is perfect for cold smoking [Music] check these guys out if you want to get some of the best seafood in new england in the greater new england area all right guys we're back at the house now with our salmon now it's time to make the cure see what i did there all right guys so the point of a cure is to use a salt sugar and spice mixture to extract all the moisture out of a piece of meat before you smoke it like bacon or salmon in our case so first we're gonna take our kosher salt and we need to make enough cure for two days so i'm gonna add my salt to the bowl so because i don't eat a lot of sugar i'm actually gonna substitute sugar with some citrus fruit and coriander seed so i'm gonna take the zest of this navel orange and add it to my salt by the way does anybody else hate that they call this thing a microplane i refuse zester i'm also going to add the zest of a lemon then i'm going to add a tablespoon or two of coriander seeds and before i add them to my salt i'm actually gonna just toast them off in a saute pan really quickly just to add another layer of flavor finally i have some dill here dill was literally made for salmon i'm gonna use this whole bunch in my cure so i'll combine those things up now it's time to put the cure on our salmon nice when you apply the cure you want to make sure that you very generously put it all over the salmon and don't miss any of the flesh because we want to get as much of that moisture out as we can before it goes on the smoker if you have a vacuum sealer it's probably wise after you apply the cure to vacuum seal it just so that wrap makes better contact and pushes that salt into all the nooks and crannies i don't have a vacuum sealer of that capacity so i'm just going to use plastic wrap and send it so now that our cure is applied we're going to put that in the fridge overnight and then we're going to put round two on [Music] tomorrow so now it's day two i'm gonna remove my salmon from the fridge rinse off all of the old cure water everything so it's nice and clean i'm gonna apply the cure a second time all over the salmon but this time i'm gonna store it with the salmon flipped upside down then i'm gonna put it in the fridge overnight again [Music] all right guys so by now our salmon has been curing for 48 hours it should be a lot less flimsy and it should have started to stiffen up a little bit and it's time to form what is called a pellicle so what we're going to do is take it out of the fridge rinse it off very thoroughly and make sure we get all the salt and herbs and orange peel and lemon peel and everything off of it and then we're actually gonna put it back in our fridge uncovered and the airflow in the fridge is actually gonna dry out that outside layer of the salmon and that's gonna help our smoke stick to it and flavor it better could take anywhere from one to four maybe more hours i'm just gonna keep an eye on it and then once it gets a little bit dry and it has that pellicle layer formed on it i'm gonna cover it up and then i'm gonna smoke it tomorrow [Music] all right guys so our salmon is finally ready to hit the cold smoker i'm just going to use this weber grill that i do most of my grilling and smoking on only the big difference obviously is that we're going to be using this cold smoker that i got on amazon for 20 bucks the big thing is when you fill the cold smoker is that you want the sawdust to sit in the creases because if it's overflowing over the sides then it's not going to burn in a pinwheel and it won't burn for a very long time it's not a really intense strong smoke which is why this cold smoke salmon needs 12 to 18 hours of smoke i'm using hickory sawdust for this you can use cherry apple whatever you have just make sure that it's finely ground up in order to burn really slowly and for a long time i've actually been wanting to film this recipe for a while but i've been waiting for a day like this it's in the 50s it's a little bit cool this isn't a recipe that you want to do in the summer when it's hot i don't like the idea of my salmon sitting out in 80 degree weather for 12 to 18 hours but on a cool day like this should be fine when you light the cold smoker you want to use a blow torch to light the whole way across it and it'll burn along that spiral pathway just like a fuse so we'll let this bad boy go for five hours or so come back and check it refill the smoker and keep on going all right guys so our salmon's been on our cold smoker for about 10 hours now i'm gonna take it inside put it in my fridge and let it chill overnight i'm gonna try not to slice it i'm gonna slice into it tonight but then i'm gonna put it in my fridge overnight to cool all right guys so my salmon has sat in the fridge overnight to cool it has really absorbed that smoke flavor and it's really really good as you can see i took a little snack last night when it came off the smoker but now it's even more smoky and delicious they make a salmon slicing knife but you don't really need that just use a sharp carving knife or sharp chef's knife key is you want to angle your knife upwards like this and slice it as thin as you can i'm going to serve this right now on some bagels with cream cheese and some other stuff you can serve it however you'd like i promise you it'll be good no matter what so try this recipe out yourself again it's not that much work it's just a little bit of time that you have to set aside but trust me your guests will thank you thanks for watching

Channel: Dishes and Fishes

Views: 71,210

Keywords: 9-19-20, coldsmoker, bbq, smokedsalmon, coldsmokedsalmon, salmonlox, homemadelox, weber, traegergrills, pitmaster, gravlox, New York style, homemade lox, cold smoked salmon, easy smoked salmon, smoked salmon recipe

Id: Rl-iRucOCBw

Length: 7min 24sec (444 seconds)

Published: Sat Sep 26 2020