NOVA LOX (aka. Cold Smoked Salmon)

hey you got barbecue and bottles here and today we're gonna be doing Nova locks Nova locks is really similar to gravlax or just plain locks the only difference is once we actually cure it in the fridge for 48 hours we're then gonna cold smoke it so if you're into that kind of thing hit the like button consider subscribing to the channel and stick around for the recipe so this recipe is really plain and simple all you're gonna need is some brown sugar some kosher salt and most importantly the star of the show is just a really good cut of salmon and we went to our local fishmonger got some sashimi grade salmon here you can see there's incredible marbling in this and that's where you really want to be investing in this recipe is just making sure you're getting a high grade quality of fish because we're essentially gonna be eating this raw another great thing about this recipe is just how much cheaper it is to make this at home than going out and buying cold smoked salmon or Nova locks or locks itself and in this recipe we're actually going to show you at what point you could just stop and start slicing this up to create locks or you can continue on with the cold smoke and make Nova locks like we're gonna do today so let's just set the salmon aside and we're just gonna make the the cure so it's really easy the cure all we need is for every two pounds of fish you're gonna want a quarter cup of sugar and a quarter cup of kosher salt so we have a little more than a four pound side of salmon that means we're gonna use a cup of each [Music] so that's it now just mix this up and what you want to do is make sure you're getting any of the clumps of brown sugar out so that this is a nice even mix so now we're done mixing we've got it nice and even it's one thing you can do at this stage is add aromatics you can add in classic ingredients for Nova locks or locks like dill rosemary thyme the zest of a lemon we're just gonna keep it nice and simple here and we're gonna show you that don't you all you really need for this is two ingredients and about 48 hours of time so what you want to do is lay out a base layer scran lap wrap like this as best you possibly can and this is where we're gonna start to prep a surface for the salmon here what we're gonna do is take about half of our mixture and just lay this down on the bottom and we want to lay this out in a shape that's consistent with the side of salmon that we have because we're gonna lay that down on top of here once we're done now we're just gonna lay the fish down on here skin side down perfect now we're just gonna use the rest of the Cure and sprinkle it evenly over the top [Music] now that we've got this covered up and to be clear I mean covered not just the surface in terms of the top and the bottom but the sides here as well now we're ready to just wrap this up and get it in the fridge for a 48 hour cure we're just gonna take the saran wrap and pack this in as tightly as we can now if you've got a vacuum sealer you can use that at this stage and we realize that everybody doesn't have one of those at home so we just wanted to show you a more simplified recipe here with stuff that you likely have around the kitchen now that you've got that wrapped up you're just gonna transfer it to a cookie sheet or a baking tray just like that so it's really important to have your fish sitting on top of a baking tray like this because the salt and the sugar are going to wick out a ton of moisture from this salmon it's no longer gonna feel like it's got that raw texture to it and all of that liquid is gonna be inside the saran wrap this isn't perfectly sealed and so naturally some of its gonna skip out and you want to have a tray so that your fridge doesn't become a mess of fish and salmon juices so let's transfer this into the fridge so it's 48 hours later the same is ready to come out of the fridge so lets go get at it now one important step that I forgot to mention is you should be putting something heavy on the salmon while it's resting in the fridge and curing away we just used a couple extra Tupperware containers here and then just put some rub in just to weigh it down and apply a little bit of extra force and that just helps helps bring the liquid out of the salmon as its curing away over the 48-hour cure you can see there's been a lot of juice that's come out of the salmon well it's been curing in the fridge for 48 hours and when you touch it you can really feel some firmness in the fish now it's no longer just that raw site of salmon that we've got you can really feel it's starting to have that lox and Nova LOX touch to it so I'd recommend you do this over the sink just dump out the juice that's actually come out of the fish again this is why you want to use a baking sheet when you're doing your cure to catch all that juice you don't want that in the bottom of your fridge after two days now we're gonna give it a good rinse you want to get all that excess cure off of here otherwise this is just gonna be too salty yeah both sides get the skin side get the flesh side perfect there we go so now we're just gonna transfer this to a drying rack or a cooling rack take some paper towel and you're gonna want to get all the excess moisture off of this all right so at this stage we actually have locks or gravlax and if you want you can just start slicing into your salmon now skip ahead to the end of the video if you want to stop here and just we'll show you how to cut this just so that you get those perfect thin wafer thin see-through slices that you get at the grocery store or your deli anyway but obviously what we're gonna be doing here is Nova locks that's where we actually cold-smoked this for 24 hours so what we're gonna want to do before we actually cold-smoked it is put this back in the fridge for a half an hour and what's gonna happen is there'll be a thin almost sticky or tacky film that forms on the surface of the salmon called believe it's a pellicle or a Pella sill and that when we bring it out to the smoker afterward that's really gonna help the smoke flavor stick to the salmon and really impart that smokiness that we're looking for in a nova LOX so we're just gonna put this in the fridge and we'll be back in half an hour all right we've had this in the fridge for in half an hour and you can start to feel that tacky pellicle that's formed on the outside of this salmon so we're just gonna stick this off to the side and we're using our trigger 34 Pro for this one and for this we're gonna be using this smoking tube this is a great little thing whether you're just using a gas grill and you want to add a little bit of smoke flavor or whether you're doing a cold smoke on your trigger this tool is perfect for that so we're just gonna take some of our regular trigger Hickory pellets here just load up the tube and we don't need this full we just need this about halfway full all the way down the tube just like that and that's all we need for this smoke so what our lid down and now let's prep the grill so to turn your trigger into a cold smoker you're just gonna remove this right here and we're just gonna remove the drip tray now what we're gonna do we've got our Burns O Matic torch here make sure you turn the gas on now we're cooking there we just want to get one one of these ends lit up like that perfect and that's going to ignite and be the source of smoke for the entire chamber here so we're just gonna put that down on this end now we're just gonna put the grill grate back in now we just set our salmon in there to rest now we're doing this in the in in late spring and the temperatures overnight are still gonna be cool enough where we can have a fish outside on the smoker and we don't have to worry about the heat getting through it so we're just gonna close the lid down here and let this go overnight we'll check back in in the morning and you know we'll see if it's imparted the smokiness and that flavor that we're looking for into the salmon so you'll see we placed the smoker tube on the left-hand side of the trigger and that's going to allow the smoke to come up across the fish make sure we're connecting delivering that flavor profile we're looking for before the smoke then comes out the chimney so you always want to make sure your smoke source is on the far side of your grill relative to the chimney and you're placing your protein in the middle now it's morning time time to check in on the salmon you'll see what we had was a little bungee cord here just wrapped around the leg of the trigger and then the handle on the lid and that was just to keep the raccoons out we've got a lot of wildlife in our backyard where we live and we just want to make sure they didn't get to this salmon overnight all right look at that beautiful color we've got the salmon in off the smoker this morning and we've officially got novalog sitting in front of us again the difference between lox and Nova LOX is that Nova LOX has actually had a bit of a cold smoked so we've had a little over a 12-hour cold smoked that you can see here and the flesh of the Salmons really got that beautiful smoky color I wish you could smell it in the kitchen here it smells incredible we've got that hickory smoked a roll no that's just coming off this so now the most important part is just carving this up you need a long knife a long carving knife or brisket knife now if you're honing rod make sure you wipe your knife clean afterward you don't want any of those little metal fragments or metal micro dusts getting into your food now for slicing you're gonna want to start at the tail in first and just keep your knife really really flat you wouldn't want to shave in here and try to get slices that are just wait for thin so the first couple that come off don't aren't gonna work you've got to actually get down into the flesh of the fish here before you can start to get the wafer thin slices so you want to be able to see your knife through the fish as you're slicing and that's how you know you've got the right thickness or thinness so you'll see here you can get a really nice thin translucent piece of Nova LOX and what we're doing is we're just laying them down in a glass Tupperware here so we're gonna lay out a thin layer and then we'll get some parchment paper lay that over top put another layer down and just repeat until we're done slicing up this whole fish that way we can throw this in the freezer it'll freeze perfectly and we can pull out a layer of parchment at a time and let that fly out as opposed to having to take the whole thing a whole thing out of the fridge and have all of it thought we're not going to be able to get through this much Nova locks in a single go [Music] so if you get a piece like this and it has a little bit of the red vein there at the bottom just take the tip of your carving knife and get it out like that and just continue to advance just like that look at that way for thin you can see through it just like a window now as you go up the side of the fish it's gonna be easier to get those larger slices so just look at this now all you need is a little bagel some cream cheese some red onion chives and you are gonna be ready to go so folks if you like this video give it a like below consider subscribing to the channel and we'll see on the next one this folks is how you do no Velox at home so why don't you give this a shot it's one of the few recipes where it's way cheaper to do it yourself at home and honestly let's do the taste test and we'll just see how this actually turned out mmm that is absolutely incredible you get a way better outcome when you do this at home than just buying it at the store make sure you get a high-grade piece of salmon and you're gonna love this recipe thanks for tuning in [Music] [Music]

Channel: BBQ and Bottles

Views: 318,217

Keywords: BBQ and Bottles, BBQandBottles, Nova Lox, Lox, Gravlax, How to make Nova Lox, Homemade Nova Lox, Nova Lox recipe, curing salmon, how to cure salmon, cold smoked salmon

Id: jXfRdjrK-_g

Length: 15min 57sec (957 seconds)

Published: Sat Jun 01 2019