Smoked Steelhead

When I am lucky enough to catch one of these...

It goes straight on the smoker.  If you are not near anywhere you can catch steelhead salmon, you can buy it at a reasonable price at Costco and it works just as well.

First, I prepare a brine to soak the fish in overnight.  My friend Darrell from Seattle was kind enough to give me his dads recipe as well as some nice alder for smoking the fish.  Here is the recipe...

Darrell's Dad's Smoked Fish

Into 1 1/2 gallons of water:

2 cups sugar

1 cup salt

4 heaping tablespoons garlic powder

2 heaping tablespoons onion powder

Brine for 4 hours

take fish out of brine and pat dry

sprinkle lightly with garlic and onion powder

smoke at 150 -160 degrees for 12 -14 hours ramping up to 200 towards end to finish

sprinkle with brown sugar right at end

The modifications that I made to the above are that I let the fish brine overnight, I add a tablespoon of Texas Pete Hot Sauce to the brine, and I allow the fish to air dry on a rack for 1 hour or until the fish becomes shiny.  I also do not add the brown sugar at the end.  Here are some examples...

Before...

After...

As you can see, if you get a little heavy handed with the garlic/onion powder, it will darken.  But, it does not effect the flavor.  The skin pulls right off the bottom and the finished product vacuum packs and freezes well.  

We eat as is, or make an outstanding fish dip that we can eat with a spoon...

Thanks for stopping by...

Bill

Competition Style Chicken

After seasoning Ole Blue, I threw some yardbird on the racks for some chicken practice...

We use thighs for competition.  They are nice and juicy and full of flavor.  The only problem is, they take a ton of work.

So you get bite through skin, you need to remove the skin and scrape the fat off of the back side...

I use a single blade, disposable razor.  Just hold one end of the skin and pull back...

I used to use a butter knife, but it tends to rip the skin if you are not careful.  The razor is perfect.  It is a tough job that in my opinion, is the worst in the competition BBQ world.  You would not believe the amount of fat that comes off of 10 chicken thighs.  Nasty!

Anyway, after scraping the fat, I trim the thigh to ensure the skin will wrap around the meat.

I am also trying some legs to see if I can get nice bite through skin on them with less work.

So, I tossed the chicken and a fryer in a batch of Poultry Brine and let them go for a 6 hour swim.

I seasoned the thighs and legs with Butchers Honey BBQ rub, then wrapped the skin back around the thigh meat.  I also did a beer can chicken as we would like to try and add some pulled chicken in our boxes this year.

The thighs and legs go on the top rack at 250 and the beer can chicken went on the bottom rack.  I used a 50/50 mix of hickory and peach for this cook.

30 minutes on the rack, dunk in sauce, 30 minutes in a pan, then 30 more minutes on a rack with a sauce glaze...

Beer can chicken is looking nice and brown...

Finished product...

Nice color, good taste, and bite through skin on both the thighs and legs.  A very successful practice.

As for the pulled chicken, we mixed some dark meat in with the breast, then lightly sauced and tossed to mix it all up...

Nice taste and very moist.  We might just put this in a box this year.  We are not 100% there, but we are very close...

Thanks for stopping by...

Bill

Brined and Smoked Spatchcooked Chicken

Spatchcooked?  Whats that?  Well, for those who don't know, it is where you cut the backbone out of a whole chicken, butterflied if you will.  You spread it out on your smoker or grill, inside down.  I like it because you can cook a whole bird uniformly and faster than if whole.  It works really well on a grill.

First, I made a batch of Poultry Brine.  Then, I rinsed the chicken inside and out, then patted dry:

Then, I flipped the bird over on its stomach, with the neck facing me:

Then, you just insert the scissors alongside the neck, under the skin, and start cutting.  If you have good kitchen shears, it will cut right the bone.  The spine comes right out:

Threw the kids in the pool for an overnight swim:

I took some Stumps Platinum rub and dusted the bird, inside and out:

The Stumps Platinum works really well with chicken.  It gives a nice flavor with some bite and melds really well with any BBQ sauce.

I fired up the Baby and brought the 350 and added hickory wood in the ash pan.  You can use any wood, peach would work well.  So would a mix of peach and hickory.

I tossed the birds on the second rack down and put to potatoes on the bottom rack:

After an hour and a half, the breast was at 165.  I then glazed with a mix of Butchers BBQ and local honey and let the glaze set for 20 minutes:

The bird was tender and juicy.  Served with some steamed brussel sprouts and the baked potato:

An outstanding meal with some lunches for the week.

Enjoy,

Bill