How to smoke perch - hot smoking method. Hot smoked perch The process of preparing hot smoked perch
Smoked fish is a great alternative to traditional kebabs. Smoking fish is no more difficult than frying kebabs, and it tastes no worse than meat. Let's look at a hot smoked recipe using river perch as an example.
Ingredients
In order to smoke perch, we need only two ingredients: the perch itself and salt. Take as much perch as will fit in the smokehouse. Or more if you want to do several “passes” of smoking. We smoked for one time, we had 3 kg of medium-sized river perch. Do not skimp on salt; each fish needs to be well salted.
Preparation
Before salting, the fish must be washed and cleaned. You only need to clean the insides. The head and scales must be left. We had the perch already cleaned and frozen, so all we had to do was wash it thoroughly in running water.
Pickling
Cleaned fish should be generously rubbed with salt on all sides. Don’t be afraid that you will over-salt, the salt will not have time to be completely absorbed.
Also rub the gutted bellies with salt.
In this form, leave the fish to salt for 4 hours. Then remove the perches and rinse off excess salt and leave to dry. You can dry them with a napkin. The fish is ready for smoking!
Smokehouse
Our smokehouse consists of a small iron box, two grates of different heights and two lids.
The top lid closes hermetically to prevent smoke from escaping. Thus, on such a smokehouse you can smoke 2 layers of product.
Process
So, first, let's prepare the smokehouse. You need to place wood chips on the bottom of the smokehouse. It is this that gives the product a unique smoked smell. You can buy wood chips in a store, or you can prepare them yourself from alder, cherry or apple trees. To do this, you need to finely trim the tree branches with an ax. In the summer we use our own wood chips, but now we have these wood chips from a pack.
Important
Do not use wood chips from resinous trees!
Place the chips in a thin layer evenly on the bottom of the smokehouse.
Then sprinkle them with water and cover with the first lid.
Place the first wire rack on top and lay out the first layer of fish.
Then place a second grill and place the second layer of fish on it.
Then the fish is closed with a second, airtight lid and sent to the fire.
We make a fire right in the grill where we usually grill kebabs. Smoking requires a good, even flame.
Cooking time for hot smoked perch is 20-30 minutes. Moreover, it is necessary to remove the smokehouse from the heat and open the lid 2 times to release excess steam. The first time you can do this 5 minutes after you put it on the fire, and the second time after 15 minutes.
Bottom line
As a result, you will get such a golden, fragrant fish.
Hot smoked perch is perfect as an appetizer with cold beer. But not only. By preparing mashed potatoes and vegetable salad, you will get a completely complete original dinner. The meat of hot smoked perch is very tender and soft, moderately salted. It even disintegrates in your hands, and is separated from the skin and bones incredibly easily. Another advantage of this product is that it can be stored in the refrigerator for quite a long time.
After reading the article, you will not have any questions about how to cook fish in a smokehouse, what ingredients and elements are required, etc. We will try to talk in detail about the beneficial properties of this product, we will tell you in detail how it can be prepared and what is required for this.
If you previously thought that smoking was difficult and time-consuming, then you were very mistaken. It is enough to have basic knowledge and a simple smokehouse and this is quite enough to please yourself with tasty and healthy food at home. Once you become familiar with the cooking technology and system, you can quickly organize a feast right while fishing, in your yard or in the kitchen.
Smoked fish is a unique product for quick and easy preparation:
- Thanks to heat treatment, the product does not lose its beneficial properties;
- The smokehouse gives the fish a unique aroma that is very pleasant;
- The smoking process is much simpler than other types of preparation;
- If you cook perch yourself, then you will be confident in the quality of your product and that you did everything right;
- Smoked fish contains many beneficial vitamins and minerals.
Calorie content, vitamins, beneficial properties
Perch cooked in a hot smoked smokehouse has great nutritional and energy value for humans, as it is very high in calories. On average, 100 grams of smoked perch contains 175 kilocalories.
The meat of this fish contains useful minerals such as magnesium. Sodium, iron, fluorine, zinc, chromium. Vitamins B1, B2, PP, E, A are also necessary for humans.
Fish has extremely beneficial properties:
- By eating smoked meats, you carry out a small prevention of the treatment of diseases of the nervous system and cardiovascular diseases;
- Lowers your cholesterol levels and improves metabolism due to the fish oil content;
- Brain function improves due to protein composition;
- Increases the growth of cells and tissues, because contains many vitamins, including taurine;
- It has been proven that smoked products have beneficial effects on your skin and mucous membranes.
The process of preparing hot smoked perch
The cooking process will not take much of your time, because the recipe is very simple. It does not require special skills in preparation and smoking.
- It is necessary to gut and clean the carcass, under no circumstances removing the gills. Place all the perches in a bag and generously sprinkle with salt. Next, we actively shake the bag so that each fish is salted as needed. Leave the bag for 20 minutes to soak.
- At the bottom of the smokehouse you need to lay alder or fruit chips. They will perform the main function and give off that same smoke. Do not forget to install a container for fat, because the perch will flow well during the smoking process.
- A grate is placed above the tank, and the fish is placed on the grate itself. Next, just put it all on the fire, cover it with a lid, and wait 20-30 minutes.
As you may have noticed, just 3 steps and you will get a tasty and aromatic fish that you don’t even have to clean. The smokehouse is not distinguished by its complexity, and you can read about how to make a smokehouse with a water seal.
Bon appetit!
Article rating:When going after pike or zander, many spinning anglers are faced with a pleasant “problem” - perch. It is caught well in any weather and time of year. It takes a variety of baits: from spinners to rubber bands. It resists interestingly when fished. It would seem that we should be happy. However, there is an important detail - it is not clear what to do with it next. The average perch weighs approximately 200 grams. In addition, it is not fat and bony. But the main “sadness” of this little fish is that it cleans disgustingly. For this reason, to put it mildly, chefs do not like perch and flatly refuse to cook it. It's a shame, isn't it?
There is a solution. Smokehouse! Treat yourself and your friends to an amazing snack. When smoked, this fish acquires very interesting flavor shades, characteristic only of perch. You can smoke not only at home, but also in unsuitable conditions: at the dacha or right on the shore. Cooking time is about 1.5 hours.
1. Perch. About 2.5 kg.
2. Wood chips.
3. Firewood. If not, use coal (as in the photo).
4. Spices.
Preparation
1. Pour water over the wood chips and let it brew. As soon as the water becomes bronze in color, you can drain it. Approximately 40 min.
2. Rinse the fish, place in a convenient container and sprinkle generously with salt and pepper. I would like to emphasize that the perch does not need to be cleaned or gutted!
3. Let the fish sit for half an hour.
4. At this time, take care of the fire. The firewood must burn out enough to maintain its integrity. They must smolder.
5. Drain the perches. And, armed with gloves, and not like me (I think there is no need to remind real fishermen that this fish is prickly), carefully wipe each fish with a napkin in the direction of the growth of scales, removing excess water. This is a necessary procedure. After all, perch should be smoked, not boiled.
6. Place wood chips about 1 cm thick on the bottom of the smokehouse.
7. Install the grille. Place the fish on its side, leaving the necessary space for each (to allow smoke to be accessible from all sides).
8. Install the second row of gratings and repeat the same thing.
9. Close the lid and place on the coals.
10. After 10 minutes, release the first steam by carefully sliding the smokehouse lid a little. The perches are not cleaned and there is plenty of excess juice in them.
11. After another 10 minutes, swap the grates (for uniform smoking).
12. After 10 minutes, remove from heat.
The indicator of readiness is the color of the perch and the produced wood chips (it should turn almost into coals).
Recommendations
1. In the photo I used bricks (cooked at the dacha). But you can do without them. In nature, to keep the coals hot, I surround them with two large wet logs. They don’t have time to fully “get busy.”
2. For aesthetes, at the last stage of cooking you can sprinkle the fish with lemon and add a few sprigs of dill. But you need to put them on the perches, and not on the grill (otherwise they will just burn).
3. An important component of the recipe is wood chips (aka sawdust, aka twigs). In the photo - it is alder (from the store). But for gourmets, I would recommend large sawdust from any fruit tree. Apricot or apple are suitable. And if the cook is not lazy, then shavings from “live” cherries are even better. To do this, I finely chop the twig with an ordinary fishing knife. True, you will have to try. This will take at least half an hour. Walnut chips are absolutely not suitable. I would like to draw your attention to the fact that it gives the dish a persistent smell of iodine and even medicine.
4. You don’t have to wash the smokehouse, using a purely “male” method. A fire is the best cleaning agent.
5. It is not difficult to guess that this dish will be mastered by happy fishermen. So don't skimp on the ground pepper. Maybe even under the gills. And then this striped predator will become the most favorite beer snack.
The topic of this article is hot smoking of perch. In order to smoke it, we need the fish itself, salt, utensils for pre-processing (this could be an ordinary kitchen pan, plate or even a plastic bag) and, of course. Before smoking perch, it must be prepared for the cooking process itself. We do this in the following order.
First, rub it with salt. You don't have to feel sorry for her. Fish meat has peculiar pores into which salt crystals fall. Clogged in such pores, these crystals do not allow the next one to pass through. Simply put, no matter how much salt you pour in, the fish will not take more of it than is needed for the perfect salting of fish meat.
You can safely rub the fish with an unlimited amount of salt. As experienced fishermen say: “The fish will take as much salt as it needs.”
After we have salted a sufficient number of fish, we cover them with sandwich film. This is necessary to ensure that the fish retains moisture in the refrigerator. Almost all modern refrigerators have a food drying function, which negatively affects the pickling and salting of any product.
Exactly one day has passed, we take the marinated semi-finished product out of the refrigerator and thoroughly rinse it from the salt solution in the washbasin as shown in the photo below.
Now that our perch has been thoroughly marinated, let’s prepare our smoking installation and proceed directly to the cooking process. To do this, fill the bottom of the smokehouse with specially prepared wood chips or simple sawdust from fruit trees.
Now we can place it in our fish. It is very convenient when a smokehouse for the hot method has two tiers for loading products. In such a device you can smoke twice as many fish, using the same amount of wood chips.
If you don’t have special smoking chips, you can use sawdust from fruit trees.
Cover the smokehouse with a lid and put on fire. Now we wait for the smoke to start leaking through the cracks. That's all - the smoke began to rise, and we boldly timed 15 minutes. If you are going to smoke a large grouper, then this procedure will take 5-10 minutes more of your time (about 20-25 minutes).
