Smoking
originates from a time when there was no such thing as refrigeration.
Food that was caught and killed for eating be it pork, beef,
chicken or fish and couldn’t be used all at once
needed to be preserved to prevent wastage. There are various ways
of preserving food, such as pickling, drying, or canning, but smoking
is one of the oldest methods known. Today smoking is done more because
of its unique taste than for any real need as such, but what a taste!
There
are basically two methods of smoking: Cold smoking or Hot smoking.
Both methods require a brining period and/or a salting period before
they are smoked. The idea of which is to draw out as much moisture
from the meat as possible as it is mainly moisture that causes spoiling
and harmful bacteria. For salt curing, the meat is rubbed then covered
completely with salt and left for anything up to weeks, after which
it is soaked in a brine solution, which can often contain other ingredients
such as molasses and herbs to impart extra flavour, for an amount
of time. The time varies according to how the person wishes as the
meat will not perish in this solution because it is almost the same
as pickling. The general rule is the longer the better. When cold
smoking the meat is brined and cured longer on the whole than with
hot smoking, because hot smoking involves cooking the meat it means
that it will not keep more than a week or so anyway. Generally less
dense meat needs less time to be cured in this way as well, so fish
for example only needs to be brined up to a day.
After the brining they are then smoked.
Cold smoking means that the meat is bathed in smoke for a long period
of time (1 to 5 days) and the smoke should never exceed 90°F
so the meat does not cook but should stay above 75-80° mark.
The meat you eat when cold smoked such as salmon is raw but delicious
and safe when done properly. Other meats are safer if cooked when
to be eaten. Cold smoked also keeps longer than hot smoked foods in
general.
Hot smoked requires less curing time than cold smoking but is never
the less essential for safety. The meat is bathed in smoke at 90°F
for the first 2 hours of cooking then 150°F for the remaining
time so the meat cooks. The result is a moist textured meat with a
rich flavour and is suitable for eating straight away...gorgeous!
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