Aug 04 2008
Homemade Smoked Salmon
Jenny picked up a cedar plank from the grocery store today. (Yup, it’s just a piece of wood.) We were supposed to soak it for 4 hours, but we didn’t have time. We soaked it in boiling water for about 2 hours instead. We heated up our $89 Canadian Tire gas BBQ to — well, we put it up on bust. It cooled down to about 500 F once we opened the lid (and turned it down to a medium flame). I put the plank on the grill and closed the lid. Once we could hear the wood crackling and popping, we placed 3 salmon steaks right on the plank and let them cook for about 15 minutes with the lid closed. (Fillets would have been better but the store was sold out.) Smoke leaked out all over the place, especially near the end. It was alright and well worth the minimal effort I put in it. Here’s a slide show of the whole affair. It was the best salmon I’ve ever tasted. I recommend it to all my friends. And my enemies.
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Tags: bbq, cedar, salmon, smoked
We’re trying it again tonight with halibut and scallops.
UPDATE: Best halibut and scallops I’ve ever had.
UPDATE #2: We had halibut and scallops again the next night because it was so good. This time we smoked them with no extra flavouring. (We used a light brown sugar marinate before, which we only used to coat the fish, not really marinate.) The scallops are as delicious without the marinate. The halibut was still tasty without the marinate — and if you don’t have marinate, it’s no great loss — but that little extra marinate flavour is nice.
My fav salmon marinade is soy sauce and finely minced ginger root.
My fav salmon marinade is soy sauce and finely minced ginger root.
I’ll try it tonight.
You might want to bake a sweet potato to go with it. We find the flavors tres compatable, though it does make a lot of orange on your plate.
I’m looking forward to hearing what you think of the marinade.
We had to postpone due to heavy rains. I’ll let you how it goes when the weather clears up. I’ll write it up as a post.
Did you use the same plank each time? I know it’s just a piece of wood, but i wonder if it’s specially treated…
The instructions say you can use the wood until it’s burnt to a crisp. We’ve been soaking the wood each time and using it twice. I’ve wondered if it’s pressure-treated with some kind of smoky flavouring, but I think it’s the water that prevents it from burning up. Unless you really crank it up like I did the first time, it probably won’t catch fire. It gets black and charred, but it doesn’t burn.
Smoked cod is not a good thing. We’re trying Mean Jean’s cod marinate tonight.
Mean Jean, that marinate was delicious. Thanks. I’ll be making it again, for sure.
i soaked the plank for 16 hours (overnight). it caught fire real good. I think i left the BBQ on too high…. salmon was AWESOME though! Now i need a new plank…
Yup, anything over 600 F and it’s likely to catch fire. We’re doing steel head trout tonight. We cook the fish for about 15 minutes (without looking, because you want to keep the smoke in) and comes out perfect every time.
We cooked a trout last night. Incredible. Best trout I’ve ever had.
Hey, I’m so glad you liked it.
Variations: add garlic (duh!), render marinade down with a little shiraz and make what Mr. Mean calls “a goo”, i.e. sauce.
At different grocery store today, I picked up a MAPLE plank. If it doesn’t rain, we’ll try it tomorrow with salmon and scallops.