Playing around with brines for smoked haddock

This is the third time that I've smoked some haddock. Each time I've played around with the brine and the time within it. This time the brine was

• 2 litres of water
• 240g of salt
• 40g of brown sugar
• 1/2 tsp garlic powder
• Juice of a lemon
• 1 tsp crushed mustard seeds

and left for 2 hours. To make sure that the fish stays fully submerged I put a sieve on the top. Left to dry overnight on a rack in the fridge, it was then cold smoked for 8 hours using whiskey oak.

The smoked haddock and smoked bacon were used to make Smoked Haddock Chowder as per Tim Haywood's recipe. Great taste although a tad rich for my palate; next time I'll use slightly less cream.

Smoked bacon - 1st attempt

Once upon a time I was a vegetarian, fed up with the way that animals were being treated. Eventually I went back to the dark side, tempted all the way by smoked bacon. It's the one thing that I couldn't resist. Many years later and it's time to cure and smoke my own bacon!

In short I dry cured some belly pork for 7 days in the fridge in a freezer bag. Once the curing time was up I wiped off any remaining cure and left it to dry overnight on a rack in the fridge. Drying allows a sticky layer to form on the surface and smoke sticks to it like .... to a blanket.  As fridges circulates air it's a great way to dry meat.

The bacon was then smoked for 8 hours using whiskey oak before being placed back in the fridge for a couple of days inside a freezer bag to 'rest'.

The picture shows the bacon, some cheese that I did for a friend and some haddock.

Getting the hang of it

After dipping my toes into the water last week with a small piece of haddock, this week we upped the volumes, brining and smoking times. First off the brining. I used the same brine as last time - 2l of water, 240g salt, 40g sugar, 1/2 tsp of garlic powder and a tsbp of pickling spice. The pickling spice was initially put into a cup and then just enough boiling water to cover the spice was poured in. After 10 minutes or so, i.e. after it had cooled down it was added to the rest of the ingredients. During this 10 minutes the other ingredients where whisked to make sure that everything dissolved. We did try and add a twist, the juice of half a lemon. It needs a better palate then mine to detect this once the haddock had been smoked!

The haddock was left in the brine for a couple of hours, held down by a sieve so that all the pieces of fish remained immersed below the surface of the brine. Once brined the haddock was removed, dried using paper kitchen towel and then placed skin side down on a tray. The tray was then placed in the fridge for about 10 hours to allow it to dry and form a sticky layer on the surface.

Last time I used Beech which produced a lovely mild taste. Yesterday into the smoke generator went some whiskey oak dust - looking for a stronger taste. I filled up the whole of the CSG, lit it and then left it to do its business overnight.

This morning we had kedgeree and it was very tasty indeed. There's some of the freshly smoked haddock left over for tomorrow evening's meal. It will be interesting to see how the taste has developed.