Charcuterie_ The Craft of Salting, Smoking, and Curing - Michael Ruhlman [33]
There are varying degrees of smoke and temperature, but the basics remain the same:
• We smoke food primarily to make it taste better (smoking has negligible preservative effects).
• We also smoke food to give it a rich color; smoke results in an appetizing appearance.
• The level of heat defines the type of smoking. Cold-smoking does not cook the food; hot-smoking cooks it gently and slowly; and smoke-roasting and pan-smoking cook the food as if it were in a hot smoke-filled oven.
• The longer the meat is smoked, the deeper the flavor and the color will be.
The venerable kitchen rationalist Harold McGee writes: “Smoke’s usefulness results from its chemical complexity. It contains many hundreds of compounds, some of which kill or inhibit microbes, some of which retard fat oxidation and the development of rancid flavors, and some of which add an appealing flavor of their own.”
The composition of smoke depends, of course, on the substance you’re burning. When smoking food over wood, it’s critical to use only hardwoods (hickory, maple, fruitwoods). Avoid soft woods (such as pine), heavy-sap-producing wood, green wood, and any treated wood; these can release a sometimes-harmful resin and their smoke coats the food with an unpleasant flavor. Hickory, perhaps the most common choice for smoking, has a strong, smoky flavor and gives a rich amber color, suitable for hearty meats and sausages. Fruitwoods are preferable to harder woods for their mild sweetness. Pear is very mild and gives a light color, making it ideal for delicate fish, such as whitefish. Cherry is a favorite in Michigan, where the trees are abundant—Brian likes to hot-smoke duck breast over cherry. And the pairing of applewood smoke and bacon is so felicitous it’s become almost commonplace. But hardwoods do not provide the only smoke beneficial to food: herb branches and tea leaves give off tasty smoke as well.
Home-Smoking
Home cooks can smoke their own food, but results depend on the equipment. You can certainly smoke on your stovetop with a pot or roasting pan, a rack to fit inside, and some sort of cover—and an excellent exhaust system. (You could even use a pot with a steamer insert.) You can smoke on a covered grill by adding hardwood to low coals and keeping the food off to the side, away from direct heat. All kinds of stovetop and outdoor smokers are available today, and these are all hot-smoking devices. They cook while they smoke, which limits the time you can keep the food in the smoke.
The Bradley Smoker is the one we found most appropriate for home use and a home budget. What makes this smoker appealing is its ability to smoke at very low temperatures, meaning that you can smoke food for hours without cooking it, an important requirement for most smoked food.
Smokers that enable you to smoke at low temperatures generate the smoke outside the smoke box. Most smokers that allow you to adjust the heat are expensive, in the thousands of dollars range, and commercial smokers that allow for cold-smoking cost even more. We found one smoker for less (about $400) designed for home use that can provide continuous smoke at low temperatures; called the Bradley Smoker, it is manufactured in British Columbia (see Sources, page 302). While we have some wear-and-tear issues with the smoker the company gave us, it is the best and least expensive smoker we’ve found in that it enables you to smoke food at moderate temperatures for several hours. It works well for all forms of hot-smoking.
True cold-smoking is difficult to do without the proper equipment or a purpose-built smokehouse and smoke pit. Placing a tray of ice between the meat and the smoke source is one way to keep the smoke cool longer. Professional smokehouses that include some sort of refrigeration device and do all the work for you cost as much as a car.
So smoking for the home cook without professional equipment takes some work and often ingenuity. It’s possible to smoke for long periods on a grill with a little effort. Bruce Aidells, the San Francisco–area sausage king, writing in Gourmet