Western Colorado Catering Chef: Making Cured Smoked Salmon, a picture guide

Making Cured Smoked Salmon: A Picture Guide

Well since it has been a hit and is now one of our best selling items I
figured I ought to give a picture guide to the cured salmon. Those of
you commercial people wanting to do this in your area can e-mail for a
few more tricks of the trade.

First we need the salmon. After Lorraine requested salmon I decided to
mess around with a little Canadian Atlantic. So this is a picture guide
using Canadian Atlantic Salmon:

First fly the salmon in, the fresher you can get it, the better product
you will turn out.

Then you must wash the salmon I always use ice water to wash the salmon
down and cool it further. A little trick here is to make this water a
brine, it tightens the flesh up for a nicer finished product.

While the salmon is in the brine for half an hour you want to get your
cure spices together. First you cure salt, 3 table spoons for 30 pounds
of fish. 4 pounds of salt, then you can add what ever else you like. I
use, ginger, brown sugar, ground clove, nutmeg, tarragon, bay leaf and
white pepper. I also add in a little chili powder.

Nest you layer in the salmon with the cure, so cure, salmon cure salmon
etc. After that I go back over it until all the cure is used up. The I
will come back over each salmon side with a sugar. I have been using
maple sugar. But honey and regular sugar will work, as will any number
of fruit compotes.

Let this sit for 6 hours and then wash the sides. And set them in the
cooler to dry for at least 12 hours. Then next morning into the smoker.
(I am skipping the smoker picture as you have seen it in the bacon and
ham blogs. Same thing with fish in it.

When it reaches 152 degrees pull it and let it sit for half an hour,
then into the cooler overnight.

Of interest to me was the fat that comes out of these Canadian salmon. I
have cut a few tails off and an going to make some salmon ravioli with
them to see what we can do with that smoke filled fat!

Would like to point out the June 24, 2006 C2C fund raiser we are hosting
in Grand Junction Colorado. Have room for some volunteers if you want to
work with Great Chefs and learn and work for a great cause. And tickets
are on sale now at $109.00 per plate. We can also use people coming
through the front door to help the cause! Consider it, educated people
to have a vocation that allows them to make a living is a noble cause!

Hope you enjoy this, talk at you later.