Do they smoke pike? Hot smoked pike recipe. Preparatory stage for fish

1 tbsp. l. coarse salts;
dill;
thyme;
oregano;
fennel;
allspice.

Cooking method

To salt pike, use a salting mixture or concentrated brine, in which part of the salt should remain undissolved. Add spices, herbs or ready-made spice mixtures intended for preparing dishes or sauces to the salt. The most commonly used herbs are dill, thyme, fennel, allspice and cumin. Before adding spices, for better extraction, pour boiling water over them. Soak the pike in the curing mixture for 1-3 hours in a cool place. Then rinse it with fresh water. If the fish is over-salted (the carcass does not float in fresh water), it must be soaked, that is, placed in a container with low-flow water and kept in it until the carcass floats. After salting, wipe the fish dry, removing excess salt from the surface.
The prepared pike should be placed in the smokehouse, placed on a grate or suspended: small fish should be strung on ramrods through the eye sockets; Sew medium and large fish or tie them and hang them on rods. At the bottom of the smoking chamber you can place a metal bowl with oil to which spices have been added. In addition, to add a special aroma to alder firewood, it is recommended to add several sprigs (without needles) of juniper. Close the smokehouse with a lid and light the fire. After 20-30 minutes, open the smokehouse lid to release steam. This stage is called drying; it ends when the surface of the fish becomes dry. At the same time, the fish will become slightly harsh, and the fins will begin to turn pale. Heating too quickly can cause steam to form and the fish will soften. (Drying can also be done in advance in the wind, in the open air.)
After drying is complete, close the smoking chamber. You should not put a lot of firewood in it at once, since the temperature should rise gradually so that the fish does not lose fat.
Smoke the pike for about 1 hour until it is completely cooked. When the meat begins to separate from the bones, the baking stage ends and then the actual smoking process begins. For stronger smoke formation, you need to add slightly damp sawdust and smoke the fish for another 40 minutes. During the smoking process, the readiness of the fish is periodically checked: for small fish - along the dorsal fin (you need to carefully remove it from the fish: if the meat is sufficiently smoked, it will be white at the base of the fin, not glassy); For large fish, using a thin, clean stick, you can remove pieces of meat from the back, in the ridge area. Smoked pike can be eaten immediately.

Video

The smoking temperature should not exceed 110 °C.

Unless he is lazy, he doesn’t know about the beneficial properties of fish. There are a huge number of ways to prepare fish, and smoking plays an important role in them. , namely, smoked pike, can be an appetizer, or maybe a full-fledged dish, the main thing is that all the basic rules for its selection and preparation are followed.

For example, pike is one of the most famous and beloved fish species in Russia, and this is not without reason. Fried in flour, steamed, baked in the oven, pike is always equally good. And what about pike cutlets cooked with butter?

But in this article we will talk about smoking. Even when cooked in the oven using liquid smoke, pike can become a delicacy, and what can we say about smoking it in a regular smokehouse in the fresh air - it’s just to lick your fingers! Below are the main options for how to smoke pike, namely cold and hot smoking!

Hardwoods are best suited for hot smoking, namely maple, alder, willow, oak or poplar. The use of coniferous species will result in a bitter taste and excessive oiliness of the fish. Smokers, even with minimal experience, know this well. Of course, if there is no ordinary smokehouse, then it is used, however, the taste of such fish will be much simpler than that of fish from a smokehouse.

Recipe No. 1 Hot smoked pike

A popular recipe for hot smoking pike, which allows you to preserve all its taste properties. By smoking fish in compliance with all the necessary rules, you can get a real culinary masterpiece that will decorate any table.

Traditionally, hot smoking is done at temperatures from 70 to 180 degrees.

Smoking pike consists of several stages.

Preparation

The very first stage during which the fish is selected. If you want a whole fish, choose a carcass weighing up to one and a half kilograms - it is convenient to smoke it whole, removing the entrails. If the fish is too large, it is cut into several large pieces, usually into two halves along the ridge.

In this photo, the whole carcass is being prepared:

Please note that fish for smoking are not scaled. This is done in order to protect the meat from possible cracking at high temperatures and from soot settling. After all, you won’t eat the scales anyway; they are removed before consumption, and along with it all the soot, if there was any there.

The recipe could be like this:

salt - 1 tablespoon per 1 kilogram of fish;
allspice and black pepper, Provencal herbs, dill and so on to taste - half a teaspoon is enough.

All components are mixed and the pike carcass is generously rubbed with this mixture inside and out. After this, it is placed in a plastic bag and placed in the refrigerator for at least 3 hours, and preferably overnight.

In the wet salting option, the fish is also soaked in brine overnight. As for concentration, on average 1 tablespoon of coarse salt is consumed per kilogram of fish. In this recipe, other than salt, no other seasonings are used.

You can check the salinity of fish as follows: salted fish is lowered into fresh water: if it floats to the surface, the salinity is optimal, if it remains at the bottom, it is over-salted. In case of oversalting, the pike is soaked in ordinary fresh water for an hour.

The last stage of preparation is drying - the fish is hung in the air for one hour so that all the water dries. If you need it quickly, then simply dry it with a towel.

Smoking

The main stage on which the success of the entire event depends. If smoking takes place in the fresh air, it’s generally great.

The smokehouse is placed on the fire, two or three handfuls of sawdust are poured onto the bottom. Do not forget to place a tray on top of the sawdust for draining fat, or at least cover them with foil. Large fish are hung on slats, small fish are placed on cleaning rods, after which the smokehouse is covered with a lid. In small ones for gas stoves they are used, on which the fish is placed belly down. There are also compact cylindrical devices in which fish are hung on hooks.

Smoking is considered to have begun when the first smoke appears from the smokehouse. After 20-30 minutes after this, it is advisable to remove the lid for a short time - this is necessary in order to release excess moisture from the smokehouse. When the moisture evaporates, the lid closes again. Of course, this is not always possible - for example, in a home kitchen you are unlikely to dare to open a smokehouse full of smoke.

After the smoke has been released and the surface of the fish has dried, the smokehouse is closed again and smoked for another 15-20 minutes.

The readiness of the fish can be determined by the fin: you need to tear the fin and look at the meat at its base. The finished meat will have a white, matte color. If the meat is white and matte, the hot-smoked pike is ready - you can take it out, dry it a little in the fresh air and enjoy! Bon appetit!

Recipe No. 2 Cold smoking

The second known method is. Despite some similar processes, the final taste of the fish still differs, which is why some people adore hot smoking, while others, on the contrary, love cold smoking. This recipe is about cold smoking. This method is more complicated because it requires a smokehouse of a special design, which provides for cooling the smoke.

Let us remind you that the temperature of cold smoking is much lower than hot smoking - only about 30-50 degrees. In addition, the process itself takes much longer.

So, to cold smoke pike, you will need to complete the following three steps.

Selection and preparation of fish

For cold smoking, as a rule, carcasses weighing from 2.5 kilograms are selected, that is, quite large. The entrails are removed and the gills are cut off, after which the carcasses are washed under cold water.

Salting

Now the pike needs to be salted. To do this, the carcass is covered with coarse salt or soaked in a saline solution, as is the case with hot smoking. Salt is taken at the rate of 100 g. salt per 1 liter of water. As for oversalting, in order to oversalt the fish, you need to try very hard, since the fish will take exactly as much salt as it needs. The salted fish is put under pressure and sent to the refrigerator overnight.

Smoking

Next on the plan is smoking. You need to remove the pike from the refrigerator and rinse it under cold water to rid it of excess salt. The washed fish is hung out to dry in fresh air, usually several hours are enough. After this, it can be sent to the smokehouse.

As mentioned above, cold smoking implies a temperature no higher than 20-30 degrees. Prepared pike carcasses are placed in the smoking chamber, then a fire is lit in the firebox and the smokehouse is closed for 3 days. If the pike are small, they will be ready in one and a half to two days.

Cold smoked pike is served with a side dish, or as a completely independent dish. It is clear from the recipe that smoking pike at home is not at all difficult. Bon appetit!

It must be admitted that pike meat is not considered a delicacy, since it is quite dry, fibrous and has a peculiar muddy smell. But with all this, pike is considered one of the most popular river fish. Often it acts as a trophy for a successful fisherman, with whom the latter must take a photo. In fact, if we are talking about taste, they deteriorate in inverse proportion to the size of the fish.

Our ancestors did not favor pike too much. Skillful preparation resulted in quite tasty dishes, but getting rid of the characteristic taste required a lot of effort. However, the fact that this fish is found in almost every river, as well as on lakes, makes it very popular.

The average carcass weight ranges from 5 to 6 kg, but this is not the limit, as there are also simply gigantic individuals. Having a length of one and a half meters, they weigh about 35 kilograms.

If we talk about the benefits of pike meat, then all of the above simply pales in positive qualities; it is simply a storehouse of microelements and vitamins. Being a source of potassium, phosphorus and magnesium, as well as B vitamins, meat has a positive effect on the digestive system, normalizes blood sugar balance, improves metabolism, and has a positive effect on the health of the skin and mucous membranes. It has been proven that regular consumption of this particular fish meat in any form helps reduce heart arrhythmia. By the way, it is also a good antioxidant.

Smoked delicacies in our diet

The essence of cooking food of animal origin is to remove moisture from the fibers by any means or to achieve denaturation of the protein. In the first case, salt is a reliable assistant, and in the second, heat treatment. Therefore, there are many recipes for cooking meat, including fish, but one of the favorites was and remains the recipe for cold or hot smoking.

The characteristic smell of smoke, golden crust, as well as the unique taste of smoked meat further increase appetite. However, it is not recommended to consume these delicacies in large quantities. Smoked food is quite heavy for the body, just like fried food, although traditions do not provide for volumetric consumption. Basically, hot smoked pike is collected by beer companies, in which the process of consuming the delicacy turns, rather, into a philosophy.

The smoking process is a long-term exposure of the product to smoke. Possessing bacteriostatic properties, smoke has a preservative effect. The fish gets its special taste and smell due to the addition of phenols and aldehydes, and formic and acetic acid breaks down the fibers, as a result of which the meat becomes softer.

How to prepare pike for smoking

To get not only tasty, but also healthy food, you need to smoke pike at home. This is the only way to guarantee the naturalness of the process, without the use of chemically active substances. Even factory products cannot boast of the purity of the process, since “liquid smoke” can be used.

Preparation for smoking is the most important step. This is where the factors influencing the taste of the finished fish are laid. There are many recipes, but they all boil down to pre-salting or marinating.

Pickling

Salting should be done only with coarse salt. We won’t go into details, but it is known that fine salt removes moisture worse, so the fish can rot. Salt is calculated approximately as follows: for every kilogram of product there should be one tablespoon.

The pike carcass is freed from the entrails and washed, but the scales are not removed. It will play a protective role during smoking, and it is easy to remove immediately after cooking.
After rinsing the carcass with water, you can proceed to the next step. To salt fish, you will need salt in the specified proportion, as well as black pepper, allspice, dill and herbs de Provence. It should be noted that there is no unambiguous algorithm here, and spices are added to taste. The main ingredient is salt.
You need to rub the pike inside and out, not sparing the prepared mixture. To ensure that the salt is effectively absorbed into the fibers, it is recommended to wrap the fish in a plastic bag.
It is better to store the workpiece in the refrigerator, and in winter - at home on the balcony. The salting process cannot be rushed. You will have to wait at least three hours, but experts recommend leaving the carcass in salt overnight.

Pickling

You can marinate pike in a solution. Add 100 grams of salt to one liter of water. A larger amount of brine is prepared based on this proportion. To make a complete marinade, add 5-6 peas of allspice and ground black pepper to the solution.

The bay leaf gives a characteristic smell, and lovers of garlic flavor are not forbidden to add the desired ingredient. The pickling time in the marinade is about three hours. In principle, it is no different from the dry method of salting fish, but it is believed that the marinade penetrates more deeply into the fibers. This method is used for unplanned outdoor recreation, at the dacha, when pike has to be smoked at an accelerated pace.

The fish carcass is freed from excess salt or washed with water to remove the marinade. But before you start smoking hot smoked pike, you should check the degree of salting. To do this, the carcass is placed in clean water. The density of salt water is greater, so the fish will drown; this sign indicates that the salts in the fibers are higher than normal. But there is no reason to be upset. It is enough to leave the pike in the water and in just a couple of hours it will emerge.
Now you can wipe it with a towel or napkin and dry it slightly. This completes all preparations. The result should be a semi-finished product with whitened fins, a predominant odor of seasonings and no mud odor.

Secrets of hot smoking

Only correctly executed technology will allow you to get excellent results. You should not neglect some rules, otherwise the dishes can be ruined even at the smoking stage. The smokehouse must be designed in such a way that it is possible to control the temperature and humidity of the smoke, these are two defining parameters that many are not aware of.

It is impossible to measure the humidity of smoke at home, so try not to make it too thick. Excessive intensity will only add bitterness to the taste of the finished product. A low smoke density will allow a golden crust to form, while a high smoke density will cause the meat to simply cook.

It is best to use fruit trees as combustion products. But it must be remembered that excessive resin content in them will give a characteristic odor. Coniferous species should absolutely not be used for these reasons. For deciduous trees, alder with the addition of juniper branches is suitable. The temperature in the smokehouse should increase gradually. Its maximum value is about 120°C degrees.

Smokehouses have different design features, but all devices have a container where the product will be located. The fish can be skewered or left on the grill. It all depends on the size of the carcass, the dimensions of the container and the imagination of the cook. For piquancy, experts advise placing a metal tray with oil at the bottom of the smokehouse, where spices should be added.

Smoking pike is accompanied by the release of moisture from the fibers, so half an hour after kindling you should open the smokehouse lid. If this is not done, the meat will fall apart, and excess moisture will not add taste, but, on the contrary, will not allow you to prepare a high-quality dish.

You need to smoke with the lid open until the skin dries. You can also navigate by the fins, as they will begin to turn pale.

After about an hour of heat treatment, the pike meat will be considered cooked. But the process does not end there; now you need to work on the taste and smell. To do this, add wet sawdust to the smokehouse. It is necessary to achieve the appearance of thick smoke, but with a decrease in temperature. This process will take about 40 minutes. The degree of readiness is determined by the color and structure of the meat at the dorsal fin. The fin should separate easily, and the meat should be matte white. Glassiness is a sign of insufficient readiness. If it is not possible to remove the fin (the carcass is large), then use a pointed stick to remove a piece of meat from the dorsal part of the fish.

Cold smoking

Cold smoked pike, first of all, can be stored longer. If the taste, due to the smell of smoke, is practically the same, then the consistency of the meat has many differences from fish smoked using the technology described above.

Cold smoking is characterized by the fact that smoke is used at a temperature not exceeding 40°C degrees. For this, the structure of the smokehouse must be different. The basic design principle is that the fish are located far enough from the source of the smoke. Overcoming a considerable distance, the latter has time to cool down.

But the most important difference between cold smoking technology appears at the preparatory stage. The absence of intensive heat treatment requires high-quality removal of moisture, which means that pike meat should be saltier. After salting, special attention should be paid to thorough drying. If necessary, moisture can be removed with a towel.

Depending on the size of the carcass, the cold smoking procedure may take several days. During this time, close supervision will be necessary to ensure that no wood chips or sawdust ignite. But all efforts will be rewarded, as the meat will retain its juiciness and characteristic taste.

As you know, every person is an individual with his own tastes, preferences and morals. And all this fully applies to choosing your favorite food. It is very difficult to imagine a person who does not like, namely, such a dish as smoked pike.

Every family, every nation has its own, with its own characteristics and costs. In order not to spoil the pike, so that your dish turns out tasty, you need to strictly follow the technique of preparing it.

Few people know exactly how to cook hot smoked pike correctly, which is why very often the result leaves much to be desired. Properly smoked pike at home makes this fish tasty, with slight saltiness and juicy meat, as well as a pleasant aroma of smoke. Hot smoked pike, you can learn from many cooking recipes, but all of them are carried out, as a rule, only at a temperature of 80 to 180 degrees. Cold smoked pike is cooked at temperatures below 40 degrees and has a longer shelf life.

Getting ready for smoking

To get a pleasant smell of smoke, you need not only suitable firewood, but also sawdust and shavings. They take exclusively deciduous trees, since coniferous trees contain resin, and this has a very bad effect on the taste of the dish, giving it bitterness. The most commonly used trees are:

Hornbeam;
Maple;
Alder;
Ash;
Poplar;
Fruit trees.

At home, people switch from wood to gas, using liquid smoke and other additives. Yes, undoubtedly, smoking occurs much faster, but all this is not the same - the taste of the natural product is significantly different, and not for the better.

When lighting a fire, pay attention to the fact that the firewood is larger than shavings and sawdust. The blowing of smoke should be strictly controlled, because if the humidity of the smoke rises by more than 50%, a bitter, tarry aftertaste and an incorrect shade of pike will be obtained. If the humidity is above 70%, then instead of smoked fish you will get regular boiled fish.

How to smoke pike, you must decide in advance and strictly adhere to the temperature specified in the recipe. The size of the wood helps control the intensity of the smoke, and the smoking speed directly depends on the altitude of the temperature. The more smoke there is, the faster the process will go, but if the smoke is thick, the fish will get a dull color and a sour taste. If the smoke density is low, the fish will not have a crispy crust and the smoky smell will be weak.

Preparatory stage for fish

Hot smoked pike must be selected very carefully. If it weighs up to one and a half kilograms, then it is smoked whole, without being divided into pieces. Large fish are first cleaned, gutted and divided into smaller pieces. Cut so as not to touch the peritoneum. Under fresh water, the pike is washed and salted to give it the specific flavor intended by your recipe. In most recipes, smoked pike is salted - one tablespoon of salt per kilogram of fish. Salting is done in two ways:

rubbing the whole fish with salt;
salting with a liquid brine solution.

If you decide to pickle fish in brine, make sure that all the salt does not dissolve in it - you will get a saturated solution. After the pike has stood in the solution for 3 hours, it is rinsed with plain water. If you think that you have oversalted the fish a little, don’t worry, you can soak it in plain water. To accurately determine whether you have overdone it with salt, immerse the fish in fresh water. If the pike carcass does not float, then the fish is really very salted, but if it floats, then you did everything right.

Spices and herbs are often used to give the dish an original taste. You can also add ready-made mixtures to the solution by first pouring boiling water over them and also letting them brew. Or simply use the well-known thyme, dill, pepper, fennel or caraway seeds. After salting, the pike is wiped dry; if there is excess salt on the surface, it is rubbed off. According to some recipes, pieces of chopped green apple are placed inside the pike - this helps preserve the juiciness of the fish and gives it a pleasant taste.

The process of cooking pike in smoking boxes

Now let's get started. The smokehouse can be placed on an open fire in the house or on a fire in natural conditions. Sawdust is poured into the bottom of the smoking cabinet, then firewood is placed.

Small pike are impaled on a ramrod through the fish's eyes. Large fish are hung on slats or on a grid. Large fish are sometimes cut along the back, leaving spacers. After hanging, close the smokehouse with a lid for half an hour. After this time, the lid is lifted to release excess moisture. This is called drying. When the surface of the hung fish becomes dry and the fins turn pale, the drying is completed and the chamber is closed again. At the very beginning, do not put a lot of wood in the smokehouse box, as this will quickly increase the temperature, and it should rise slowly and gradually.

It is important to maintain the temperature inside the box at 110 degrees until the fish is thoroughly heated through. The next stage is the actual smoking. In order not to lose control of the pike, you need to check it from time to time. Small fish are examined by the fin - it is torn off and the meat at the base is examined: the fin should have a white matte color, not glassy. A large pike is controlled by removing small pieces of meat from the ridge area with a special stick.

Video on how to smoke pike:

In order for the pike to please you with its impeccable golden color as a result of cooking, you need to sprinkle burnt ash on top of the firewood. The entire cooking process should not last more than 3 hours.

Semi-hot smoking of pike

In addition, you can also cook pike in a way called semi-hot smoking. This requires a temperature of approximately 60 degrees - this is achieved by removing the lid from the smoking chamber so that the smoke mixes with clean air. The smoking process in this way takes a little time, but the temperature inside is very easy to regulate. As a result, the fish is much tastier and more attractive in appearance, but this result is achieved in about 12 hours.

How to ensure fish conservation

Hot smoked pike does not have a long shelf life, but you can extend it using the refrigerator. Pike prepared in this way can be kept in it for up to one and a half months, without losing its taste. absorbs foreign odors very well, so it should be wrapped in parchment paper. Just before eating, the pike is heated to enhance the smoky smell, and after heating the meat is easier to separate from the skin.

In many countries, pike is considered one of the most delicious aquatic inhabitants, and dishes made from it are considered delicacies. Now you can enjoy your favorite dish at any convenient time and delight your loved ones with a new culinary delight - the ability to smoke fish.

First, the fish must be gutted, cleaned and gills removed. It is advisable to leave the head and fins, then when serving the fish will look impressive.

Rinse the carcass thoroughly, clearing it of river mucus. You can soak it in salted water for an hour and change it several times to partially remove the river smell inherent in the predator. However, it is not necessary to perform this procedure, because the smoke will eliminate all odors.

The amount of salt is taken based on the available product.

If the fish caught on the hook is large, then it is best to divide it into portions before salting. Having a medium carcass, you can rub it with salt according to the recipe (2 tablespoons per 1 kg of fish), coat it with spices. Leave overnight for salting.

Before smoking, the pike must be washed and dried. Excess water should drain.

BzYuNa photo shows how you can put the fish on a cutting board for airing. Some hang it on a hook for half an hour.

It is best to smoke pike in a home smokehouse. It is more practical to use hot smoking. Sawdust or wood chips obtained from hardwood are suitable for cooking.

Alder chips are poured into the smokehouse in the photo. Its layer should be at least 2-3 cm. A tray must be installed on top of the wood chips to drain the fat. Any utensil can be used. The photo shows how the stand is made from a piece of food foil.

The pike is sent to a suspended grid.

The fire should already be burning. All that remains is to close the smokehouse tightly so that the smoke does not escape. Periodically you need to monitor the process, releasing steam from the box. Don't forget to put firewood or coal underneath. Usually, hot smoking takes about 2.5-3 hours, although it all depends on the size of the caught carcass.

Once you see that the fish has become bronze-golden, you can finish smoking. It's time to take the finished product out of the smokehouse. I would like to try it right away, but I will have to be patient.

Let the fish sit and cool right in the smokehouse. This will make it even more fragrant. The meat will thicken, after which it can be removed. Serve whole on a large platter. It is advisable to add vegetables; you can garnish with herbs or lemon.