Smoked Mackerel

Summary

Ingredients

• 10 mackerel (s), frozen, fresh ones also work
• 3 liters water
• 180 g salt
• 3 teaspoons black peppercorns
• 3 tablespoon juniper berries
• 3 tablespoon parsley, dried
• 5 tablespoon lemon juice
• 6 bay leaves

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Instructions

1. Mix the peppercorns, juniper berries and bay leaves and coarsely crush them in a mortar. Add salt and spices to the water, as well as lemon juice and parsley. Stir the brine well so that the salt is completely dissolved. Lake - fish ratio 1.5: 1
2. For frozen fish, a curing time of 8 hours is sufficient, for fresh fish the exposure time should be between 10 and 12 hours. After the soaking time, clean and dry the fish. Then I hang them up to dry for about 45 minutes.
3. In the meantime, heat the smoker to 80-90 ° C. Once the temperature is reached, the fish are put in the oven to cook. There they need about 20-25 minutes at 85 ° C. The belly flaps should now be nicely open. If this is the case, smoking can be started. I use fine beech flour and, depending on my taste, add a few juniper berries to the flour. The temperature can now be slowly reduced to 60 ° C. The fish remain in the smoke for 20-30 minutes, depending on the smoke development, until they have taken on the desired brass color. Finished! Then let it cool down. The animals taste best when they are lukewarm.
4. A little hint:
5. If you only want to prepare 3 or 4 fish, these can be easily placed in an asparagus pot. That saves Lake!