Now We’re Smokin! – February 1, 2013

My wonderful mother-in-law, Mary Ellen, bought me a beautiful cookbook for Christmas called Home Made by Yvette Van Boven.  It is beautiful and has the best simple recipes for making almost anything at home.  I was checking it out during the holidays and saw that it had a whole section on smoking.  I considered buying a kitchen smoker you put in your oven, but my husband, John, said we could do it on the gas grill – and he was right.

We had some frozen salmon in a bag in the freezer that was too thin to be very good just cooked as a main course, so we thought this would be the perfect way to use it.  We also had some walnut wood in the basement shop that John cut into chips and some Rum left over from Derby when we made mojitos.  Here is what we did:

Smoked Salmon

1 lb. skinned thin salmon

½ c. dark rum

½ c. brown sugar

¼ c. or less of coarse sea salt

freshly ground pepper to taste

wood chips

Place salmon in shallow dish and soak in rum for 30 minutes.  Pour off liquid and let sit to dry.  You may have to pour liquid off again and/or pat dry with a paper towel.  Mix sugar, salt and pepper and place half in pan covering with fish and placing the remaining mixture over.  Cover with plastic and place in refrigerator 3 – 4 hours.  Soak chips.  Place chips in bottom of grill and heat.  Wipe all the salt mixture off the fish, rinse it off thoroughly with water (or it will be too salty), pat dry with paper towel or allow to sit to dry and place on grill.  Smoke for 15 minutes or longer if desired.  I liked it at 15 minutes.  We did again later for 20 minutes or longer and it was a bit too dry for me.

 I had salmon on salads and on a bagel with cream cheese.  Both were fabulous.  Then, I tried a warm pasta recipe that really showed off the salmon.

Amandari Smoked Salmon Pasta

4 chopped tomatoes

2 chopped shallots

2 T. chopped capers

zest of one orange

2 T. chopped basil

4 oz. shredded smoked salmon

¼ c. olive oil

1/8 tsp. pepper.

8 oz. angel hair pasta

2 boiled and chopped eggs

Parmesan cheese to taste

Mix tomatoes, shallots and capers.  Add next five ingredients.  Cook pasta and mix in sauce.  Top with eggs and cheese.

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