Charcuterie_ The Craft of Salting, Smoking, and Curing - Michael Ruhlman [32]
4. Pour enough of the cold brine over the sauerkraut to cover it completely; discard the extra brine. Store, covered, in the refrigerator for up to 3 weeks.
Yield: 1 quart/1 liter
3
SMOKE:
THE EXOTIC SEASONING
....
Curing with salt and smoking go hand in hand. Smoking foods was indeed once an aid in the preservation of meat and fish, but in contemporary cooking it is fundamentally a matter of enhancing flavor and color in substantial ways. Is it pretension on a chef’s menu to list “Applewood Smoked Bacon”? No: the smoke from the wood of an apple tree or almost any fruit tree produces a sweeter, milder result than a harder wood such as hickory, with its powerfully flavored wood smoke. It matters. Smoke a delicate fish over pear wood, and you’ll understand.
In this chapter we discuss smoking fish, meat, vegetables, and nuts.
Herb-Brined Smoked Turkey Breast
Whiskey-Glazed Smoked Chicken
Hot-Smoked Duck Ham
Maple-Cured Smoked Bacon
Smoked Ham Hocks
Tasso Ham
Canadian Bacon (Cured Smoked
Pork Loin)
Spicy Smoke-Roasted Pork Loin
Spicy Dry Rub for Pork
Pastrami
Carolina-Style Smoked Barbecue
American-Style Brown-Sugar–
Glazed Holiday Ham
Smoked Jalapeños
Spicy Smoked Almonds
Smoked Salmon
Smoked Scallops
We smoke foods to give them a great flavor. Smoked meat and fish also take on an appetizing caramel-brown hue. Hot dogs are brown, not pasty looking, because they’re smoked. While the smoke coating does have some preservative effects by making the surface of the meat acidic, thereby discouraging the growth of unwanted microorganisms and bacteria, smoke is not used to preserve foods the way drying and salting are. Smoking may have become part of the charcutier’s trade because of its initial preservative nature, but we continue to smoke food because of the fine color and flavor it gives to dried and cooked foods, and especially to pork.
Smoke is flavor. It’s why we love barbecued ribs, chicken on the grill, burgers cooked over open flame. Smoke is what gives bacon its depth. It’s the reason smoked ham hocks are so good with beans or long-simmered greens. Cure salmon in your refrigerator, then smoke it, and you will have transformed it into something truly special. Jalapeño peppers, when smoked, become chipotle peppers, one of the great seasoning elements of Southwestern cuisine. Smoke not only elevates a ham, in many cases the type of smoke used determines the kind of ham it is and the regional nuances that distinguish it. Was it smoked over American hickory and apple wood, traditional woods for the American hams, or over the beech and juniper of Westphalia, Germany? Smoke can describe a culinary tradition and the spirit of the terroir.
The smoking environment may be hot, in which case it cooks the meat or fish while enhancing its flavor (as with Canadian bacon), or it may be cold, so the food remains uncooked but takes on a smoky flavor (as with smoked salmon). Smoking at or below 100 degrees F./37 degrees C. is cold-smoking; smoking at between 150 and 200 degrees F./65 and 93 degrees C. is hot-smoking. Meat or sausages that are hot-smoked cook gently for a long time while being flavored by the smoke. They can then be eaten immediately or chilled and later reheated. Pan-smoking (smoking on your stovetop) and smoke-roasting (as in a cylindrical smoker or barbecue grill) occur at temperatures of 300 degrees F./150 degrees C. or more.
Salmon is typically cold-smoked, ideally at a temperature below 90 degrees F./32 degrees C.; if the smoke were hotter, it would cook the fish and drastically change its texture. Some dry-cured sausages, such as pepperoni and Spanish chorizo, are cold-smoked before being hung to dry. Smoked kielbasa and other hot-smoked sausages are hung in the smoker until fully cooked.