Archive for December, 2015
Hot Oak Smoked Salmon
Hot Oak Smoked Salmon
Being a half-pescatarian (or as a friend of mine once put it: “Occasionally I’m a bit naughty with fish”…), half-meatarian household, fish, especially salmon, is a fairly common feature and that is especially the case around the Christmas holidays. Today we are venturing into the brave new worlds of fish cooking and wet brining by brining and then cooking some oak smoked salmon. (Note that this is hot smoking not the cold smoking process that produces the smoked salmon you see in packets in stores and (if you are smart) you put on bagels with cream cheese. Cold smoking is a much more difficult process which needs very careful control over lots of things to avoid ending up with dodgy microbes in your food – the FDA has lots of scary information on this but if Meathead at Amazing Ribs says it’s not a good idea to try, that’s more than good enough for me to steer well clear…). Read on to see how our (hot-) smoked salmon turned out.
Smoked salmon cooking on the grill
Rubbed Pork Loin with Apple Bourbon BBQ Sauce
With temperatures into the mid 70’s, December in California can still be grilling and smoking time as we prove today by doing Rubbed Pork Loin with Apple Bourbon BBQ Sauce. This will be another new cut of pork for me try try (pigs seem to have plenty of different parts available for the BBQ cook to try out…). The pork loin will be seared off over medium-high heat before being moved to complete the cook on indirect heat.
Pork loin searing on the grill (Apologies for the less than great photo, this was about an 1 hour after sunset and it was almost totally dark)
Apologies for the crickets…
National Harbor, MD
Sorry it’s been so quiet apart from the sound of crickets around here lately. First off, my actual day job took me to the other side of the country for the Division of Planetary Sciences meeting near Washington DC which mostly involved being trapped in the conference hotel for a week (I did manage to try one place that offered good bbq chicken and ribs though…). As it was a Saturday->Saturday trip, this wiped out two weekends which could have been used for barbecue.
After getting back from that trip, we had visitors staying with us who were not likely to be up for trying bbq. During the time our visitors were here, I got sick with a cold just before Thanksgiving, which put paid to a plan to attempt a smoked turkey…. Anyway I have finally had a chance to cook a new recipe so there is a new cook report coming soon. I also hope to have the first restaurant/dining out “review” article up (assuming the photos turn out OK) from a rib place we visited near LAX while waiting to return our visitors to their waiting aircraft.