Hot smoked mackerel in a home smokehouse

Step-by-step cooking

1. Step 1:

   

   How to make hot smoked mackerel? Prepare all the necessary ingredients. In addition to those in the composition, you will need wood chips and natural twine. Choose fresh mackerel, with dense meat and without damage. She should have bright gills and not cloudy eyes. If the mackerel is not like that, it is better to give it up. To defrost the fish, put it on the bottom shelf of the refrigerator and wait there until it is completely defrosted.

2. Step 2:

   

   Prepare the mackerel first. Remove the head and cut the abdomen. Remove the insides and be sure to remove the black film. It gives bitterness to the fish. Rinse thoroughly, dry and sprinkle with salt inside the abdomen and outside.

3. Step 3:

   

   Put the mackerel in a bowl and close tightly. Since mackerel is a rather oily fish, its fat, when in contact with oxygen, is oxidized and acquires an unpleasant aroma. Leave the fish to saline for 4 hours.

4. Step 4:

   

   Then rinse the fish with cold water and dry it with a paper towel from the outside and inside. Sometimes mackerel breaks after cooking, if overexposed, so that this does not happen, tie it with twine.

5. Step 5:

   

   Before smoking fish, it must be dried a little in the fresh air. To do this, hang it in a well-ventilated place, covering it with gauze from insects and dust. Leave it in this position for 2 hours. After that, the fish will turn out dense, it will smoke well, and it will not turn out boiled with the smell of smoke.

7. Step 6:

   

   Wood chips, preferably from alder or apple trees, moisten with cold water and put an even layer of one centimeter on the bottom of the smokehouse, set the lower level (if there is one).

8. Step 7:

   

   Put a fat collecting tray on the lower level so that it does not burn during cooking. Install the second level of the grate, on which lay the prepared fish. If you want a very pronounced smoking color, just put it on. If you like, like us, a weak color wrap the mackerel in a single layer of gauze. Close the lid and put it on the grill with a prepared fire.

9. Step 8:

   

   After smoke appears from under the lid, mark the time and smoke the fish for 25 minutes. But after 10 minutes, remove the lid and wash off the carbon so that it does not drip on the fish, this will make it bitter. Remove from the grill, let it stand for another 10 minutes, and then remove the lid. Remove from the smokehouse and remove the gauze.

10. Step 9:

    

    Let the mackerel cool and serve.

11. Step 10:

    

    Bon appetit!