How to Cook Hot-Smoked Salmon as a Dinner Entrée

As the last ice age wound down sixteen thousand years ago over what would become the Northwest corner of the United States, the receding Cordilleran Ice Sheet carved out the modern contours of the Puget Sound basin, making room for the first peoples to step off the ice pack and onto the gravelly shores of the Pacific Northwest. That was also approximately the last time the Seattle Mariners reached the postseason.

Native Americans weren’t the first creatures to explore the areas revealed by the retreating ice. Perhaps when news of the event came to them in the distant north they were unimpressed at hearing about the melting “Puget Lobe,” as geologists, with the whimsical humor they are so well known for, had named the massive ice formation. So the first humans took their time trekking South, arriving six or seven centuries later.

Salmon reacted with greater dispatch. They’d been regularly nosing around the coastal ice for centuries, vigilant for new fresh water migration opportunities. As Puget Sound revealed itself, so did entire networks of rivers and streams fueled by Cascade runoff.

Salmon indigenous to the Pacific Northwest – Chinook, sockeye, coho, pinks, and chum – aren’t just iconic to the area’s culture. Their migration range serves as a pretty decent approximation for the somewhat vague geographical area referred to as the Pacific Northwest: The Pacific coastal areas from Alaska south through British Columbia, Washington, Oregon, and Northern California, extending inland to Idaho, Western Montana, and Northeastern Nevada.

As the initial human consumers found their way into those regions the salmon runs were so prolific that salmon must have immediately sprung up on local menus. And for the better part of the next 10,000 years, the most common seasoning for salmon must have been smoke.

We’ve come to think of smoking salmon as a means of preserving it. But the smoke itself has surprisingly little preserving effect. Extracting moisture from salmon flesh and increasing its salt content are the real preservation engines in the smoking process, which is why smoked salmon that’s meant to last for weeks or months tends to be overcooked, dry, and incredibly salty. The smoke is present almost exclusively for flavor.

Aside from its heritage value, there’s not much reason any longer to smoke salmon to the point where it will last for days or weeks at room temperature. But there remains an irresistible reason to lay on at least a little smoke whenever fresh salmon can be had: It’s freakin’ delicious.

The biggest challenge with serving hot-smoked salmon as an entrée is the same as serving any salmon as an entrée: Not overcooking it. Depending on the species, whether it’s farm raised or wild, and the leanness of the fillet (and, of course, whether a diner likes salmon cooked between rare and medium-rare), an ideal internal temperature for serving salmon is between 119° and 125° Fahrenheit. Hitting an exact temperature in that range is easy in a sous vide bath. It’s a little harder roasting the fish in the oven. It’s harder still when cooking it in a sauté pan. And it’s hardest of all in a smoker, where temperatures swing wildly as wood combusts. That’s a big reason why hot-smoked salmon is almost never seen on restaurant menus.

Which means if you’re willing to give it a go and have a smoker to do it in, serving salmon that’s going straight from smoker to plate gives your guests something they’ll likely never otherwise experience.

The basic method is exactly the same as hot-smoking fish to preserve it, except all the durations are way shorter.

First, prep a fillet by trimming it, removing the pin bones, and either removing the skin or leaving it on, depending on which way you want to serve it. Then brine it very briefly to season the meat. Even that brief brining goes a long way to stopping the deterioration of raw salmon. Left to its own devices in a refrigerator, an uncooked piece of salmon changes flavor noticeably after just a couple of hours. Getting some salt into that same piece of fish doesn’t bring the decay process to a complete halt, but it slows it down considerably.

Once the fish is brined, rinse off the excess salt and keep the fish chilled until just before smoking it. Then pop it in the smoker and pull it out just as it hits the desired degree of doneness. A temperature probe is theoretically useful, but I find it’s nowhere near as helpful as when cooking denser or bigger items, like a steak or a roast. Having the smoke chamber at a moderately low temperature (like 200° to 250°) leaves a longer window to pull the fish out at its desired temperature, and checking doneness by touch is the most reliable method for gauging when it’s ready.

The first time or three you try it, smoke the fish until it’s only partially cooked, then transfer it straight into a pre-heated 300° oven to finish. It’s easier to keep an eye on there so it doesn’t overcook, and it will taste very nearly the same as if cooked the entire time in the smoker.

As for choosing the wood to smoke with, you can’t go wrong with any fruit hardwood (or really, any hardwood) so long as it’s dry enough to fully combust. Chunks, chips, and pellets all work; use whatever your smoker is designed for. Just don’t soak the wood in water. Wood that’s smoldering is only partially combusting, giving off smoke that tastes harsher than if the wood was combusting fairly thoroughly.

Possible sauces, garnishes, and accompaniments are endless. Here, I’m plating the salmon with crème fraiche, arugula pesto, pickled mustard seeds, a couple of heritage beans, and some Johnny Jump-Ups.