Smoked fish is fish that has been cured by smoking. Foods have been smoked by humans throughout history. Originally this was done as a preservative. In more recent times fish is readily preserved by refrigeration and freezing and the smoking of fish is generally done for the unique taste and flavour imparted by the smoking process.
According to Jeffrey J. Rozum, "The process of smoking fish occurs through the use of fire. Wood contains three major components that are broken down in the burning process to form smoke. The burning process is called pyrolysis, which is simply defined as the chemical decomposition by heat. The major wood components are cellulose, hemicellulose and lignin." [2]
"The major steps in the preparation of smoked fish are salting (bath or injection of liquid brine or dry salt mixture), cold smoking, cooling, packaging (air/vacuum or modified), and storage. Smoking, one of the oldest preservation methods, combines the effects of salting, drying, heating and smoking. Typical smoking of fish is either cold (28–32 °C) or hot (70–80 °C). Cold smoking does not cook the flesh, coagulate the proteins, inactivate food spoilage enzymes, or eliminate the food pathogens, and hence refrigerated storage is necessary until consumption. [3]
A smokehouse is a building where fish or meat is cured with smoke. In a traditional fishing village, a smokehouse was often attached to a fisherman's cottage. The smoked products might be stored in the building, sometimes for a year or more. [4] Traditional smokehouses served both as smokers and to store the smoked fish. Fish could be preserved if it was cured with salt and cold smoked for two weeks or longer. [4] Smokehouses were often secured to prevent animals and thieves from accessing the food. [4]
Today there are two main methods of smoking fish: the traditional method and the mechanical method. The traditional method involves the fish being suspended in smokehouses over slowly smouldering wood shavings. The fish are left overnight to be naturally infused with smoke. [5]
In the mechanical method smoke is generated through the use of smoke condensates, which are created by the industrial process of turning smoke into a solid or liquid form. The flow of smoke in the mechanical kiln is computer controlled and the fish generally spend less time being smoked than in a traditional kiln. [2]
Laminar air-flow technology allows mechanical kilns to achieve a higher production rate, while the use of micro-processors has allowed mechanical kiln smokers increased sensor coverage within the kiln. [2] [6]
High-quality smoked fish is a high-end product sought after by restaurants. [5] [7]
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The most common types of smoked fish in the US are salmon, mackerel, whitefish and trout, although other smoked fish is also available regionally or from many ethnic stores. Salmon, mackerel and herring are universally available both hot-smoked and cold-smoked, while most other fish is traditionally preserved by only one of the smoking methods.
A common name for cold-smoked salmon is lox, of which many different types are available, usually identified by point of origin (e.g., from Scotland, Norway, Holland, the Pacific, and Nova Scotia, Canada—the latter usually identified as "Nova lox" or just "Nova"). Traditionally, "lox" designates brined rather than smoked salmon, [8] but the linguistic boundary between the two types of products has become blurred. [9] "Gravad lax" or gravlax remains the only type that is unmistakably not smoked fish. However, commercial labels still identify most smoked products as "smoked salmon" rather than "lox".
Most other smoked fish in the US is hot-smoked, although cold-smoked mackerel is always available in East-European delis, along with cold-smoked sturgeon, sea bass, halibut or turbot and many other varieties. Jewish delis often sell, in addition to lox, hot-smoked whitefish, mackerel, trout, and sablefish (also sometimes referred to as black cod in its fresh state). Along the Mississippi River, hot-smoked locally caught sturgeon is also available. Traditionally, in the US, cold-smoked fish, other than salmon, is considered "raw" and thus unsafe to consume without cooking. For this reason, in the US, cold-smoked fish is largely confined to specialty and ethnic shops.
In the Netherlands, commonly available varieties include both hot- and cold-smoked mackerel, herring and Baltic sprats. Hot-smoked eel is a specialty in the Northern provinces, but is a popular deli item throughout the country.
Smoked fish is a prominent item in Russian cuisine, Ashkenazi Jewish cuisine, and Scandinavian cuisine, as well as several Eastern and Central European cuisines and the Pacific Northwest cuisine.
In Israeli cuisine, smoked trout is traditionally eaten as part of meze, especially at breakfast. Sometimes rosemary leaves are added. Trout can be found in streams and rivers across the country as well as in the Sea of Galilee. [10]
English, Scottish and Canadian cuisine incorporate a variety of strongly brined, smoked herring that used to be known as "red herring". With the increased use of the idiomatic expression "red herring", references to the smoked fish product in this manner declined. A more common current name for it is kippers, or kippered herring. Kippered herring traditionally undergoes further processing (soaking and cooking) before consumption. Arbroath Smokies (haddock) and Traditional Grimsby smoked fish (haddock and cod) have both received Protected Geographical Indication status from the European Commission, [11] [12] which restricts use of the name to fish that is processed using specific methods within a defined geographical area. Other smoked fish products from the UK include finnan haddie and bloaters.
A kipper is a whole herring, a small, oily fish, that has been split in a butterfly fashion from tail to head along the dorsal ridge, gutted, salted or pickled, and cold-smoked over smouldering wood chips.
Smoking is the process of flavoring, browning, cooking, or preserving food, particularly meat, fish and tea, by exposing it to smoke from burning or smoldering material, most often wood.
Smoked salmon is a preparation of salmon, typically a fillet that has been cured and hot or cold smoked.
Lox is a fillet of brined salmon, which may be smoked. Lox is frequently served on a bagel with cream cheese, and often garnished with tomato, onion, cucumber, and capers.
Pickled herring is a traditional way of preserving herring as food by pickling or curing.
Smoked meat is the result of a method of preparing red meat, white meat, and seafood which originated in the Paleolithic Era. Smoking adds flavor, improves the appearance of meat through the Maillard reaction, and when combined with curing it preserves the meat. When meat is cured then cold-smoked, the smoke adds phenols and other chemicals that have an antimicrobial effect on the meat. Hot smoking has less impact on preservation and is primarily used for taste and to slow-cook the meat. Interest in barbecue and smoking is on the rise worldwide.
The Arbroath smokie is a type of smoked haddock, and is a speciality of the town of Arbroath in Angus, Scotland.
Gravlax or graved salmon is a Nordic dish consisting of salmon that is cured using a mix of salt, sugar and dill. It is garnished with fresh dill or sprucetwigs and may occasionally be cold-smoked afterwards. Gravlax is usually served as an appetizer, sliced thinly and accompanied by hovmästarsås, dill and mustard sauce, either on bread or with boiled potatoes.
Norwegian cuisine in its traditional form is based largely on the raw materials readily available in Norway. It differs in many respects from continental cuisine with a stronger focus on game and fish. Many of the traditional dishes are the result of using conserved materials because of the long winters.
Fresh fish rapidly deteriorates unless some way can be found to preserve it. Drying is a method of food preservation that works by removing water from the food, which inhibits the growth of microorganisms. Open air drying using sun and wind has been practiced since ancient times to preserve food. Water is usually removed by evaporation but, in the case of freeze-drying, food is first frozen and then the water is removed by sublimation. Bacteria, yeasts and molds need the water in the food to grow, and drying effectively prevents them from surviving in the food.
Cured fish is fish which has been cured by subjecting it to fermentation, pickling, smoking, or some combination of these before it is eaten. These food preservation processes can include adding salt, nitrates, nitrite or sugar, can involve smoking and flavoring the fish, and may include cooking it. The earliest form of curing fish was dehydration. Other methods, such as smoking fish or salt-curing also go back for thousands of years. The term "cure" is derived from the Latin curare, meaning to take care of. It was first recorded in reference to fish in 1743.
Fish preservation is the method of increasing the shelf life of fish and other fish products by applying the principles of different branches of science in order to keep the fish, after it has landed, in a condition wholesome and fit for human consumption. Ancient methods of preserving fish included drying, salting, pickling and smoking. All of these techniques are still used today but the more modern techniques of freezing and canning have taken on a large importance.
Gwamegi is a Korean half-dried Pacific herring or Pacific saury made during winter. It is mostly eaten in the region of North Gyeongsang Province in places such as Pohang, Uljin, and Yeongdeok, where a large amount of the fish are harvested. Guryongpo Harbor in Pohang is the most famous.
Traditional Grimsby smoked fish are regionally processed fish food products from the British fishing town of Grimsby, England. Grimsby has long been associated with the sea fishing industry, which once gave the town much of its wealth. At its peak in the 1950s, it was the largest and busiest fishing port in the world.
The Burren Smokehouse is an Irish family-run producer of smoked fish.
Herring are forage fish in the wild, mostly belonging to the family Clupeidae. They are an important food for humans. Herring often move in large schools around fishing banks and near the coast. The most abundant and commercially important species belong to the genus Clupea, found particularly in shallow, temperate waters of the North Pacific and North Atlantic Oceans, including the Baltic Sea, as well as off the west coast of South America. Three species of Clupea are recognized; the main taxon, the Atlantic herring, accounts for over half the world's commercial capture of herrings.
Smoked sable, is sablefish that has been smoked. Smoked sable is often prepared with paprika.
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