If you are a fan of smoked fish, then do not rush to go to the market for another portion. Products on the shelves are not always fresh and observe the manufacturing technology. To try a guaranteed tasty and fresh fish, you only need to know how to smoke fish at home. After all, this is not difficult at all. Consider the most popular recipes.
Cold-smoked mackerel
To prepare scented mackerel at home you will need the following ingredients:
- Fresh mackerel, 2 pcs;
- Smoke liquid, 100 ml;
- Onion husks, 2-3 handfuls;
- Bay leaf, 2 pieces;
- sugar;
- salt.
Knowing how to smoke fish at home, from these ingredients you can get a wonderful fragrant mackerel. So, onion husks must be thoroughly washed and filled with water. Add sugar and salt, leave until boiling. The broth should boil for about 20 minutes. Then it must be filtered, add liquid smoke, bay leaves and leave with a tight closed lid for half an hour, so that the broth is infused. After the specified time, the bay leaf is taken out and we put the prepared mackerel into the pan. Fish in marinade should be cooled at room temperature, and then send to cool in a refrigerator for two days. It should be remembered that the mackerel should be periodically turned over to evenly distribute the marinade. Two days later, an appetizing and delicious fish is ready.
How to smoke fish at home?
The previous version was a simplified version of the preparation of smoked mackerel. Cold smoking of fish at home. However, if you are a fan of hot smoking, this is not an obstacle in the preparation of such a fish at home. It will only be necessary to build a smokehouse, the basis of which can serve as a metal barrel. In addition, smoking is impossible without sawdust. Experienced masters, who know how to smoke fish at home, are advised to use any sawdust other than coniferous, because of them a fragrant resin is released. The best option is sawdust from birch or alder. Fish for such smoking can be used any, to your taste. So, hot smoking at home assumes the presence of the following ingredients:
- a fish;
- sawdust;
- Seasoning for marinating fish;
- salt;
- Pepper fragrant;
- Bay leaf.
So, the fish must be thoroughly cleaned and pre-marinated in seasoning. In a smokehouse pour sawdust and mark the fish on a special grate. A small fish can be smoked entirely, even without gutting. Large can be pre-filled with spicy greens. Under the smokehouse a bonfire is made and carefully monitor the temperature. So, at first the fish should be dried at a low temperature, and then immediately smoked. The temperature in the smokehouse is easy to check - you need to drop the water on the lid. If it boils, it means the heat is high and it's worth lowering the temperature a little. The smoking process can take from 40 minutes to several hours, depending on the size of the fish and the heat in the smokehouse. At first you will need to shoot fish and periodically try it, but then, when you already remember well how to smoke fish at home, everything will become much easier and faster.
Bon Appetit!