ottawa foodies

I've been doing a lot of curing and smoking lately. I don't mind farmed salmon for hot smoked, but looking for some high quality wild to try my hand at making lox. Will farmboy carry wild? East end locations preferably but will travel!

Also, for anyone who has made it before, any beginner mistakes to avoid?

I once picked some up at Produce Depot on Carling Ave
I also saw in at Pelican on Bank St a year back,

(not east end, sry)

Whalesbone Fish Shop on Kent St or the newish place in Hintonburg...Sorry, can't remember the name. I have also got it from Farm Boy in the East - Hillsdale Branch.

For Farm Boy you would likely want to order it. They do not carry it often.

I believe that most salmon from the Pacific is wild caught, while most from the Atlantic is farmed.

Gravlax is fairly easy to make (I think that's the same thing as lox?).

I think the easiest mistake would be using too much salt. I tend to use about 2 cups of brown sugar for 1 cup of pickling salt in my mix. Put some of that, than a fillet skin down, more mix, a fillet skin up, more mix. You can add spices or fresh herbs between the fillets (dill being a classic choice).

Do this in a deep enough dish (lots of juice will come out and your fridge will be messy of you use a plate... don't ask me how I know), cover with Saran and put some kind of weight on top. You can even use a ziplock bag in your dish, which makes the next step easier.

And then the hardest step : wait at least 48 hours, turning the fish every 12 hours. It keeps for a few more days after that, I couldn't tell you exactly how long as it tends to disappear pretty fast ;-p

Peter,

Do you mean Gravalax (marinated salmon scandanavian style) or lox (jewish name for cold smoked salmon)?

Have you tried Klazina Ketting at the Ottawa Organic Farmers Market? She sells excellent wild caught fish. She is only there every other week though, so she won't be there until the 23rd I think. www.oofmarket.ca

This is the recipe I have been using with great success. Just make sure to buy your salmon with the skin on. Also, make sure to really rinse the fish in cold water after the curing. If not, it can be too salty.
www.marilyn.ca

Heck even Loblaws has it fresh when it is in season. There are a bunch of good recipes on the net I have used in the past with good success. I found that the first one I did was too salty but you learn quick!

Thanks for the info, everyone.

FoodTravel - It's lox that I'm planning to make, cured cold smoked salmon. Gravlax does look good too, but not quite the same.

that is what I thought. cold smoked is harder to make I think since you need to smoke it for far longer.

If you are trying to do cold smoking, I'd worry much more about the smoker set-up than about where to get the fish.

I tried cold smoking once... ended up with really bad food poisoning. I guess things got just a little too hot in the smoker at some point. Maybe the temperature went up to 10C instead of staying below 5C. I did use a thermometer, but only checked every couple of hours once it seemed steady (especially as it was -20C outside on that day) and it's not the type that records the temperature.

In order to do cold smoking safely, I'd say you need a really well temperature controlled smoker, one made with an actual working refrigerator. Or you need to monitor the temperature constantly, with some kind of alarm as soon as it starts going up.

As far as I have read, cold smoking does not need to be anywhere near that low of a temp, but rather below 35-38c

The salt should protect it for a period of time, as well as the smoke itself, though I understand there are always risks for the do-it-yourselfers when doing such things.

The amount of salt in smoked salmon is not really enough to have much effect on bacteria. You don't want to make salmon jerky.

Really, I think there is a certain amount of luck involved. Raw chicken won't make you sick, unless it's contaminated with something like salmonella. So if the fish you use is not contaminated with anything, leaving it at room temperature for a while won't make you sick. Clearly, there was something bad in the fish I used, and most bad stuff multiplies very well at room temperature.

In retrospect, I should probably have used frozen fish rather than fresh. Sushi from fresh fish is supposed to be a bad idea, I guess cold smoked fresh fish also is :-/

(The "below 35-38C" rule is to make sure you don't start cooking the fish, t has little to do with food safety.)

Thanks again, Isabelle. I'll have to look more in to the temp issue. I should be able to keep it down pretty well in the right season with the Bradley and an adapter.

I also agree on buying frozen fish to hopefully ward of some nasties, the good quality sushi grade types.