Food Smoking, 101.

A cohesive, hands on approach to learning how to gently smoke a wide array of foods, lessons on controlling the amount of smoke, controlling the internal temperature of the chamber, the general technique on how to properly smoke. Food smoking, 101. I wish I knew where to take that class.

Instead, we’re learning on the fly, and not bad, thus far.
Here’s a brief summary of what we’ve tried, and our results.

1. Tomatoes – Gently roasted, allowing for skins to peel away. Subtle smokiness. Future plans including smoking large batches for a Smoked Tomato Bisque, Smoked Tomato Vinaigrette, and more.

2. Fresh Mozzarella – Temperature inside the chamber was too hot, so the mozz. began to melt, but not before we imparted a gentle smoky flavor to them. If we can regulate the temperature to remain much lower, this will be a huge success.

3. Salmon – Salmon was held in a salt, sugar, and a maras pepper brine (maras pepper sent to me, courtesy of my old boss @ The Channel Cafe in Boston). Salmon was great. Maintained high moisture content, flavor was great, overall, a success.

4. Tofu – Our marinated tofu was awesome. Simple marinade, sliced, and thrown on the smoker over hickory for a few hours. Seriously, great.

5. Top Round Beef – Thinly sliced and marinated it savory Moroccan spices, we achieved greatness. House-made, quick smoked jerky. Spicy, a bit salty, delicious. A few tweeks on timing, and we’ll have a new addition to our bar snack menu.

6. Cheddar – A total flop. The temperature was much too hot for the cheese. A melty, oily mess. Damn.

We’ve got plenty of more wood to burn, and countless ideas for foods to smoke. Advice, comments, questions? We look forward to hearing from you.
-B

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