Smoked eel at home

Step-by-step cooking

1. Step 1:

   

   How to smoke hot smoked eel at home? Prepare the necessary products. We will need first of all fresh eel, water and salt. For smoking, it is better to use unfrozen fish, so the result and taste of the finished delicacy will be much better.

2. Step 2:

   

   If the fish is still alive, then put it in a strong saline solution and leave it for a while. When the eel stops moving, remove it from the liquid and remove the mucus from the surface of the carcasses. It is very important to remove all the mucus, otherwise the final taste may be different.

3. Step 3:

   

   Remove all the insides by making an incision on the abdomen. Leave the heads and tails, so the finished fish will look more appetizing. Prepare the marinade, to do this, dilute salt in water at a rate of 5 to 1. That is, for 5-6 liters of cold water, take 1 kilogram of table salt. Place the eel in the marinade and leave for 20-30 minutes. Next, remove the carcasses from the salt water and wipe with napkins.

4. Step 4:

   

   Hang the fish with a harness or thick thread outdoors. It is good if the drying process takes place in a small draft or in the wind. Leave it this way for an hour or a little more. If there are insects on the street, then it is better to dry the eel in a grid.

5. Step 5:

   

   Prepare the smoker. Its preparation depends on the model. In the recipe, the eel was smoked in the apparatus "Steam Locomotive", I put foil on the bottom, and installed a grate over it.

7. Step 6:

   

   Next, light a fire in a special compartment for firewood. Wait until the temperature in the smokehouse rises to 80-90 degrees, put a thin layer of pre-soaked chips from fruit trees on the embers, do not use a chip from coniferous trees, they can give bitterness to the finished fish.

8. Step 7:

   

   Place the eel on the grill at some distance from each other so that the smoke evenly envelops each carcass. You can make spacers in the belly of the fish, I did not do this because I had a small eel.

9. Step 8:

   

   Cover the device with a lid and smoke for 1-1.5 hours (depends on the size of the fish and the model of the smoking apparatus).

10. Step 9:

    

    The finished fish acquires a beautiful brown-golden hue, the meat becomes white and fragrant. Remove the eel from the machine, cool it and let it brew for a while.