Smoked Salmon cubes appetizer


 

Tom Raveret

TVWBB Pro
Consider this my Christmas Present to the board. This is my favorite Smoked Salmon Recipe. This is a killer appetizer and really has a especially rich flavor that complements the salmon well. It consists of an overnight brine and short smoke the next day. You can experiment and decide how much of the flavor you like and add or subtract time to your brine. I usually do it before going to bed and then smoke midday the next day. It can get too salty if you leave it in for too much more than a day. There seems to be a preference for wild Salmon over fresh. This recipie seems ot come out quite well with both varieties as wild is usually prohibitively expensive and hard to procure.

Prepare the following brine by mixing the following together in a non-reactive bowl or baking dish (I use a large deep corning ware cassarole dish)

1 cup molasses
½ cup soy sauce
4 TBL Candied Ginger cut extra finely
2 TBL granulated Garlic
½ cup Brown sugar
½ cup white wine
½ cup oyster sauce
1 cup dried chives (one can substitute fresh green onion tops if you cant find the dried variety)
½ cup pickling salt


Cut Skinless bonless Salmon Fillet's into 1"-1 1/2" cubes (I often have to skin the salmon myself as we dont usually get it that way in Wisconsin). Cut the thin belly area into long strips (these turn out really good). I have done as much as 7 lbs on the smoker and that was pretty full capacity on both racks. (though with the modification of adding a rack or two you could probably easily double this).

Place the Salmon in the brine in a non-reactive dish and cover with plastic. Refridgerate overnight.

Prepare the WSM with 1/2 chimney of coals in the chimney and no water in the water pan (certainly foil the water pan for this one or you'll have a real mess) Just after you add the salmon put a chunk or two of Alder on the fire for smoke.

Carefully regulate the temprature down to keep the temprature as low as you can without letting the fire go out. I'm sure minion method would work well for this cook but its such a short smoke I just usually fire up the half chimney and dump it a little earlier than normal into the charcoal ring.

A 200-225 range is fine.

Arrange the Salmon from the middle of the rack out leaving an inch or two at the edges of the grill grate clear as the heat comes up here and the Salmon can dry out. Using a instaread thermometer check the Salmon after a half an hour and then every 10 minutes or so until you get a reading of 160 on the thermometer in the middle of a chunk. My usual smoking time for this is about one hour. Take off the Salmon pieces and refridgerate. They keep fine for a day or two in the fridge (if they last that long).

Enjoy!!!
 
I have everything in my cupboard except the "pickling salt." Can you substitute another salt for pickling salt? I've got sea salt (both Hawaiian and uniodinized morton's) and morton's kosher salt.
 
What I have been using is Diamond Crystal Canning and Pickling salt. Its consistency is much more like table salt than Kosher salt. After talking with Cargill (the parent company for Diamond Crystal they explain the difference as "canning and pickling" salt goes through one less cleaning process required by the FDA and the size of its crystals is different. After checking both I find the Morton uniodized to actually be slightly larger in granule size (perhaps because the canning and pickling is designed to disolve into a soloution is my guess) I would think NAcL is NAcL so I weighed the 1/2 cup pickling salt and it is 3 3/4 oz or 100 grams. It is my best guess that substituting the same amount (by weight) of non iodized table salt would give the same results.

I don't have enough of the mortons to weigh out a 1/2 cup or I would have done that to compare.

Let me know how it turns out. Any other thoughts?
 
I did a google search. Pickling salt is "similar to table salt, but lacks the iodine and anti-caking additives that turn pickles dark and the pickling liquid cloudy. Pickles made with table salt would still be good to eat, but they wouldn't look as appetizing."

I found an equivalency for Morton's Kosher salt: "1 Cup plus 2 Tablespoons Morton's Kosher salt = 1 Cup of Morton's Canning & Pickling Salt."

I'm going to give your recipe a try this weekend using a 1/2 cup of the Morton's Kosher. I have about 100 lbs of frozen silver salmon fillets in the freezer from an Alaska fishing trip earlier this fall that I need to keep eating. (Such a problem /infopop/emoticons/icon_biggrin.gif ) I've learned/discovered that previously frozen salmon should be brined only 1/2 the time of fresh salmon or its gets way too salty, so I will cut your brining time down to about 4-6 hours and see how it turns out.
 
Dave,

After doing a little research this afternoon you may wnat to hold off on using Mortons Kosher Salt in a brine. It probably contains (mine does) an anti caking agent called Yellow Prussia of Soda (YPS)
After talking with someone at Cargill, parent company for Diamond Crystal, I learned that YPS can cause an undesirable chemical reaction in brines(for one thing it can make everything turn blue). She is going to have to get back to me on Monday as to what that reaction is with but Canning and Pickling specifically dosent have that anti-caking additive. I will also post the results of the call as a separate heading as this sounds lkie it would be of potential intrest of anyone who brines or uses salt in a marinade.

She will also be getting me information as to what products of theirs do and do not contain YPS.

She also corrected the original customer service agent I was speaking to stating that there is NO additional cleaning process and purity of any food grade salt would be pretty much the same
 
I was told by an old fish smoker (my wife's uncle Eric) that the salmon would not absorb too much salt. So far I have not had any problem with this. I use mortons kosher salt, brown sugar and sprinkle down the salmon in a cooler overnite and then smoke the next day. I have used it on fresh and farm-raised salmon both without a problem---
 
I've always used Morton's K-Salt in my brines because I can rarely find Diamond around here. I've had no problems with brining poultries or salmon with it. I'll be interested to see what the Cargill rep says about the possible reactions when using Morton K salt for brines.

Keri C
 
Keri, She said on friday that some Diamond Crystal Kosher salt also contains the anti-caking agent YPS so while I expect she will only speak bout the charachteristics of Cargill products While I find this interesting I think for our applications it will probably turn out to be much ado about nothing as many many of us have been brining without any reported adverse results using kosher salt or table salt!! /infopop/emoticons/icon_smile.gif

If this proves anything so far its just that I have waaaay too much time on my hands.
 
Ditto what Keri said. Guess I'll have to find some food coloring /infopop/emoticons/icon_wink.gif
 
I spoke to the rep again and she did some more checking and from what I gather the potential reaction from the YPS would only be relative to pickling. Also if you did get the reaction it would only result in a blue color and not effect the taste of the meat (If it looked blue I think it would effect my perceptin of it). I will continue to use the canning /pickling when I can find it but would probably substitute kosher in a pinch.

What was that quote by Tommy Smothers something like "Red meat isnt bad for you...now blue green meat , thats another matter"
 
I tried out this recipe for my first ever salmon smoke on Super Bowl Sunday. Needless to say, it was a hit! I can see why it's your favorite Tom!
I didn't have any pickling salt either, just substituted some kosher and it came out real goooood! I left mine in for about 2 hrs at 220 or so to a temp of about 160, I wanted it a little on the dry side for appitizer style. I also added one thing to the receipe, some lemon grass. Another ingredient I've never used before but thought it'd go good in the mariniade, couldn't really taste the flavor of it as I probably didn't use enough or chop it finely enough. Great recipe though! I don't see how I could try another after that one.
 
Glad you liked it Brad they aare addictive!!. I like to take some of it and throw it in the food procesor pulverize it and whip up a great dip too!!!
 
I'll bet if you mashed some up with a fork, added some FINELY diced onion and some cream cheese, you'ld get one helluva bagel spread.
 
This dip recipe is incredibly simple and comes from a fisherman at our marina.

Gordys Fish dip:

1 lb smoked salmon
1 lb cream cheese
1 cup mayo
1/2 Tablespoon Dijon mustard
1/2 Tablespoon lemon juice
1 teaspoon dill weed
3 dashes black pepper

Shred the salmon, soften the cream cheese, mix all ingredients.
 
I smoked some this morning and it is great. The Mrs. made a dipping sauce as follows:

1/2 Cup of Mayo (light is good too)
3 T Jalapeno mustard
2 T Creamy Horseradish sauce ie: Kraft
2t or to taste Louisiana Hot sauce

Mix all together and refrigerate an hour or so to meld.

Serve the salmon with toothpicks and use the sauce to dip the chunks.
Voila...
 

 

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