Ingredients
Protein
12 salmon collars
Brine
2 cups brown sugar
1 cup kosher salt
1 gallon water
2 bay leaves
12 peppercorns
2 serrano chilies
Bring all ingredients to a boil and cool
off.
Place salmon collars in brine and remove
after one hour. Drain on a baking rack until dry and slightly
tacky (this coating is called a pellicle, it's what the smoke sticks
to).
Garlic Red Chile Glaze
2 cups honey
1 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup sambal (you can find this in any super market)
6 tbsp chopped garlic
Mix all ingredients together and bring to a
boil. Cool off and glaze salmon collars with a liberal amount.
Broil until glaze is bubbly and brown.
Hot Smoking
You can use any wood chips you like: hickory, apple,
mesquite, alder. All will work nicely. They should be soaked for
at least two hours or overnight.
You'll also need:
Heavy-duty aluminum foil
12 King salmon collars
Salt and pepper, to taste
Charcoal grill with lid
Charcoal or charcoal briquettes
Warning: DO NOT attempt this with a gas
grill!
Take some heavy-duty foil and make a
shallow pan with it. This doesn't have to be anything perfect.
As long as it holds the salmon collars and is a couple inches deep, you
will be fine. Place salmon collars on the homemade foil pan. Season with salt and
pepper to taste. You can also use a foil pie tin if you want.
This technique works best with white, dying
coals. The coals need to be hot enough to smoke the wood, but
you don't want them so hot that the collars are cooked before a
nice smokiness is imparted. Spread the white ashy coals evenly
around the outside of the grill and up the sides. There should
be no coals in the center of the grill.
Take about a cup of wet wood chips and
sprinkle evenly on top of hot coals. It will take about five
minutes for the chips to start to smoke enough to begin smoking
the salmon.
Once the chips are smoking, replace the
grill grates and slide the foil pan with the salmon collars into the
center of the grill.
Cover the grill and make sure the vents on
the lid are closed to keep in all the smoke. Smoke the collars
for an hour and a half, adding more chips if needed during the
smoking process.
Click here to see
Chef Brian O'Connor's tip
July 2010
