Seasonal Foods: Smoked Sockeye Salmon

smoked-sockeye-4

This is hot smoked salmon after about 12 hours in the smoker. Mmmmm!

Smoked salmon was a traditional way to preserve fish for the winter. Rhonda Dieni is the Weston A Price Foundation Kamloops Chapter Leader. She shared her traditional cure for smoked salmon.

1/2c sea salt
1/2c local honey
2L water
Cut the salmon fillets into 3-4 inch wide stripes. Soak the salmon stripes in the cure for 8-12 hours. Remove the salmon from the cure and lay out the salmon on the racks in the smoker. We used apple wood chips for the smoke but you can use another wood.

Smoking will take about 12-24 hours depending on the heat produced by the smoker. The smoker will have to be fed more wood chips on a regular basis. Some smokers do more of a cold smoke which dries the salmon, while other smokers do more of a hot smoke which cooks the salmon. Cold smoke salmon will last longer than hot smoke salmon but both can be frozen for later use.

Taste the salmon every few hours until the meat is dried (cold smoke) or cooked (hot smoke). If you are looking to do a cold smoke you will need a smoker that has a thermostat to control the temperature. We are using a Big Chief Top Load Smoker which does not have a thermostat.?

smoked-sockeye-1

Soak the salmon stripes in the cure for 8-12 hours. Refrigerate or use some ice if you’re worried about the salmon getting too warm.

smoked-sockeye-2

Load the salmon into the smoker. Fill up the pan with wood chips. You can see the pan with wood chips in the top left corner of the photo. This is an inexpensive, top load smoker called Big Chief.

smoked-sockeye-3

This is what the salmon looks like after about 6 hours of smoking.

If you don’t have freezer space, you can pressure can the smoked salmon like Rhonda does. Now, that’s a delicacy!

canned-salmon

Here’s Rhonda’s home canned smoked salmon. It’s by far the best canned salmon I have ever eaten. Thanks, Rhonda!