Hot smoked bream at home

Step-by-step cooking

1. Step 1:

   

   To start, prepare all the necessary ingredients for smoking bream at home. Freshly caught fish of large sizes is best suited for this. Since there are a lot of small bones in bream meat, and the larger the fish, the larger these bones are. In addition, large fish meat turns out juicier.

2. Step 2:

   

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

3. Step 3:

   

   Put the fish on a cutting board, remove the gills and insides. When removing the insides, be very careful. If you tear the 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, pour a little bream so that the meat dries and when cooking it is smoked, and not cooked in its own liquid. To do this, thread a piece of rope through the mouth and gills, hang the bream for about one hour in the fresh air. And to prevent bugs from landing on it, cover it with gauze.

5. Step 5:

   

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

6. Step 6:

   

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

8. Step 7:

   

   Place a tray on the bottom row to collect fat, which will drip during the bream cooking process. If there is no such thing, you can use a baking dish or make a pallet yourself from ordinary aluminum foil. Install the second tier of the smokehouse.

9. Step 8:

   

   Remove excess salt from the prepared bream and place it on the upper level. When smoking large fish, put sticks in the abdomen so that smoking occurs evenly. Close the smokehouse tightly with the lid.

10. Step 9:

    

    Make a fire in the grill, it should be of medium intensity and install a smokehouse on it. Smoke the bream for 30-40 minutes after smoke appears from the smokehouse. Keep a low heat throughout the cooking of the fish. You can carefully remove the lid 1-2 times and remove the condensate, since it gives bitterness when it gets on the fish.

11. Step 10:

    

    Remove the smokehouse from the grill and let it stand for 10-15 minutes. Remove the lid and let the fish cool down a little, otherwise the skin will remain on the grill. Serve the fish immediately or completely cooled.

12. Step 11:

    

    Bon appetit!