This delicious smoked salmon recipe is brined in a wet brown sugar and citrus brine then finished with a sweet orange glaze for incredible flavor. The taste of this smoked salmon is amazing, and you can serve it hot or cold.
Smoked salmon is a process where fresh salmon is either cold or hot smoked. Hot smoking is where the salmon is smoked at temperatures between 120° and 180° until the desired internal temperature is achieved. You can also hot smoke the salmon for several hours if you plan to wrap it, cool it, and serve it cold after several days, but the texture can be dry.
The other method is cold smoking which smokes at temperatures between 70° and 90° for several hours and even up to a few weeks. If smoking for several weeks, it turns the fish into salmon-jerky. If you brine the salmon and cold smoke it for several hours, you will get something known as lox.
My smoked salmon recipe is known as kippered salmon. This method is brined and hot smoked and can be served hot or cold. I prefer to cook it to 140° to 145° internally because I like to eat it warm.
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Ingredients for this recipe:
• 3 cups water
• 2/4 cups packed light brown sugar
• 1/3 cup sea salt
• zest of 1 orange
• zest of 1 lemon
• 4 to 4 ½ pound side of salmon
For the Glaze:
• ½ cup brown sugar
• Juice of 1 lemon
• Juice of 1 orange
• ½ stick unsalted butter
• 1 tablespoon soy sauce
