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Yield: 1 pound/450 grams smoked salmon

SMOKED SCALLOPS

Sea scallops will take on a range of flavors, depending what they’re smoked with, but fruitwoods are best, for their delicate flavor and the pale tan color they impart. Once the scallops are cold-smoked (it’s important that temperatures don’t go high enough to cook them, which would begin to happen at around 115 degrees F./45 degrees C. or so) they’re ready to grill, sauté, roast, or broil. They can be served hot, as a main course, but they are also tasty cold, perhaps as the centerpiece of a composed salad.

If you have bay scallops instead of sea, reduce the brine time to about twenty minutes. Peeled and deveined shrimp are also excellent brined (about half an hour for medium to large shrimp) and smoked this way.

THE BRINE

1⁄2 recipe Basic Fish Brine (page 60), replacing 1 cup/250 milliliters of the water with white wine

1 medium onion, sliced

1 bunch fresh thyme

8 black peppercorns

3 pounds/1.3 kilograms sea scallops, tough side muscles removed

1. Combine all the brine ingredients in a large pot and bring to a boil. Remove from the heat and let cool, then refrigerate until completely chilled.

2. Put the scallops in the brine and weight them down with a plate to keep them completely submerged. Refrigerate for 1 hour.

3. Remove the scallops from the brine (discard it), rinse them, and pat dry with paper towels. Place them on a smoking rack and cold-smoke (see page 77) for 1 to 11⁄2 hours, or until they take on a rich golden color.

4. Remove from smoker and store in the refrigerator until ready to cook. They’ll be good for up to 5 days.

Yield: 3 pounds/1.3 kilograms smoked scallops

4

THE POWER AND THE GLORY:

ANIMAL FAT, SALT, AND THE PIG COME TOGETHER IN ONE OF THE OLDEST, DIVINE-YET-HUMBLE CULINARY CREATIONS KNOWN TO HUMANKIND

....

Sausage is the apotheosis of the techniques in this book. It involves craftsmanship in the kitchen, care from the cook, and devotion from the eater. There may be no finer package of protein, fat, and seasonings than that which resides within the transparent but resilient hog casing—and none more humble. In this chapter, we discuss all matters relating to all manner of sausages and describe how the sausage is perfected, what turns a good sausage into a great one.

Fresh Sausage Master Recipe: Fresh Garlic Sausage

Brian’s Holiday Kielbasa, Wiejska (Kielbasa with Marjoram)

Breakfast Sausage with Fresh Ginger and Sage

Classic Fresh Bratwurst

Italian Sausage, Spicy and Sweet

Chicken Sausage with Basil and Tomatoes

Duck, Sage, and Roasted Garlic Sausage

Steam-Roasted Garlic Paste

Mexican Chorizo

Merguez

Spicy Roasted Poblano Sausage

Turkey Sausage with Dried Tart Cherries

Emulsified Sausage Master Recipe: Weisswurst

Mortadella

Boudin Blanc

Quatre Epices

Boudin Noir with Apples and Onions

Pâté Spice

Shrimp, Lobster, and Leek Sausage

Foie Gras and Sweetbread Sausage

Knackwurst

Hunter Sausage (Jagerwurst)

Smoked Andouille

Chef Milos’s Country Venison Sausage

Summer Sausage

Thuringer

Smoked Chicken and Roasted Garlic Sausage

Kielbasa (Polish Smoked Sausage)

Hot Dogs

Hungarian Paprika Sausage

Cold-Smoked Andouille

Cold-Smoked Chorizo

Embrace the sausage. It’s an extraordinary luxury available to everyone, a perfect package of seasonings and juiciness unequaled by any category of prepared food, and we wish more home cooks would take advantage of it. An acquaintance of ours who was at the time deputy director of food services in Washington for the House of Representatives was asked to prepare a huge meal in honor of Julia Child’s seventieth birthday. Not wanting to disappoint America’s most important culinary icon, he created a menu designed to woo any Francophile: oeufs à la Chimay, pantin aux épinards, pissaladière, and other classic dishes. After reviewing his menu, Julia responded: “I really like sausages.” John quickly revised the menu to include Cajun andouille, boudin blanc, Toulouse saucisson, and truffle-laced pork and veal sausage in