There’s nothing better than cooking for the people that you love and care about. We all love our barbecue session, not only because of the extremely delicious food but also because these events create the perfect opportunities to socialize and create stronger bonds with your neighbors, family members, and friends.
If you’re a smoked food fan, and you love fish as well, here a great recipe that you use to smoke salmon and surprise your close friends and family with your culinary skills. It doesn’t take much to make this delicious dish although there are steps to this process. Being that smoking meat is a slow process all you’ll need to do is start your electric smoker and tend to the temperature. So if you’re unfamiliar with how the process goes, let’s explain this process as well as the recipe in detail, shall we?
Tidy and Clean
The first thing that you should do before starting marinating the salmon is getting your electric smoker bars clean. It doesn’t matter what meat you smoked before; the bars should be as clean as the day you brought it from the store.
The small bits of other meat will affect the flavor of your smoked salmon. And why spoils such a great smell with the smell of anything else? So make sure that you keep those bars clean as a whistle. This way you can guarantee for the success of any smoked meat recipe.
There are some great models of electric smokers out there, so if you haven’t decided on your favorite yet be sure to check the local stores. On the other side if you’re not fully aware how to maintain and clean your electric smoker, take a look at this guide. Remember that with proper maintenance, you’ll considerably extend the lifespan of your electric smoker.
Preparing the Marination
So you’ve got your salmon filets in front of you, fresh and boneless ready to bath in the marinade your about to prepare. If you like to invest even more effort in this recipe, you can debone the meat yourself, but it’s not recommendable as it’s hard and weary process. Salmon is great for your health if you aren’t familiar with benefits of adding salmon meat to your diet take a look at these facts. So the least you can do is invest time in its preparation.
The best thing is to buy already deboned filets of salmon. This way, the only thing you need to do with them is cut them in smaller bits and pieces. So how do you start with this recipe? Every great recipe starts with an amazing marinade. And smoking salmon is all about preparing the marinade.
Start by placing a glass or plastic cup in front of you, large enough to fit all the salmon filets. Now you’ll need brown sugar, maple syrup (optional), chilly (completely optional although by the opinion of some, essential), sea salt, lemon pepper, pepper, garlic ( you can also use powder) and water. Mix all the ingredients together in the bowl. Make sure that you get the sugar/salt ration right. It should be 3 to 1.5 cups of salt. Now that it’s all mixed together place the meat in your bowl with marinade.
Juicy and Moist
Once you got your marinade, you need to place the meat in the refrigerator so that it can absorb and bathe in all those flavors and spices. Place the bowl for a 12-hour chill. It takes the time to prepare salmon this way, but it’s worth it as the meat will taste like nothing you’ve tried before.
After 12 hours of marinating the meat, remove it from the refrigerator and give it a stir. Don’t mind the odd color and shape of the meat; it’s looking exactly the way it should after 6 hours of partying with all those ingredients. Once every piece of filet is turned over return it in the fridge for another 6 hours.
Drying the Meat
Now there are many techniques for drying the meat, but not all are acceptable by professionals. The best way to do so is to use your electric smoker bars and place the meat on an elevated bar panel so it can dry and remove the excess marinade.
You don’t want your meat to be too juicy as it will drip in the smoker creating a mess that’s hard to clean. And we all know how important it is to keep your smoker clean all the times. Alternatively, you can leave the salmon outside on a paper towel-covered panel on a nice sunny day. This will embed the remaining marinade in the meat while evaporating the excess.
Smoking the Salmon
When smoking any meat in your new electric smoker, make sure that you preheat and pre-smoke the smoker before you place the meat inside it. You don’t want to start the slow thermal process at an adequate temperature. It would affect the texture of the meat, and ultimately the flavor as well.
So set your electric smoker on 180-200 degrees. Once you see the smoke coming out from it, it’s ready to place the meat. When arranging these beautifully marinated filets of salmon, make sure that you give them enough space.
Don’t stick them together or place one on top another no matter how low on space you are. To avoid overcrowding your electric smoker bars with salmon meat, always prepare only as much you can fit on top without squeezing them together.
Matter of Choice
Your smoked meat will be ready in about one and a half hours of slow smoking, and it will taste like nothing you’ve tasted before. But you can make this dish even better. If you’re mouthwatering to that idea here’s something else you can add to the recipe and make it even better.
Do you like dressing? Who doesn’t really? You can make a nice salad mix with Roman lettuce, some nicely chopped carrot or add whichever vegetable you prefer, and place your meat on top of that.
It will look great, and the best thing about it is that this type of salad goes with almost any dressing. You can mix-up a ginger dressing and just pour it on the salad and your smoked meat. Lemon dressing is also great as it adds that citrus flavor to the meat making every bite heavenly delicious. You can make any variation of this recipe as long as you follow the steps of smoking the salmon and marinating the meat.
The key to cooking is knowing which ingredients combine well together. So feel free to experiment and explore with spices and ingredients.