Re: smoked fish recipe?

for salmon and stealhead this is awesome but i'm sure it would work great on other species.
1.)take fillets and cut a slice across the fillet down to the skin about 1" apart the full length of fillet.
2.)mix equal parts of rock salt and brown sugar, rub onto fillets and into cuts that were made, sometimes you need to add more brown sugar as you go.
3.)place fillets in pyrex dish skin side down for no more than 4 hrs, more than this usually makes it to salty. i prefer 3-31/2hrs for salmon and steelhead.
4.)remove fillets from dish and thoroghly rinse under running water making sure to rinse out between slices made in step 1. next pat dry with paper towels and place in smoker with alder chips. if you like a glaze on your fish just let them sit in smoker for several hrs before starting smoker. you can also sprinkle pepper or lemon pepper on top of pieces for an extra flavor.

If you have never smoked fish before, this link may give you one cook's view of how to go about it, along with a variety of brine recipes:

http://bbq.about.com/cs/fish/a/aa030400a.htm

With what little smoking I have done over the years, I favored the sweeter apple wood over the slightly bitter hickory.

Are you fishing for carp or suckers? Both are excellent smoked, but I prefer suckers pickled. I let the experts in my neighborhood do both for me - an older man does the smoke house thing, and a friend of mines' mother does the pickling. Their brine recipes are know to no one else but them.

Jonathan

Buzz YOU cannibal you....

Buzzard,

How bout sharing your recipe?

REM

I have smoked hundreds of fish, and I find that hickory is the best..
apple, cherry and alder add very little to no flavor to the fish.
whereas the hickoy adds a little more..
mesquite is to strong and bitter for fish..

I disagree with just about everything that the above link says..except the final temp of 165 degrees..
the brine time is too short,
the smoke time is too short,
you never add water or liquid to a brine..(the purpose of smoking is to reduce the water and liquids in the fish, without cooking out the oils, so why would you add water to it??) unless you are cooking it to eat that way as a main dish..
but to smoke to enjoy 'dried' i would not add any liquids, stick with a dry brine.

I never smoke fish, they're too hard to light.

For suckers we just gut em, shop the heads and fins off and soak them in a brine.

For the brine we use water with enough salt to float an egg. Usually soak for a day or so and then put in the smoker with apple wood.

How do you pickle suckers? And do you pickle pike too. Thanks

I'm with BigBob..the spiny ones are EXTREMELY hard to roll!!

We've pickled pike before, didnt have to great of recipe though i dont think, didnt taste quite right, I would like to hear more on the pickling also. If anybody has any info they'd like to shar.