Smoked Salmon ala Rick

Ingredients

1 large Some (lots) Some (lots) 1 sm bottle 1 box or more some	**Salmon fillet, skinless **Salt, Kosher OR crystallized sea salt Sugar, granulated Liquid Smoke Sugar, brown Pepper, black

PREPARING OR BRINING THE SALMON

1. After you have managed to skin the salmon fillet, check the salmon for any large bones poking out by running your hands over the fillet. Use needle nose pliers or tweezers to remove any you find.

2. Use ½ & ½ sugar & salt or up to 2 parts sugar to 1 part salt. Pack the salmon with copious amounts of salt & sugar on both sides. Let it sit for 2 hours up to 12 to 18 hours. Put a weight on the thick part of the filet. The salmon will get juicy because the salt is pulling the moisture out and it will also get leathery feeling.

3. Using almost a whole bottle of liquid smoke, rub it into the salmon on both sides and for best results, let marinate over night, turning often if you can. (I have done it at the last minute and only let it marinate a couple of hours.)

TO BAKE/BROIL IN OVEN

1. Either next day or 2 hours later: Preheat oven to 300^o.

2. Rinse the salmon & place salmon on a rack on a cookie sheet and coat the face up side liberally with ½ of the brown sugar.

3. Bake at 300^o for 15 minutes until tender. In this case, less is more. If you cook it too long it will get tough. Don’t overcook!

4. Take it out of the oven and place in a cool area so that it cools down fast. Freezer is best.

5. When completely cooled preheat the oven broiler, sprinkle with **black pepper, and coat the top with the rest of the brown sugar,

6. Place under a hot broiler until the brown sugar on top is brown and caramelized looking. WATCH because it burns quickly.

7. Remove from the broiler & cool before serving.

TO COOK IN WEBER

1. Rinse the salmon

2. Put 8 – 10 coals in one side of the barbeque kettle and put the lid opening on the other side. This will draw the smoke over the salmon.

3. Use some hardwood chips (not sawdust ones) and wet them so they smolder. Add them to the coals as needed so there are copious amounts of smoke coming out of the top of the closed kettle.

4. Add more coals if the fire gets too low. Remember that you want very little heat when smoking, so don’t add any more coals then what you need to keep a fire going.

5. It will take about an hour or so, depending on how much heat is in the kettle. You can adjust the top opening to keep the fire low. Remember that you are looking for smoke, not heat.

TO SERVE

1. Place the filet on a large platter

2. Flake the salmon a bit so people don’t try to take big, main dish size servings!

3. Serve with cream cheese & small bagel pieces or crackers.

4. Good for a brunch or hors d’ oeuvres. YUMM!!

NOTE

**Costco sells them skinless OR have the butcher remove the skin. If you have to do it yourself, Rick says to take a sharp knife, start at the tail end, skin side down, pull skin tight, keep knife flat, and SKIN it. Good luck…

** Kosher salt is best.

**The more pepper, the spicier the salmon will be.

No tags for this post.