Smoking is Good For You: Orange PeokoeTea Smoked Salmon

Don’t tell Cowie, but I love smoked salmon. I get it from my grandfather who grumpily protests like Father Jack when the meal starts without a few slithers of tulip pink, oily smoked fish, anointed with a drop of lemon and befriended by a slice or two of buttered brown bread. Sadly, we’re all banned from the joy of freshly ground pepper in his presence because it makes him sneeze.

So in the interests of experimentation and as a sneaky way of getting around the need for pepper, I decided to have a blast at hot smoking my own salmon over some tea leaves as the opening gambit to our Christmas day feast. Luckily Mum had picked up a quiveringly fresh side of salmon from the fishmonger, so my task was an exciting one. I decided to smoke half of it and make gravadlax with the other.

For someone who doesn’t smoke, I’ve done a fair amount of smoking. Albeit of the edible variety. Cowie gave me a smoker as a present a couple of years ago, so I’ve had a bit of practice. Our main successes have been with smoked trout and with tea smoked duck. Both dishes employ the hot smoking method which not only cooks the food in the heat, but also cures it with the mysteriously alchemic qualities of the wafty smoke. When done right you are left with moist flesh and the irresistible flavour of fire.

Whilst everyone was watching soporific Christmas Eve telly, I got busy with the salmon. First heavily season the fish on both sides and remove any pin bones. Some people suggest brining, but I found it works fine if you skip this step. Place the fish on a pyrex dish that will fit inside the dish that is going to act as your smoker. Then line your mother’s finest Le Creuset casserole dish with two layers of thick foil. Cover the foil in tea leaves. I used Orange Pekoe which I had brought back from India, but I suspect any old tea leaves will do. Then throw in a couple of spoonfuls of rice, a sprinkling of sugar and a blob of honey. This will get the smoke kicked off.

Next it’s time for some Blue Peter improvisation. Scrunch up three balls of foil and position them in the bottom of the pan to act as supports for the plate or pyrex bowl that your salmon is sitting on. You need the gap between the base of the pan and the pyrex dish to allow the smoke to billow.

Then place your smoking vessel on the hob and get the tea leaves smoking. Once the feathers of smoke are smoldering consistently place the pyrex dish on the three foil feet and whack on the lid. If it doesn’t fit perfectly then you’re in trouble. So have some kit handy to improvise.

Keep the heat high for the first 10 minutes and then turn the heat down and smoke for a further 15 minutes. This is all quite trial and error so you might want to have a peak after 20 minutes has elapsed and then take a call on how much further your want to take it. My preference is for the fish to still be moist and rare in the middle, but I imagine some would get squeamish about it.

One precaution you should take is to make sure you’ve closed all the doors leading out of your kitchen to the rest of the house and opened all the windows to mitigate against smoking the rest of the family out. When the big moment came to check on the salmon, I decided to take it outside into snow and was delighted to see that the smoke had worked its magic.

The flesh was translucently moist yet cooked. I let out an embarrassing fist pump in triumph, which was sadly witnessed by my sister, before popping it in the fridge and collapsed in front of the telly.

On Christmas Day, I simply whipped up a crème fraiche and lemon dressing and served it in rosy pink wedges with a small salad and a glass of top class Grüner Veltliner.

It was a wonderful start to our meal and one of the most satisfying things I’ve done this year. The highlight was the way the fish teased apart like the indented divisions in a posh dictionary and the support from the dazzlingly alive wine had us all purring as loudly as our rather talkative Siamese cat.

For a more in depth guide to hot and cold smoking get your hands on Hugh F-W’s brilliant Fish book or have a butchers at this site.

What a weekend…

Rad Hart-George should be renamed Rad Fearnley-Wittingstall-Hart-George if you ask me. But then again, I’m not great at names. For instance I want to name my sons Cuba and Muddy. Just for banter.

Rad hosted a brilliant party for 12 up at his parents’ house in Anglesey. It’s miles from anywhere and all the better for it. We were blessed with weather that was so good, it is a near certainty that we are in for a horrific summer of snow and hail. We spent the Bank Holiday weekend living as if none of us had a care in the world. On several occasions it felt as if we were in a Jack Wills advert and when I recounted the weekend’s tales to my Grandfather he thought it sounded like a grown up version of Swallows and Amazons. The truncated highlights include:

My first ever trip on a sailing boat…

The catching and subsequent smoking of two mackerel…

And the baking of fresh bread to spread our amazing smoked mackerel pate on.

It was one of the most enjoyable weeekends for ages. Thank you Rad so much for everything. All the photos are from Rad’s blog where you will also find the recipes all the delicious food we stuffed ourselves with.

River Cottage Autumn Festival

Last year we fell head over heels for River Cottage when we were taken on a mushrooming tour de force by John Wright – Hugh’s brilliant mushroom expert. It’s taken us a nearly a year to return – but we did so eagerly.

The River Cottage Autumn Festival attracted 2,000 visitors over 2 days – each paying £15. Which means that over the course of a year Hugh’s seasonal festivals take £120,000 on the gate. Impressive stuff. Even more impressive when you look at the itinerary for the rest of the year. It’s great to see someone’s rustic dream become a lucrative success.

The festival itself was a jolly affair. Swarming with families and kids in wellies running around without a care in the world.

All the stalls were manned by slightly hippyish people – utterly dedicated to making things by hand, just like the good old days. This is the part that really excites me at the moment. I am dead keen both on smoking my own food and also have a burning desire to build a clay pizza oven.

By sheer coincidence, Cowie and I watched the episode of River Cottage where Hugh builds a smoker on the train down to Somerset. Having learnt how easy it is to do and now armed with a photograph I am planning to convert Cowie’s spare stable into a rustic smoker.

Perhaps more excitingly, I also had a chance to inspect Hugh’s collection of clay ovens. Whilst I can’t afford to go on his “Build a clay oven in a day” course, I have now got the seminal book on the subject. I’ve also found a brilliant website that explains exactly how to make them. All I need is a load of clay, another load of sand, some sleepers and a few spare weekends. Then I’ll be feasting on pizzas…

The folk music band was in full swing as we pottered into the farmers’ market tent. It was full of brilliant local foodie producers.

My favourite was the South Devon Chilli Farm.

Their chipotle sauce is now on my desk at work and has inspired me to smoke my next batch of chillies… Why not combine two of my favourite things. I guess I’ll have to then scatter them all over my innaugrual pizza!

Their chillies ranged from the mellow to the fierce. I’ve invested in 4 new types of chilli… with one weighing in at 450,000 Scoville units… frankly, I’m a bit scared!

We left the skwelchy car park full of beans, but starving! It was a great event that I am very hesitant about critcising… but not being able to provide enough food for a ticketed event is pretty poor… especially when you’re a chef at home on your own farm!

So we went to Lyme Regis and had some sensational fish and chips instead!

Smoked Trout

Cowie is such a hero. She puts up with a lot from me. She very kindly gave me a smoker for Christmas and it has taken me the best part of 9 months to let it loose! But it was seriously worth the wait and effort.

First of all I carried it back over Christmas to Bedford on the train along with loads of other things. Then I brought it back to London. Then I moved house and took it to Cowie’s house. Then I took it to work so I could then take it on the train to Somerset. On each occasion the trains couldn’t have been busier.

So it was quite a momentous moment to fire up the badger and smoke the living daylights out of two unsuspecting rainbow trout whilst camping in North Devon.

Although we found it nearly impossible to get the burners alight we somehow managed to generate enough smoke to transform these two beauties…

into gorgeous, warm, smokey fish…

The flesh was so delicious and a lot more subtle than the smoked salmon and mackerel you get in supermarkets. It’s also a real treat to eat it greedily with your fingers straight from the smoker. There’s something very back to basics about the whole thing. Next weekend we are going to smoke some mackerel form Lyme Regis. And I can’t wait!

Tea Smoked Duck

I pottered down to the Northcotte Road this morning to get some stuff for breakfast and landed up buying a couple of duck breasts for supper. Wondering what to do with them I remembered that Hannah smoked some duck breasts with lavender on Master Chef to great effect and did a bit of sofa research.

There are loads of recipes for smoking duck. There are 730,000 entries on Google all with different instructions! I read quite a few of them before deciding that I would base my strategy on the simplest suggestion from Wino Sapien.

So. I started by coating the slashed duck breasts in Fleur de Mer salt, smoked paprika, freshly ground pepper and ginger. I left these to develop in the fridge for half an hour or so before rinsing them off and patting dry.

In the meantime I threw a variety of tea leaves into a foil lined wok. White Monkey tea, Earl Grey Creme from Moby’s Teany, a bit of Lap and my Blends for Friends concoction. A drizzle of honey and a scattering of dried shitake mushrooms finished things off. I fired up the gas and got the tea to smoking point before popping the duck breasts in a suitably sized colander and sealing with a lid.

Around 8 minutes of smoking did the trick. You’ve got to make sure the lid is secured tightly and any gaps are plugged otherwise you’re going to be airing your house for the rest of the week!

After smoking for 8 minutes take the wok off the heat and let it rest with the lid still on. You want to get as much smoke into the duck as possible. Then remove the duck breasts and rub a bit of salt into the now golden skin before lobbing skin side down into a scorching hot griddle pan. Sear until the skin is crisp before turning over dabbing with butter and then shove it under the grill for a few minutes to cook through.

Spoon over the juice in the pan, leave to rest for a moment or two and then slice. Delicious and far better than I had hoped for!

Well done Wino Sapien. Great recipe. I added a couple of dabs of lime marmalade and apricot jam to the plate to give the plate a bit of colour and some sweetness.