Quick Brine - Sable Fish/Black Cod?

Started by Rob in WA, May 12, 2006, 08:47:05 AM

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Rob in WA

I just my BS last night and I'm seasoning it right now.  I've got a bunch of Black Cod I want to smoke and I'm a bit confused about curing.  Most recipes I've seen call for it to cure 6+ hours before smoking, but a few I've seen only call for it to sit in a brine 1-2 hours.  Is this safe/good?  I'd really like to get to smoking right away, but I don't want to compromise the quality/safety of the fish.


shearwater

Little late on this but will toss this out.

Love smoked sable myself, pick one up every now and again when halibut fishing.

Brine
7 to 1 water to salt mix (pickeling salt)
1/4 cup soy sauce
1/4 cup brown sugar
1 tbls garlic powder
1 tbls onion powder
1 tsp hot pepper powder

brine for 24 hours
If you like a lot of salt don't rinse or rinse well to remove most of he salt
smoke at 200 degrees 4 hours. Sable has such a high oil content and is so soft that it will never dy out and firm up like salmon. The end product is very soft but soooo good actually perfer it over salmon.
Have to admidt that I  never dry the fish prior to smoking for the pemicel(sp) effect but the results are fine by me.

Just pulled a mixed bag ou of the freezer, salmon, hallibut, sable and sturgeon to smoke this weekend.
The hallibut and sturegon is only smoked for about 2 hours or it will trun into a brick. If I mess up and the fish is to dry just toss it in a food processor grind up and mix with mayo for a great sandwhitch spread.

The 7 to 1 water to salt mix above was pulled from the OSU (oreon state) web site. The science behind it is that the mix will initially pull moisture from the fish then an osmosis effect will take place and additional water will be pulled back into the fish (after an hour or so)with salt being to large of a molcule to be drawn in. Done a lot of playing with this and it works. Halibut drops a lot of moisture when frozen and thawed. 2 hours in the mix then rinsed well will really plump the fillets up and is a much better end product than non-brined fillets.

enjoy