How To Hot Smoke Salmon
By Nicola Lando
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December 1st, 2016
Hot smoked salmon is one of the most versatile ingredients.
Serve individual fillets at a buffet lunch. Cut into chunks and build a salad with pickled beetroot, sour cream and new potatoes. Or flake and stir with dill and crème fraîche to top an oatcake as an elegant canapé.
How can I smoke the salmon?
Hot smoking salmon is incredibly simple. With a Cameron stovetop smoker or Cameron Gourmet Mini Smoker you can smoke fish on your hob, indoors. You can use gas, induction, an electric hob, or even an aga.
How do I prepare the salmon for smoking?
We just sprinkle a little salt over the salmon and leave for an hour before smoking. This helps season it and removes extra water, making the salmon taste richer when cooked.
But if you don’t have that extra hour before smoking, not to worry! Pat dry the fillet or side of salmon and place directly in your smoker.
Then choose your wood chips. With fish we like oak, beech, apple or cherry - or even maple’s sweetness. Beware of hickory as it will certainly be too strong.
How long will the salmon take to cook?
A 600g side of salmon like in these photos will take 15-20 minutes depending on how high you set the heat on your stove. And an individual fillet might take as little as 10 minutes to hot smoke.
Always check the temperature of your fish when cooked, either by pressing to see how tender it is. Or - our preferred way - by using a probe thermometer.
You can see a beautiful orange hue develops on the surface of the salmon from the smoke. Delicious!
What size smoker do I need?
To give you a sense of scale, the smoker in these photographs is the Camerons Stovetop Smoker. If you're just cooking a couple of fillets for two people, or for canapés, you might prefer the half size Camerons Gourmet Mini Smoker.
About the author
After a stage as a chef at a London Michelin-starred restaurant Nicola became obsessed with seeking the best flavours from around the world. She started Sous Chef in 2012, and is always sharing her knowledge of ingredients and writing recipes to showcase those products. Learning from the products, Sous Chef's suppliers and her travels, Nicola has written the majority of the recipes on the Sous Chef website, all of which are big on flavour.
