The common pike is a widespread freshwater fish in Eurasia. Inhabits the coastal zone and thickets, especially in standing water bodies. The length of the fish reaches 1.5 m, but carcasses no larger than 60–70 cm are most often used for smoking. Before the procedure, tasty and tender pike meat needs preparation: the entrails are removed from the carcass, and the cleaned fish is marinated.
Composition, calorie content and beneficial properties
White pike meat has low fat content and contains a lot of valuable protein. After smoking, it is saturated with salt and smoke aromas. It is important to preserve the scales to protect the meat from carcinogens. Then the benefits of smoked pike will be better preserved, and almost no harm will be added.
Pike is good for all people who do not suffer from severe chronic diseases or allergies to seafood. It improves digestion, strengthens the nervous system and helps fight cardiovascular diseases. The meat contains rare components: omega acids, fully digestible fat, folic acid, phosphorus, fluorine.
| Calorie content and nutritional value of smoked fish per 100 g | ||
| Parameter | H/c | H/c |
| Calories | 83 kcal | 110 kcal |
| Squirrels | 18.4 g | 25 g |
| Fats | 1.1 g | 1.2 g |
| Carbohydrates | 0 g | 0 g |
What method do you use to smoke pike?
HotCold
You should not overuse smoked meats: they can worsen your health in diseases such as gastritis, diabetes, stomach ulcers, urolithiasis and gallstone pathology. To reduce the salt concentration, fish can be soaked or wet salted.
How long to smoke hot smoked pike
Products must be placed evenly in the smokehouse, not too close to each other, so that they do not interfere with the smoke rising freely. This rule is especially relevant for multi-level smokehouses, since if the first tier is “clogged,” the fish on the upper level will not have time to become smoked.
Dry the fish at low heat, and then you can bring the temperature to 80-110ºС. With this mode, smoking pike in a hot smoker lasts 30-60 minutes.
The duration of the process is determined by the size of the fish and the characteristics of salting.
Many people, especially novice smokers, are interested in how to tell when pike is ready. You need to look out for the following signs:
- meat falls off the bones easily;
- meat from “glass” becomes white;
- the carcasses are covered with a uniform golden tan.
Cutting methods
Before cold or hot smoking, it is important to prepare the pike. Large carcasses are often subjected to additional processing, and small ones are smoked whole:
the usual way
– an incision is made along the abdomen, organs and gills are removed;
cutting into layers
– they cut along the ridge, take out the spine, and then the organs, turn them inside out and leave them in the shape of a “butterfly”;
steaks
– the gutted carcass is simply cut into large pieces;
fillet with scales
- a popular method that will require skill from the smoker.
To make fillet, the pike is cut along the back slightly to the left or right of the ridge. Then they go deep inside the cut, making a movement parallel to the ribs all the way to the tail, fold back the first part of the fillet and take out the insides.
Advice! If the fish does not reach 1 kg in weight, then it can be smoked without removing the organs. Large carcasses caught in autumn and summer must be gutted.
Once prepared, the fillets can be smoked on a grill or hung on hooks. But it’s most convenient to cook using the cold method, threaded onto skewers.
How to smoke cold smoked pike in a smokehouse
If you choose this method, the cooking process will take several days. To smoke, salted pike should be hung on hooks in the upper part of the smokehouse.
Then place moderately damp wood chips into the smoke regulator and set the temperature to 30-35 degrees. The process of cold smoking pike at home lasts three days. The same regimen should be maintained throughout.
Important! You should periodically open the smokehouse lid slightly to reduce the concentration of smoke.
The readiness of pike can be determined by external signs. The fish should have a pleasant reddish-golden hue. After this, the pike should be allowed to cool in the smokehouse and then kept in the refrigerator for 12 hours.
Temperature changes during smoking negatively affect the quality of fish
Simple salting methods
The strong aroma of pike can be overcome by different combinations of herbs and spices. It goes well with coriander, thyme, cumin, bay leaf, and pepper. The level of salting is checked as follows: the fish is placed in a container of water; if it does not float, it means that it needs to be soaked to remove excess salt. If the fish is salted correctly, its eyes become sunken and light-colored, and its scales turn white.
Dry method
The easiest way to properly salt pike is to use a traditional dry mixture of 1 tbsp. l. salt per 1 kg of fish. The carcass is rubbed inside and out, then placed under pressure for 1–2 days, depending on its size. Add herbs and chopped lemon zest to taste.
Wet method
Traditionally, brine is used for cold smoking - a brine of 20–50 g of salt per 1 liter of water. You can prepare a marinade using brine as a base and adding black pepper, bay leaf and other herbs. Infuse the fish in a cooled solution for 3 hours to 24 hours.
Interesting Facts
The benefits of eating pike are undeniable: it contains Omega 3 and Omega 6 non-fatty acids, vitamins A, C, E, several groups B, PP and F, many different macro- and microelements: iron, phosphorus, manganese , chlorine
Pike meat can be considered dietary: it contains only 1-3% fat, but 18.4% protein. It needs careful heat treatment, as it naturally smells like mud. The meat contains a lot of bones, so when eating a pike dish you need to have water at the ready, or better yet, milk and a piece of black bread. This is necessary to push the bone through, if you can't spit it out.
For smoking, it is best to buy chilled pike rather than frozen. When defrosted, it may come apart and lose its shape, which is not what we are interested in. When buying, you should pay attention to the smell: it should give off mud, water, but not rotten or rotten meat. The eyes should be clean and protruding, without films or mucus. The scales should be smooth, without greenishness or plaque. If you have the slightest suspicion that it is unsuitable for food, do not take the product. Only fresh fish is needed for smoking.
Ready-made smoked pike may not be inferior in taste to your analogue, but it will certainly lose in the competition in terms of the level of “usefulness” of the product. In order for the product to be stored longer and not lose its appearance, it is stuffed with various additives that increase shelf life. You won’t do this, so your treat will definitely turn out better. You can read about the dangers and benefits of smoked fish here.
Hot smoking of fish
You can use hot smoking technology all year round, unlike the cold method. Pike is ideal for cooking this way. But it is important to choose a reliable device that can maintain the set temperature and does not release fragrant smoke through the cracks. You can order such a smokehouse via the Internet, and it is quite inexpensive - it all depends on the functionality and volume.
Standard recipe
Before cooking, you need to select ingredients that reveal the aroma of fish meat.
Components! For 1.2–1.3 kg you will need 1 tbsp. l. rock salt, a pinch of cumin, thyme, allspice.
You need to smoke completely cleaned fish. You can leave the head. Preparation takes place in several steps:
- The dry salting method works well for this recipe. The carcass is rubbed using the prepared mixture or one of the salting options. Leave for 8–10 hours. You can speed up the process by pouring boiling water over the dry ingredients and adding 0.5 cups of vegetable oil to them. Then the ambassador will take no more than 3 hours.
- When the pike is salted, take it out and dry it with paper towels. No need to wash.
- Prepare the smokehouse: add 2-3 handfuls of alder and cherry chips and some juniper berries to the bottom. The tray for collecting fat is covered with foil. Light a fire in the grill.
- When the wood burns out a little, place the grate with the pike in the smokehouse above the pan and put it on the fire. The fish is smoked without a lid until intense white smoke appears. The carcass lies belly down.
- After smoke forms, cover the pike with foil and a lid. A third of an hour is timed. The temperature is slowly raised from 80 to 110 degrees every few minutes. You can increase it by throwing small chips into the fire. Large firewood takes too long to catch fire.
- After 20 minutes, remove the lid to dry the carcass. When there are no drops left on the surface, cover again with foil and close the lid. Cook for another 15–20 minutes. Maintain the temperature between 80–110 degrees.
You should try the finished fish when it has cooled completely. It is served with vegetables or cereals.
In an apartment in the Bravo smokehouse
When using this hot recipe, you can use a simple salting method or cook the fish using the original version of the salting mixture. In this smokehouse it is easy to prepare a dish over an open fire.
Components! For 2 liters of water – 200 g of coarse salt, 100 g of white sugar, 4–5 pcs. bay leaf, dried chili or paprika pieces, a handful of coriander and a little allspice. Coriander and pepper need to be crushed in a mortar.
The fish is gutted and the head is removed. Then prepare brine by combining dry ingredients and water. Bring to a boil and cook for 15 minutes. Place the carcasses in a completely cooled solution. Salt it in it for 2 days.
Then they start smoking in the Bravo smokehouse:
- Hang the carcasses in a dry, ventilated room, protecting them from insects. This is necessary so that the meat is dried and has a consistency suitable for smoking. Ventilate for at least 10 hours, preferably a whole day. After a day, the carcasses will lose excess moisture and become covered with a light crust.
- Before smoking, they are tied with twine.
- Place dry alder chips and the dried peel of 1 tangerine on the bottom of the Bravo stand. Pike are hung upside down by ropes on hooks.
- Assemble the smokehouse structure and heat it over medium heat to a temperature of 40–60 degrees. The tube is routed out the window or hood. Cook for 4 hours.
- Take out the slightly cooled fish and put it in a bag to let it sit.
If the fish is not properly dried before smoking, moisture will drip onto the sawdust. This leads to the following unpleasant consequences: soot rises, black smoke appears, and as a result, the meat becomes bitter after cooking.
In a wood-burning frying pan with quince
A wood-burning frying pan is an original method for preparing smoked pike with bright aromatic additives. This recipe uses ripe and juicy quince. This technology can also be used for grilling.
Components! For 2 large carcasses - 3-4 quinces, Adyghe or regular salt, grill cap with thermometer, foil, SYUF harrow.
The fish is gutted, leaving the head, cut into pieces 3–4 cm thick, and placed in a mold for further processing. Start cooking:
- The pieces, carefully placed in an aluminum baking sheet, are sprinkled with salt. Turn over and sprinkle on the other side.
- The quince is cut into large pieces. While they are doing this process, they light a fire in a barbecue using wood.
- Pear chips are poured into a wood-burning frying pan. Place a grill on top and place pieces of fish, leaving space between them. Place a foil pan on top of the wood chips to collect the fat.
- Pieces of quince are placed on the grill along the edges. The grill lid is wrapped with foil, forming a sealing ring. Instead of a grill lid, you can use a suitable basin.
- Place a wood-burning frying pan on an additional grate above the grill. After about 10 minutes, suitable smoke will appear. After this time, cover the installation with a lid. While the harrow is heating up, the fish pieces are coated with a thin layer of vegetable oil.
- Timed for 30–40 minutes. The temperature should be between 120–140 degrees.
The finished pike is aired for 20–30 minutes and served together with quince.
Fish selection
Fish for smoking is suitable both fresh and frozen. When choosing raw materials, freshness comes first. Before smoking, make sure the quality of the pike. It is determined by the following indicators:
- The surface must be clean, without damage, the scales must not be knocked down.
- The color of the gills can range from dark red to pink, depending on age.
- The eyes are light, slightly protruding.
- The scales are shiny, there is mucus on the surface.
- The smell is of fresh pike, specific.
- The consistency of the meat is dense or slightly weakened.
If the fish does not meet the listed requirements, it is better not to use it for smoking. And you shouldn’t buy fish of questionable freshness. This may be indicated by a sour, musty, putrid smell in the gill cavities, weak, loose consistency, pulp separating from the bones, cloudy, sunken eyes.
The average weight of carcasses is 1-1.5 kg, but can reach 5-6 kg. And the largest individuals grow up to 35 kg. But you need to understand that large pike meat is too dense, rough, tough and dry.
The best raw materials for smoking pike
To smoke pike, give preference to such wood materials as alder, rowan, plum, cherry, maple, willow, and oak. Most of them have bactericidal properties. The quality of poplar, chestnut, ash, and willow is slightly lower.
The pleasant aroma of pike is obtained by adding juniper along with berries. You can supplement this set with freshly harvested hay with wildflowers and aromatic herbs, eucalyptus, raspberries, and black currants.
They are easy to prepare with your own hands.
Chips from freshly cut trees will make the aroma of smoked meats sharper and more pronounced, while old and even rotten ones will give a delicate aroma and a beautiful golden color.
If branches are used, be sure to remove all leaves so that during the smoking process they do not ignite and spoil the food with soot. It is undesirable to use wood with bark; the products may turn out bitter.
Before placing the wood chips in the smokehouse, the bark is removed.
Important! If you do not want to spoil the smoked meats, do not use coniferous resin-containing materials from spruce and pine. The use of birch will give the products a tar taste and smell.
Hot smoked pike
Cooking hot smoked pike is very simple.
Preparation
Before processing, the fish is washed, removing mucus, and blotted with napkins so that it does not slip in the hands in the future. The scales are not removed.
A very careful incision is made in the abdomen between the pectoral fins from the head to the anus so as not to touch the peritoneum. They pull out the insides carefully, since the gall bladder cavity is located near the head.
If its integrity is violated, the fish becomes very bitter. By making an incision under the gill covers, the gills are removed, since they contain a large number of microorganisms that, after smoking, can cause spoilage of the product.
The abdominal cavity is rinsed, removing blood clots from the spine. Clean outside.
It is allowed for small pike (less than 1 kg) not to be gutted before smoking, but large fish caught in the summer-autumn period must be gutted. For ungutted fish, make a strong salt brine for smoking pike and pump it with a syringe into the peritoneum.
Carcasses weighing more than 2 kg are cut crosswise into pieces. In this case, you can remove the head.
According to the recipe for hot smoked pike, you can prepare a semi-finished product from plastered pike at home. On the back, along the dorsal fins, an incision is made in the flesh with a sharp knife, and the knife is drawn along the spine, dividing the carcass into 2 halves. The head is also divided in half. They unfold the semi-finished product like a book, remove the insides, clean it of blood clots, and wash it.
Pike is salted dry. Take 100 g of salt per kilogram of fish. Dip carcasses or pieces in a mixture of salt and spices, salt the abdominal cavity, and pour the mixture into the gill covers.
You can use anise, cardamom, cumin, coriander, thyme, allspice. The salted products placed in a non-oxidizing container are placed in the refrigerator for 12 hours.
After that, the fish is washed to remove salt; if it turns out to be too salty, it is soaked for an hour. Hot smoked pike should be medium salted.
Semi-finished products ready for smoking are blotted from excess moisture with napkins and dried outside in the shade for at least 30 minutes.
Smoking
To smoke pike in a hot smoked smokehouse, wood chips are poured into the smoking chamber and a tray is installed into which the fat will drain during smoking. Grates are fixed in the upper part. They can be installed in one or several rows.
Important! You cannot overload the chamber with semi-finished products, otherwise too much moisture will be released and instead of smoked products you will end up with boiled ones.
The carcasses are placed belly down on the smokehouse grates. The distance between adjacent products is left at least 1 cm so that the sides are well smoked. Close the lid tightly. Install the smoking chamber on the heating source.
According to the recipe for smoking pike in a hot smoked smokehouse, the temperature of the air and smoke in the chamber is maintained within the range of 80-110 °C.
Hot smoked pike
The process takes place in 2 stages. The first 20-25 minutes are smoked with the lid closed. Then, the lid is opened, the products are ventilated and dried until the skin becomes dry. At the next stage, close the lid again and continue smoking for 25-30 minutes, depending on the weight of the fish.
The total time for hot smoking pike is 45-55 minutes. After this time, remove the smokehouse from the heat, remove the lid and leave the fish in the smokehouse until it cools.
The meat of the finished pike should become white after smoking, the skin should easily separate from the flesh, and the flesh should come away from the bones.
Advice! When smoking pike in a hot smoker, monitor the quality of the smoke. If it turns yellow, it means something unexpected has happened - the food has burnt.
Smoked meats are placed in the refrigerator for 24 hours to mature the meat. Hot smoked pike will become much tastier, denser and more aromatic.
Cold smoking
Cold smoked pike according to the recipe at home takes longer to prepare, but is considered more tasty.
Salting
Prepared semi-finished products - whole carcasses, layers or pieces - are salted using dry or mixed salting. Salts take 100 g per 1 kg of pike. Roll in salt, not missing the abdomen, gill cavities, and head. Place on a base of salt in an enameled or stainless steel bowl. Press down with pressure and put in the refrigerator at a temperature of 2-4 ° C for two to three days. Stir the fish 2-3 times.
To salt pike for smoking with mixed salting, after rubbing the fish with salt, place it tightly in containers and gradually fill it with brine. Place the oppression and salt it for two or three days in the refrigerator.
After salting, the fish is washed from salt, soaked for 2-6 hours, the surface is blotted with napkins, removing excess moisture, and hung on hooks by the tail in the open air for a day.
Smoking
Smoking is carried out using smokehouses or smoke generators.
Cold smoked pike can be smoked in smokehouses consisting of a hearth, the so-called “smoke smoker”, a chimney and a processing chamber. To prepare the apparatus for smoking, light the fireplace, direct the smoke into the smoking chamber, and place the fish in the chamber. Can be hung by the tail fin or placed on bars.
Close the apparatus with a lid and smoke at a temperature not exceeding 30 °C. If smoking is carried out using a smoke generator, then the wood chips are placed in the smoke generator body, covered with a lid, and set on fire. Turn on the compressor and pump smoke into the smoking chamber where the pike is located.
Smoked at a temperature not exceeding 30 °C.
The time for cold smoking of pike is from 10 to 24 hours.
Read now: Hot smoked Verkhoglyad at home
After the smoking process is completed, the fish is left outside for a day or two, covered with gauze to ripen and dry. During this time, cold smoked pike will absorb all the aromas of the smoke and become much tastier.
Smoked fish in the oven
For this recipe, the pike is scaled, gutted and decapitated. Salt only the outside so as not to oversalt (to taste). Leave for 2-3 hours for salting, after which the fish is washed to remove salt and excess moisture is blotted with a napkin. Sprinkle with liquid smoke or dilute it with water 1:10 and lower the carcass into it for 3-5 seconds. Breaded in universal seasoning for fish.
Cooking pike in the oven
Semi-hot smoking of pike
Semi-hot smoking technology does not differ from the traditional method in the number of ingredients and salting method. However, the basic differences lie in the cooking process:
- After the fish has been placed on the fire in the smokehouse, it is covered with a lid.
- As soon as white smoke starts to appear, they begin to open the cap. The smoke mixes with the air, the temperature drops to 60–70 degrees.
- Cooking time increases to approximately 10–12 hours.
For this method, it is important to carefully salt the pike, since the cooking temperature is not high enough.
How to prepare pike for smoking
To get not only tasty, but also healthy food, you need to smoke pike at home. This is the only way to guarantee the naturalness of the process, without the use of chemically active substances. Even factory products cannot boast of the purity of the process, since “liquid smoke” can be used.
Preparation for smoking is the most important step. This is where the factors influencing the taste of the finished fish are laid. There are many recipes, but they all boil down to pre-salting or marinating.
Pickling
Salting should be done only with coarse salt. We won’t go into details, but it is known that fine salt removes moisture worse, so the fish can rot. Salt is calculated approximately as follows: for every kilogram of product there should be one tablespoon.
- The pike carcass is freed from the entrails and washed, but the scales are not removed. It will play a protective role during smoking, and it is easy to remove immediately after cooking.
- After washing the carcass with water, you can proceed to the next step. To salt fish, you will need salt in the specified proportion, as well as black pepper, allspice, dill and herbs de Provence. It should be noted that there is no unambiguous algorithm here, and spices are added to taste. The main ingredient is salt.
- You need to rub the pike inside and out, not sparing the prepared mixture. To ensure that the salt is effectively absorbed into the fibers, it is recommended to wrap the fish in a plastic bag.
- It is better to store the workpiece in the refrigerator, and in winter - at home on the balcony. The salting process cannot be rushed. You will have to wait at least three hours, but experts recommend leaving the carcass in salt overnight.
Next, we interrupt the algorithm, since we will consider another cooking option, and from now on all manipulations will be the same.
Pickling
You can marinate pike in a solution. Add 100 grams of salt to one liter of water. A larger amount of brine is prepared based on this proportion. To get a complete marinade, add 5-6 peas of allspice and ground black pepper to the solution.
The bay leaf gives a characteristic smell, and lovers of garlic flavor are not forbidden to add the desired ingredient. The pickling time in the marinade is about three hours. In principle, it is no different from the dry method of salting fish, but it is believed that the marinade penetrates more deeply into the fibers. This method is used for unplanned outdoor recreation, at the dacha, when pike has to be smoked at an accelerated pace.
- The fish carcass is freed from excess salt or washed with water to remove the marinade. But before you start smoking hot smoked pike, you should check the degree of salting. To do this, the carcass is placed in clean water. The density of salt water is greater, so the fish will drown; this sign indicates that the salts in the fibers are higher than normal. But there is no reason to be upset. It is enough to leave the pike in the water and in just a couple of hours it will emerge.
- Now you can wipe it with a towel or napkin and dry it slightly. This completes all preparations. The result should be a semi-finished product with whitened fins, a predominant odor of seasonings and no mud odor.
Cold smoking
To prepare cold smoked pike you will need a powerful unit that strictly maintains the set temperature. This procedure takes longer, but the result can surprise even a sophisticated gourmet.
Traditional way
In this recipe, the pike needs to be gutted and flattened, then slits are made in the meat across the grain. This is important for better salting and subsequent smoke circulation.
Components! For 1 carcass take about 50–70 g of coarse rock salt.
After cutting, the fish is thoroughly sprinkled with salt. Take a deep plate, pour salt into it, and place a layer of pike on top. Salting will take 24 hours. Next, start cooking:
- The carcass is washed and dried for 10–20 hours. If it is too salty, then soak it for 2-3 hours, changing the water. The room must be protected from flies and insects.
- The dried pike is hung in the smokehouse. Pour alder chips into the smoke generator compartment. Other tree species can be used.
- Turn on the smoke generator, adjust the temperature within 28–30 degrees. When the smoke starts, set a timer or mark 10–11 hours.
After cooking, the pike is left in the smokehouse for several hours, and then ventilated in the fresh air for 1 day.
Recipe from a reader
The note
Svetlana Nikiforova
vk.com/id208184788
You can cook cold smoked pike using brine. For 1 liter of water take:
- 6 tbsp. l. salt;
- 2 tbsp. l. Sahara;
- 1 tbsp. l ground red pepper or paprika;
- 5 pieces. bay leaf;
- 1 tbsp. l. basilica;
- 1 tbsp. l. oregano.
The marinade is brought to a boil and cooled. Place the fish, cleaned of entrails, into it for 30 minutes. Then the fish is rinsed and left to dry for several hours. Smoked from 10–12 hours to a day at temperatures up to 30 degrees. Afterwards, ventilate for 1 to 3 days.
Cold smoked pike yukola
To prepare yukola, you need to take 100 g of curing mixture for 1 kg of fish, prepared from the following ingredients:
- 1 kg of coarse salt;
- 300 g white sugar;
- 5 g each of utskho-suneli, ground coriander and granulated garlic;
- 20–30 g sweet paprika;
- 1.5 g ground mustard seeds.
The fish is gutted, washed, filleted and left on the skin. Cut into pieces so that the curing mixture penetrates better into the meat. Sprinkle with salt, put in a bag and refrigerate for 1 day.
The prepared pike is washed and soaked for 10 minutes. The time for drying comes - the carcasses are hung in a ventilated place, protected from insects, for 2 days. Smoked at a temperature of 18–26 degrees for 24–36 hours. After cooking, air for another 1–2 days.
The best brine recipe for smoking pike
Where my friend found the recipe is silent. Yes, it doesn’t matter. When cooked pike comes out, there are no two reasons for dissatisfaction.
Everyone knows that smoked pike has two disadvantages:
- Pike is not a fatty fish and its meat quickly becomes dry after smoking.
- A large number of seeds along the ridge, resembling a fork. They are long, thin and deep, almost two-thirds, in the body of the fish.
You can still put up with the first point. Moreover, for gourmets, savoring a piece of hard meat with beer is enough. The second one displays periodically.
I can no longer languish your anticipation and praise the taste of the delicacy. I’ll go directly to the recipe for how to cook and smoke pike, and at the end I’ll tell you about a way to get rid of the despicable bones with a fork.
The vaunted recipe for making brine to smoke pike
Required:
- Pike fillet with skin.
- 2 liters of water.
- 6 tablespoons of coarse salt.
- 3 spoons of sugar.
- 4 bay leaves.
- Lemon cut in half.
- 4-5 cloves of garlic (chopped or crushed)
- A tablespoon of whole black pepper.
The amount of water is taken with the condition that the subsequently prepared brine will completely cover the cut fish.
The brine is prepared simply.
Bring the water to a boil and add all the ingredients. Stir until the salt and sugar are completely dissolved. Let it boil, remove from the stove and leave to cool to room temperature.
With liquid smoke in the oven
For cooking, take a gutted pike carcass without a head:
- Rub the outside thoroughly with salt. Place in a bowl and put in the refrigerator for 2-3 hours.
- The carcass is washed and dried. Cover a baking sheet with foil and place the pike on top. Sprinkle with fish seasoning or all-purpose seasoning.
- Form a plate from the edges of the foil and pour a small amount of liquid smoke over the carcasses. 1-2 tbsp is enough. l.
- Seal the fish in foil and place in an oven preheated to 200 degrees.
- After 15–20 minutes, the fish is turned over and left for another 20 minutes.
The finished pike is left to air for 10–30 minutes. Served with vegetables or cereals.
In a slow cooker
You can get delicious smoked pike at home if you use a multicooker with the appropriate function for cooking. You need to take 1-2 carcasses, gut them and wash them. You can use any kind of wood chips – pear, alder, cherry.
The cooking process is very simple:
- Pike is salted dry or wet.
- The prepared carcass is placed on the grill of the multicooker.
- A handful of wood chips is placed in a special cup.
- Place it on the bottom of the multicooker and place the fish on top.
- Select the “cold smoking” mode for 1 hour. It is important to ensure that the valve is working properly and is able to release excess smoke.
After cooking, air the fish for 1-2 hours and serve!
Technology for smoking pike at home
As you know, every person is an individual with his own tastes, preferences and morals. And all this fully applies to choosing your favorite food. It is very difficult to imagine a person who does not like home-cooked food, namely a dish like smoked pike.
Gourmets should definitely appreciate home-smoked pike
Every family, every nation has its own recipe for preparing smoked fish, with its own characteristics and costs. In order not to spoil the pike, so that your dish turns out tasty, you need to strictly follow the cooking technique.
Few people know exactly how to cook hot smoked pike correctly, which is why very often the result leaves much to be desired. Properly smoked pike at home makes this fish tasty, with slight saltiness and juicy meat, as well as a pleasant aroma of smoke.
You can learn how to smoke hot smoked pike from many cooking recipes, but all of them are carried out, as a rule, only at a temperature of 80 to 180 degrees. Cold smoked pike is cooked at temperatures below 40 degrees and has a longer shelf life.
Getting ready for smoking
To get a pleasant smell of smoke, you need not only suitable firewood, but also sawdust and shavings. For smoking, only deciduous trees are taken, since coniferous trees contain resin, and this has a very bad effect on the taste of the dish, giving it bitterness. The most commonly used trees are:
- Beech;
- Hornbeam;
- Maple;
- Alder;
- Ash;
- Poplar;
- Oak;
- Fruit trees.
At home, people switch from wood to gas and electricity, using liquid smoke and other additives. Yes, undoubtedly, smoking occurs much faster, but all this is not the same - the taste of the natural product is significantly different, and not for the better.
When lighting a fire, pay attention to the fact that firewood produces more smoke than shavings and sawdust. The blowing of smoke should be strictly controlled, because if the humidity of the smoke rises by more than 50%, a bitter, tarry aftertaste and an incorrect shade of pike will be obtained. If the humidity is above 70%, then instead of smoked fish you will get regular boiled fish.
How to smoke pike, you must decide in advance and strictly adhere to the temperature specified in the recipe.
The size of the wood helps control the intensity of the smoke, and the smoking speed directly depends on the altitude of the temperature.
The more smoke there is, the faster the process will go, but if the smoke is thick, the fish will get a dull color and a sour taste. If the smoke density is low, the fish will not have a crispy crust and the smoky smell will be weak.
Preparatory stage for fish
Hot smoked pike must be selected very carefully. If it weighs up to one and a half kilograms, then it is smoked whole, without being divided into pieces. Large fish are first cleaned, gutted and divided into smaller pieces. Cut so as not to touch the peritoneum.
Under fresh water, the pike is washed and salted to give it the specific flavor intended by your recipe. In most recipes, smoked pike is salted at home - one tablespoon of salt per kilogram of fish.
Salting is done in two ways:
- rubbing the whole fish with salt;
- salting with a liquid brine solution.
If you decide to pickle fish in brine, make sure that all the salt does not dissolve in it - you will get a saturated solution. After the pike has stood in the solution for 3 hours, it is rinsed with plain water.
If you think that you have oversalted the fish a little, don’t worry, you can soak it in plain water. To accurately determine whether you have overdone it with salt, immerse the fish in fresh water.
If the pike carcass does not float, then the fish is really very salted, but if it floats, then you did everything right.
Spices and herbs are often used to salt pike to give the dish an original taste. You can also add ready-made mixtures to the solution by first pouring boiling water over them and also letting them brew.
Or simply use the well-known thyme, dill, pepper, fennel or caraway seeds. After salting, the pike is wiped dry; if there is excess salt on the surface, it is rubbed off.
According to some recipes, pieces of chopped green apple are placed inside the pike - this helps preserve the juiciness of the fish and gives it a pleasant taste.
The process of cooking pike in smoking boxes
Now let's move on to the practical part of the smoking process. The smokehouse can be placed on an open fire in the house or on a fire in natural conditions. Sawdust is poured into the bottom of the smoking cabinet, then firewood is placed.
Small pike are impaled on a ramrod through the fish's eyes. Large fish are hung on slats or on a grid. Large fish are sometimes cut along the back, leaving spacers. After hanging, close the smokehouse with a lid for half an hour. After this time, the lid is lifted to release excess moisture.
This stage of smoking is called drying. When the surface of the hung fish becomes dry and the fins turn pale, the drying is completed and the chamber is closed again. At the very beginning, do not put a lot of wood in the smokehouse box, as this will quickly increase the temperature, and it should rise slowly and gradually.
It is important to maintain the temperature inside the box at 110 degrees until the fish is thoroughly heated through. The next stage is the actual smoking. In order not to lose control over the preparation of pike, you need to check it from time to time.
Small fish are examined by the fin - it is torn off and the meat at the base is examined: the fin should have a white matte color, not glassy.
A large pike is controlled by removing small pieces of meat from the ridge area with a special stick.
Video on how to smoke pike:
In order for the pike to please you with its impeccable golden color as a result of cooking, you need to sprinkle burnt ash on top of the firewood. The entire cooking process should not last more than 3 hours.
In a convection oven
If smoking in a traditional smokehouse is not possible, but you have an air fryer at your disposal, then pike can be cooked quickly and very tasty.
Ingredients! You will need 2 fish, salt and alder or apple wood chips.
Next, start cooking:
- The pike is gutted and washed thoroughly. Larger carcasses can have their heads cut off.
- Rub with salt on all sides and inside, leave for 3-4 hours in the cold.
- Place the pike carcasses on the grill, slightly rolling them into a semicircle.
- Chips are placed on the bottom of the apparatus. It can be soaked or used dry.
- Set the temperature to high and the fans to low speed. Total cooking time is 25–35 minutes.
The finished pike turns out to be a beautiful golden color. You can serve it a few minutes after finishing cooking.
