sAlmon
It’s easy to turn this everyday fish into everyone’s favorite.
1–2 large skinned salmon fillets, fresh or thawed
BRINE ingredients
16 oz. apple juice
6 oz. Yoshida’s Sauce
¼ cup Kosher, sea or non-iodized salt
½ cup brown sugar
½ tsp garlic powder
½ tsp onion powder
½ tsp cayenne pepper
1 or 2 crushed dried bay leaves
Directions
Pour apple juice in a 2 quart sauce pan and bring to a boil. Add Yoshida’s Sauce
and dry ingredients. Return to a boil.
Turn down to low and simmer until all ingredients are dissolved. Remove from
stove and immediately add 2 cups of ice. Allow brine to cool down.
Add up to 2 cups of water to the sauce pan.
Remove skin from salmon and slice off belly meat.
Slice remaining salmon into approximately 3”x6” pieces.
Slice belly into 6” long pieces.
Place larger salmon pieces into a “nonferrous bowl” or Ziploc bags.
Separate belly pieces, and place them in a nonferrous Bowl or Ziploc bags. Belly
pieces brine quicker.
Pour brine mixture into each nonferrous bowl or Ziploc bag.
Submerge larger fillets in brine for 6 hours in fridge. Smaller pieces and belly
pieces will brine quicker.
Remove salmon from the brine and rinse each piece thoroughly. Pat dry with
paper towels.
Lay salmon on racks, and place in fridge overnight to form the pellicle.
SMOKING
Pre-heat smoker or grill to 120º–150°. Light the MAZE or TUBE according to
the instructions provided on pages 4-5 in this manual.
We like to use Apple or Alder wood for a milder smoke flavor.
Place salmon in smoker or grill and insert temp probe into center of
thickest fillet.
Smoke at 120°–150° for the first 2 hours. Bump temp up 10°–20° per hour
until fillets reach an internal temp of 145°.
Internal temp above 145° will produce slightly drier texture.
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smokEd Almonds
We brought some over to the neighbors, and we all enjoyed them with a
couple beers.
Ingredients
½ cup honey
½ cup brown sugar
3 Tbsp melted butter
1 Tbsp sea salt
1 Tbsp ground cinnamon
8 cups unsalted almonds
Directions
Place butter in a large bowl, and microwave for 30 seconds to melt. Add honey,
brown sugar, salt and cinnamon to the bowl, and mix well.
Add unsalted almonds and mix thoroughly to completely cover the almonds.
Optional:
1 tsp cayenne pepper
1 Tbsp garlic powder
Walnuts, pecans or other nuts
We use Q-MATZ (check our website, it’s an A-MAZE-N product!), but you can use
aluminum foil or cookie sheets, sprayed with PAM.
Spread nuts evenly over Q-MATZ or lightly coated pans.
Smoke at 100° (low temp) for 2+ hours. We use Apple, Cherry or Maple for light
smoke flavor.
Raise temp to 250° for 45 minutes to 1 hour to set the coating on the nuts.
While they are still warm and the coating is gooey, sprinkle some additional sea
salt on the nuts. Wait until they cool and break them apart.
Smoking at low temps for 2 hours adds a great smoke flavor to the almonds, and
a light sprinkle of sea salt really enhances the flavor.
One night, we left the nuts out overnight in the pan, and was set to vac pack
them in the morning. The whole pan of nuts was gooey again! WHAT!!!! The
honey must have absorbed moisture from the air that night. Rather than throw
the whole batch out, we put about ¼ cup of sugar in a bowl, and threw in a
handful of our now gooey nuts.
OMG!!!
We added more sugar, and the rest of the gooey nuts, and was
able to turn our failure into some of the
BEST SMOKED ALMONDS WE’VE
EVER HAD!!!
Next time we’ll use ¼ cup honey and ¾ cup brown sugar, and definitely coat
in sugar.
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