InfoNorway is an index of English language pages about Norway.
Follow the links to browse this site for Norway related information, or use the search form to find information directly. Keep your search terms short. One or two words will do.
InfoNorway links to thousands of quality pages related to Norway, all sorted and organized for easy access. Please let us know if you have trouble finding the Norway related information you are searching for. We at InfoNorway are always looking for ways to improve our site, so your comments and suggestions will be received with thanks.
There are two principal ways to smoke your catch; warm smoking and cold smoking. You can also use a combination of the two.
You can obtain an electric or fuel based smoker for warm smoking in most well equipped department stores. It is more fun though to construct one yourself.
If you buy a smoker, the instructions that comes with it should could contain a table with appropriate smoking times for different cuts of fish and meat. My general advice when it comes to hot smoking is however that the best way of getting a good result is to experiment.
Keep in mind that fresh fish can be eaten raw (such as Japanese Sushi).
Anyway, 30 minutes in a brine solution and 15 minutes in a smoker does a pretty good job of curing ordinary salmon fillets. I suggest you work your way out from there.
When it comes to brine solutions, try the following base:
Rub this into the fillets, place them in a vessel and apply some weight/pressure. After a while this will drain liquid from the fish and you'll have your brine solution. If it doesn't cover the fish completely add a weak salt water solution.
To provide variety try adding enough whisky, brandy, lemon juice, soy sauce or wine to the salt/pepper/sugar mix to make a paste which you then rub into the fillets as described above. Crushed juniper berries or cranberries add a nice flavour as well.
Keep in mind that most of the flavour comes from the smoking process, so be selective about the type of wood chips and saw dust you use.
Cold smoking must be learned by trial and error. Successful cold smoking requires accurate temperature control over several days. You can cold smoke salmon, trout, herring, cod, eel and mackerel, and serve it in many ways, either cold or boiled, with potatoes, toast, eggs or whatever.
A smokery for cold smoking fish is usually built in a small sloping hill of about 12 - 18 ft (4 - 6 meters) At the bottom of the slope, build a closed fire place in such a way as to take advantage of the most common wind direction.
The smoke house is placed at the top of the slope, and could be a wooden case or large tin box with a loose lid. The smoke channel or chimney goes from the fire place to the smokehouse, and should be running approximately one foot into the ground. (A gutter pipe will do fine).
The smoke house must be big enough for the fish to hang flat out with all bones removed and enough room in between to ensure that they get smoked evenly.
Gut and clean the fish, but don't remove the head and skin. Rub it in salt and put the fillets in layers with the skin side down in a vessel. Add more salt between the layers, and leave it for about 30 minutes. Take it out and let it dry in the air for a couple of hours. It is important that the fish is dry when it is placed in the smoke house.
Hook the fish up and hang the hooks on an iron rod an inch or two below the lid in the smoke house. Keep the lid slightly open, and don't forget to put a thermometer at the same height in the smoke house as the fish.
Use wood and wood chips from birch, oak, elm or the like (not pine trees). Keep the fire so that the temperature can be held at 10 - 30 C ( 50 - 90 F) for two to three days. Make sure that there always are embers in the fire place. Cover with branches of juniper and keep them moistened to ensure ample smoke.