![smoking bluefish smoking bluefish](https://shelskys.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/Bluefish-Smoked_3-0269_SQ.jpg)
The Masterbuilt line of electric smokers offer a few conveniences that sold me on the product. True, hardened barbequers will disagree, but think of it this way: you’re not going to have to buy bags of charcoal, and stoke the embers every hour overnight. My desire for control without the hassle meant that I needed an electric smoker something without all of the charcoal wood fuel (and thus, ash waste) that, while authentic, is hard to control and involves a fair amount of cleanup. And I wanted to be able to do all this without paying an arm and a leg.Which meant I wanted a great deal of control over the temperature and the smoke.I wanted to be able to achieve a remarkable depth of flavor.In setting out to buy a smoker, I set out with these criteria: I’ve always found the gas or charcoal grill smoking method to be inefficient and limiting.Īnd so I wanted to find a smoker that would enable me to cook food - and a lot of it - without the hassle. You have to refuel the charcoal fire just right on a regular basis, and then only use a small portion of the grill surface to actually cook the food. Smoking meat can be difficult to do on a grill. It’s like bluefish met the alchemical philosopher’s stone, and emerged a better version of itself.īut I confess, I hadn’t spent a lot of time making it. (See Ego, above.) At the risk of going too far, I find the process of making a pate of out smoked bluefish transforms it from a fish many don’t like to eat to one people find delicious. Out of season, it transports you back to the deck with a cold drink and friends or family. In summer, it signals that the fresh fish of New England’s summer have finally arrived. There’s something about it: it’s the perfect combination of fat, salt and flavor (the three pillars of food, really). My favorite smoked dish in the summer is smoked bluefish pâté. And it reminds me of the time my wife took me to New Orleans - one of the best trips of my life. It reminds me of those lobster bakes where I grew up on the coast of Maine. It reminds me of the smoked salmon that I grew up eating at a camp in Canada, where the smell of it smoking you could smell all week.
SMOKING BLUEFISH MOVIE
If you’ve ever seen the Pixar movie Ratatouille, this is the same principle of the ratatouille that is served to the harsh and humorless restaurant Anton Ego - the dish that transforms him into a softie and a patron of the restaurant he so ardently wanted to close.Īnd so for me it is with smoke. Food like this nourishes the soul by transporting people away from the mundanity or stress of their everyday lives and delivering to them not just a plate of food but an experience and, so often with it, memories.Ī french writer once wrote about how a small baked good transported him to the happy days of childhood. In other words, it reminds them of good times - of experiences away from their routines. Smoke reminds people of camp fires, of traditional lobster bakes on the beach, or of southern BBQ. There’s nothing like smoke to transform food from a protein into a transporting experience. Something they’ll rave about, and something that will transport them.Įnter smoked bluefish pâté and my new bluetooth-enabled electric smoker from Masterbuilt.
SMOKING BLUEFISH HOW TO
The choice is often about how to prepare something people will love, without a lot of work. I think many agree, and this is why so many stress over what to cook.
![smoking bluefish smoking bluefish](https://www.suwanneerose.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/smokedbluefish.jpg)
Enjoy every part of it, while you can, I say. My feeling: why choose? Life is too short. The rest of the ingredients are easy enough to come by.What is good food - and I mean really good food - meant to do: nourish or entertain? Is it meant to be simply good for your body, or also good for your soul? Now, a word to the wise for the home chef: you can smoke bluefish at home, but an ever-increasing number of supermarkets are carrying it. The one missing ingredient, that I must remember to add next time, is that sprinkle of paprika! I have a feeling she’d nod in approval. Of course we serve our pâté on celery, just as she did her liver. It has an inherent “umami-ness” that still gives comfort to everyone whenever we gather as a family, and it never fails to bring up comparisons to Grandmother Anna’s chopped liver. It was the memory of that dish that has somehow been imparted into our smoked bluefish pâté. Alas, since she passed away more than twenty-five years ago, no one could ever replicate her recipe, which unfortunately was never written down. Perhaps her most celebrated dish, however, was her chopped chicken liver. She had her basics-potato kugel, brisket, and meat blintzes-and regardless of the occasion, whether it was a holiday or a shibah, those dishes were omnipresent. Her kosher Latvian meals were sublime and, to my memory, world class. My grandmother Anna was one of the great culinary influences in my life, and still is to this day.