My Monday Make

Hot Smoked Fish, I love smoked salmon and mackerel in fact I love any fish or sea food.

While we were out on Saturday I bought some Mackerel and half a side of Salmon

I got the fishmonger to gut the Mackerel for me, I chopped off the heads and tails and boned them, boning Mackerel is one of the things I first learnt in domestic science at school.

Boning is easy, lay the fish flesh side down and press along the spine, then pull off the spine with the bones, any bones that are left behind are just pulled out.

Next job was salting the fish 

 The salmon was cut into fillets lay on a bed of salt then sprinkled with salt,

I la the tail piece on top and sprinkled that with salt 

cover and pop into the fridge 

The mackerel was given the same salt treatment, they were left in the fridge for a couple of hours,

The point of salting is to draw moisture out of the fish

Its surprising how much liquid comes out of the fish 

rinse the fish well and pat dry leave to air dry for a bit, this is the time to set up the smoker.

I got a smoking cabinet last year when I was doing all the pork.

This time I use an Apple sawdust in the smoker 

Once the smoker was ready I loaded up the fish and closed the cabinet up and left it do its business for the afternoon.

Because it was so windy yesterday I set the smoker up in the wood shed, the smell was fantastic.

 The fish was fantastic too, the salmon fillets I have popped in the freezer for later meals.

For dinner last night we had the salmon tail and mackerel with salad and fresh bread.

This is the first time I have had a go at smoking fish and its been a great success, I will be doing this again, the salmon cost £10.72 not bad for three meals for the two of us.

Next time I would to try adding some flavours to fish while smoking.