Smoking!

During November I spent a day at Cold Smoking (Coldsmoking.co.uk) on a food smoking course. Turan, who ran the course was quite simply excellent and his easy engaging style meant that all of us on the course went away feeling not only capable of producing our own smoked food but also enthused and excited about giving it a go. The course was a gift from the Beautiful Wife and as such I was able to save some spending money which I spent on equipment to begin smoking, a kind of cold smoking beginners kit, if you will.
With the last few weeks of Autumn term being so hectic it was only on the 22nd December that I was in a position to begin. A side of Salmon was salted for 6 hours and the dried in the fridge for a further 24. The fish firmed up a bit and developed a feel like sticky latex rubber. I then fired up the smoker and let the wonders of salt, smoke, fish and time do their stuff. I have to confess at this point that I was not expecting any great results from my first try at home; I was working on the basis that anything edible would be a bonus.
After 5 hours I removed the fish and packed all my kit away. Unable to resist, the Beautiful Wife and I carved ourselves the thinnest of slices. It was quite delicious!
A day later and the salmon was even better. Owing to the fact that the fish was salted and not brined there is less of a sense of wetness in the fish and more a feel of fish oil. Probably the best smoked salmon I have ever tasted.
So far a piece has been used for a gift, we used some in our Eggs Royale on Christmas morning and I am looking forward to serving it with scrambled eggs to my mother tomorrow morning!
I cannot recommend the course highly enough, if you think that a home produced luxury product can't match the top commercial brands you are very much mistaken in this case.