Cold smoked trout or salmon fillets

Ingredients :

• Trout or salmon fillets
• Salt of Guerande
• Granulated sugar
• Dill (perfect for fish)
• Coriander powder
• Garlic powder

Get whole trout or fillets from the nearest fish farm… or from your local fishmonger: (the freshness of the product is essential here!)

After possibly rinsing the fillets in clear water and removing the bones using bone tweezers or tweezers, place them (skin side down) in a dish covered with ½ cm of Guérande salt for 24 hours.

Once the 24 hours have passed, brush the fillet on the skin side to remove the salt crystals that have stuck to the skin.

Make your mixture of salting and spices according to your tastes:

Here, our spice blend:

• Gerande salt 2 doses
• Powdered sugar 1 dose (weight)
• Dill (perfect for fish) (one dose by volume)
• 1 tsp coriander powder (one dose by volume)
• 1 tsp garlic powder (half a dose by volume)

Make enough salting mixture according to your quantity of fillets…

Gently massage your fillets (flesh side) with your mixture to leave a few millimeters on the surface of the fillet (vary the thickness slightly depending on the thickness of the flesh of the fillet while operating evenly).

Place the fillets under vacuum for 12 to 24 hours so that the mixture “infuses” the flesh.

If you don't have a vacuum-packed machine, cover the fillets with 1 to 2 cm of salting mixture (more ingredient consumption because less concentration) and slightly increase the salting time...

Once the “salting” time has been respected, remove the fillets and rinse them with clean water to clean the flesh and lightly brush the skin side to remove the viscous side.

Then reserve the fillets in the fridge (in the refrigerator) without covering them in order to let them dry out a little for 24 to 36 hours…

For smoking, make sure that the temperature of your wood oven is below 20°C (the ideal is to have a top and bottom temperature between 10 and 15°C...

Place the fillets on a stainless steel grill (for food) so that the air can circulate evenly all around the fillets (avoid sticking them together).

Fill the smoke generator with edible sawdust (beech wood) (grain size 1mm).

Place your grill elevated (the smoke must pass all around the fillets) so that the heat source is away from the fillets...

In fact, the temperature during cold smoking must not exceed 25°C.

Place the smoke generator in the wood oven.

Lighting the smoke generator using a tea light candle or a cooking torch… this may take a little time depending on the humidity of the sawdust…

The sawdust must not ignite...!

When a fine smoke appears persistently, stop the ignition and let it smoke... depending on the smoke generator, the humidity level and the draw, 8 to 12 hours can then pass...

Close the door of the wood-fired oven and slightly open the draft damper to ensure that the flow of air entering the oven is limited and that the smoke remains as much as possible in the latter.

To "accentuate" the smoking flavors, you can proceed to a 2nd smoking cycle (according to your tastes).

Finally, let stand Sous Vide between 24 and 48 hours minimum before tasting (in the refrigerator).

If you don't have a vacuum-packed machine, cover the fillets with cling film in your refrigerator at the bottom (near the vegetable drawer).

Do not hesitate to make several because if it takes a bit long to prepare... It's so good that your guests will ask for more...!

Bon appetit... and go here to discover all our recipe ideas with a wood-fired-oven!

Good to know: if you are lucky enough to have a garden, you can reuse the cooled ashes in your vegetable garden or at the foot of your rosebushes. Ashes are rich in elements that promote plant growth.