Domestic Goddess... Alaskan Style!

Yep, still hard at work being a hunter gatherer in the rough Alaskan wilderness of... Girdwood. That's a joke, really, because Girdwood is kindof an up-and-coming vacation destination merely 45 minutes from Anchorage - and accessible by highway, which is actually kindof a big deal in such a vast state, covered with huge glacial rivers, bogs, mountains, and other natural features that make road access nearly impossible. We live in a condo with a sauna, a fireplace, and have 3G internet service. I didn't even have cell service in California! But still, we are trying to embrace the bountiful opportunities to hunt, fish or otherwise supplement grocery-store dependence. Resident fishing and hunting licenses are so cheap, it really does make living in Alaska a tad bit more affordable.... and a lot more adventurous and engaging!

We went to the Russian River one more time, and I've never seen so many people disappointed (myself included) to catch so many huge fish! The river was literally streaked red with a highway of spawning sockeye. When salmon are in the ocean, they are bright silver on the outside, with firm red flesh inside. However, the effects of freshwater and the long-distance travel up rivers to spawn takes quite a toll. When they start to change from silver to scarlet red bodies with green hooked mouths, they are getting "spawned out" - they are burning the oil from their flesh, becoming mushier and not yummy.

So, these spawned out sockeye ruled the river when we were there. For every 5+ red fish I landed, I hooked 1 silver fish. Hooking a fish does not always lead to landing a fish, especially when they are feisty and acrobatic! We didn't fill our bag limits but did manage to get 4 more fish between the two of us.

With the sockeye season winding down, silver (coho) salmon season is supposed to be starting. Been a slow season, and the fishing technique is much different than the "fly fishing only" style for sockeye. Silver salmon are more opt to strike bait or lures, so cured salmon eggs, spinners and spoons are the way to go. But the silvers have had a slow start. We went to the "locals fishing hole" on a creek nearby, where you can actually see the fish hanging out in the slack water. It wasn't looking promising, but finally got one on some eggs! What a big beautiful fish! I got the only fish of the day, killed and filleted it myself! It's very satisfying to get natural, sustainable and healthy food myself... I don't enjoy taking the life of the fish, but I thank them every time.

We splurged on a Big Chief Smoker and a chest freezer to hold all this fish (and hopefully meat!), so Tim took a turn at smoking his first batch of fish...

Tim's first batch of smoked salmon, DRY BRINE:

• 2 parts brown sugar to 1 part pickling salt
• ?? amount of celery salt, not much
•  Let set in fridge for 12 hours. Dry brining (vs the wet brine I did) draws the moisture out of the fish, so though you start with granular sugar and salt, you end up with a syrupy fish-soup!
• Dried for 2 hours
• In the Big Chief Smoker, it is set to one temperature (165 degrees) so we arranged thick pieces on the bottom racks (closest to the heat coil) and smaller pieces on top.
• Hickory wood chips: for the small pieces, ended up with 2 pans of wood = about 2.5 hours of smoking; for large pieces, used 3 pans of wood and the longest pieces took 6 hours

They turned out amazing, of course. Less salty than mine, because he used less salt than I did. Plus, I didn't have the luxury of electric heat and precisely set temperature! So I'd still like to think mine could hold its own again Tim's. ;)  Next time, we plan on soaking the wood chips more from the get go, to slow the initial temperature increase and keep a little more humidity.

Despite all this fish, we still had yet to actually cook up a straight up, fresh fish fillet! It has all been frozen or smoked. So tonight, as a treat, I cooked up something special with my silver salmon:

• Sauteed some zucchinis, mushrooms, and garlic in olive oil with a little hint of Tony's creole seasoning
• Took a big fat silver salmon fillet, threw it on a skillet with olive oil, med-high heat
• Peppercorn, sea salt, simple. Cooked it on each side until almost done; right before I was ready to take it off, threw in some balsamic vinaigrette and honey to glaze the top when I flipped it
• Also made a little more reduced balsamic/honey sauce for the side, in case Tim did/did not want more

Yeah, it was freaking DELICIOUS. So I'm writing down the recipe so my family and friends can try it if I am able to give them some fish!! :)

It's raining cats and dogs outside, so tonight I fed my sourdough starter so I can make some homemade bread tomorrow, and Tim and I decided to have a little competition. His smoked fish vs my smoked fish! Tonight we both came up with our own little concoctions - his a dry brine, mine a wet brine. I don't know if he will let me disclose his "secret recipe" tomorrow, but I'm ready to kick his butt!! May the best salmon win! ;)

To Smoke a Fish

I know, it's been months and months without an update - and I choose to write about smoking fish?! So much has happened over the summer, it almost seems trivial to try to sum it up...but documenting my efforts at smoking fish for the first time, now THAT I can do!

Catch fish. Fillet them. Vacuum seal. Freeze. Now what? We don't own a smoker!

My very first effort, and this is what I did. I'm hoping to modify as I go, so I  need to take good notes!

Smoked Sockeye, Take #1:
Used 2 tail-end fillets, a little larger than palm of my hand, about 1" thick at the thickest. Didn't want to experiment with our bigger beautiful chunks of fish!

Brine:

Found a simple "recipe" online at WWW.SMOKER-COOKING.COM. There are a million variations, but I wanted to keep it simple. I used:

• 1 quart water
• 3/8 cup brown sugar
• 3/8 cup canning (pickling) salt
• 2 chopped cloves of garlic

Put salmon in brine, and let soak for about 3 hours in a bowl in the fridge. Afterwards, I pulled them out and dried them overnight, about 10 hours. I don't have any good racks for drying, so I just put them in the over (kept the oven OFF, and closed, so the dogs wouldn't get to it!). Supposedly the brine allows the fish to dry at room temperature without spoiling. Rest assured, the fish did not smell or look bad in the morning! It did develop the "pellicle" I kept reading about - a slightly tacky coating left by the salt once it dries. Supposedly this helps the smoke adhere to the fish?? Sure!

Smoking:

This was the tricky part, since we don't own a smoker and only have a broken propane grill. Yes, the propane part is broken... but I figured I could still use the grill itself to set up a charcoal smoker. I bought some charcoal briquettes; however, I have read some stuff afterwards that lump coal is the preferred material, due to better flavor and less additives. Oh well! I set up charcoal on one side of the smoker, lit it and let it sit and burn for a bit. Next time, I think I will let it sit a little longer because I don't think I had them going quite evenly enough.

Once the coals were going, I threw some alder wood (soaked shortly in water) onto the burning embers. The idea is that you keep the coal and wood on one side of the grill, then put the fish on the opposite side to get the indirect heat. Once the wood was smoking (didn't take long), I put the fish on and closed the lid. And waited...and waited...

Just kidding. I did have to mess the with coals to get it a little hotter, and add more wet wood chips every 30 minutes or so. If I had gotten dialed in with the coals better, I probably could have minimized the time opening the lid, and having to move the grate aside to deal with coals. For the first 2 hours, the temperature was about 200 degrees. It was smoking the fish, and I had thought 2 hours would be long enough, but I was aiming for an internal temperature of about 140 degrees for the fish (as I had read online). The last hour, I added coals and blew on them for a bit to get them hotter, and the temperature reached 225 - and the fish reached 140. It sure LOOKS good... Now for the taste test!

Taste:

Yum! It tastes like smoked salmon! Now, here's the catch - I'm not like, a smoked salmon expert. I don't know if I prefer it less or more salty, or wetter or drier, or whatever. It's definitely edible and made me happy. It is a bit salty, but I enjoy salty foods. It's on the dry side of smoked, so next time I will try to make some more moist fish and compare. Time to put it on a cheddar jalapeno bagel with cream chease!