Homemade Smoked Salmon

Today, i made smoked salmon today and it was fabulous. I got the recipe from my mum who attended a demonstration on making smoked salmon by a chef at her weekly mother's club get together.

What you need:
Utensils:

A Smoking Pan... i didn't have any so what i did was i used a very thick pan or wok and used a rack to place salmon on. My pan had a lid but when i was smoking it already, the smoke was coming out of the sides so the Chef's suggestion was to use aluminum foil instead. Please note that the pan has to be very thick. A thin one will make your salmon "oversmoked" and may cause a small fire and result in having a bitter smoked salmon.

Ingredients:

4 Salmon Fillets about 1 to 2 inches thick
1/4th cup lemon juice
Salt and Pepper

1 cup Cherrywood or Applewood shavings however if you can't find any of these you can use 1 cup of uncooked rice
bunch of fresh taraggon
bunch of fresh dill
bunch of fresh rosemary

First, coat your salmon with lemon juice and season it with salt and pepper. You may add herbs on the salmon if you want but it's optional.

in the pan, add the uncooked rice and herbs. put rack over the uncooked rice and herbs and place salmon over the rack. Cover. Turn on heat to high but when it starts to smoke, put heat on medium. Smoke the salmon for 15-20 minutes.

In my experience, i had to turn the salmon after 10 mins then finish the smoking time otherwise, the salmon will have one pinkish color and the other kinda yellowish.

After 15-20 minutes, turn off heat. Put on gas mask if you want coz the smoke kind of irritates the eyes and nose. Another tip, if you don't want your whole house to stink of smoke, open the lid outside your house.

The salmon is wonderful with mango salsa or tartar sauce and the leftovers are good to make for brekkie like scrambled egg and smoked salmon.