Hot smoked bream

Step-by-step preparation

Cooking time: 5 hr 40 mins

1. STEP 1

   

   First, prepare all the necessary ingredients for smoking bream at home. Freshly caught large-sized fish are best suited for this. Since bream meat has a lot of small bones and the larger the fish, the larger these bones. In addition, larger fish produce juicier meat.

2. STEP 2

   

   Before you start cooking bream, prepare it properly. And first, get rid of the mucus on its scales. To do this, take regular coarse salt in your palm and rub it over the surface of the scales. Along with the salt, you can remove the mucus, then rinse the fish under running water.

3. STEP 3

   

   Place the fish on a cutting board and remove the gills and entrails. Be very careful when removing the entrails. If you rupture your gallbladder, the fish cannot be used for cooking as it will taste bitter due to the spilled bile. Then rinse it thoroughly under running water.

4. STEP 4

   

   Before smoking, dry the bream a little so that the meat dries out and when cooked, it smokes rather than cooks in its own liquid. To do this, pass a piece of rope through the mouth and gills, hang the bream for about one hour in the fresh air. To prevent bugs from landing on it, cover it with gauze.

5. STEP 5

   

   Then remove from the rope and, if desired, brush the fish with regular vegetable oil. This will allow the fish to acquire a golden color when smoked (if not over-smoked). Salt the bream inside and rub well on all sides, and then cover with salt. You can also pepper the fish, but we don’t like it. Cover the fish and place in the shade for 3-5 hours to salt. If you are going to smoke frozen fish, after defrosting you will need about 1 day to salt it.

6. STEP 6

   

   While the bream is salting, prepare wood chips for smoking. For these purposes, wood chips made from alder, apple, pear and beech are best suited. Coniferous wood chips are absolutely not suitable; they will give the finished fish a bitter taste and an unpleasant aroma. Rinse the wood chips with water, lay them out in one layer and dry. This is necessary so that the wood chips smoke and not burn during the cooking process. Place the wood chips on the bottom of the smokehouse in an even layer of one centimeter and install the bottom row (if there is one).

7. STEP 7

   

   Place a tray on the bottom row to collect fat that will drip while cooking the bream. If this is not the case, you can use a baking dish or make a tray yourself from regular aluminum foil. Install the second tier of the smokehouse.

8. STEP 8

   

   Remove excess salt from the prepared bream and place it on the upper level. When smoking large fish, place sticks in the belly to ensure even smoking. Close the smokehouse tightly with the lid.

9. STEP 9

   

   Light a fire in the grill; it should be of medium intensity and place the smokehouse on it. Smoke the bream for 30-40 minutes after smoke appears from the smoker. Keep the heat low while the fish cooks. You can carefully remove the lid 1-2 times and remove the condensation, since it gives bitterness when it gets on the fish.

10. STEP 10

    

    Remove the smoker from the grill and let stand for 10-15 minutes. Remove the lid and let the fish cool slightly, otherwise the skin will remain on the rack. Serve the fish immediately or cool completely.

11. STEP 11

    

    Bon appetit!

Comments on the recipe

Julia

08.10.2023

4.9

They brought me fresh bream and I began to think about how to cook it so that the whole family would like it. I didn’t fry it in a frying pan, but decided to smoke it in a smoker on cherry-alder chips. After all, whole fish always turns out tastier and juicier, because... all the juices are preserved in it. The bream was gutted, the gills and eyes were removed, all the mucus was washed off and marinated. The wood chips were pre-soaked in water. Before smoking, the bream was dried in the fresh air. Hot smoked bream at home turned out to be very tasty, juicy, melting in your mouth... It was a simple fish, but it became golden. For that golden color, I always like to use alder chips. Thanks for the recipe!