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How to Cure and Smoke Fish

A method for curing and smoking fish using salt, sugar, saltpetre, and wood smoke.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Fish and sugar work together. They rank in the top 42% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 207 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

How to Cure and Smoke Fish

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fish

  1. Scale the fish.

  2. Slit the fish up the back.

  3. Clean the fish.

  4. Wipe the fish with a damp cloth, but do not wash it.

Cure

  1. Mix the salt, brown sugar, and saltpetre together.

  2. Rub the mixture well inside and out of the fish.

  3. Stack the fish with a board on top.

  4. Place heavy weights to press them down.

  5. Allow the fish to remain pressed for 60 hours.

  6. Drain the fish.

  7. Wipe the fish dry.

Smoke

  1. Stretch the fish open.

  2. Fasten the fish with small pieces of stick.

  3. Smoke the fish for 5 days in a smokehouse or in a barrel over a smothered wood fire.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Fish + sugartop 42% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together207 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Fish
Is the main component that is preserved and flavoured by curing and smoking.
Coarse sea salt
Draws out moisture and preserves the fish during the pressed cure.
Brown sugar
Balances the saltiness and adds a mild sweetness to the cured flesh.
Saltpetre
Helps keep the cured fish's colour and inhibits spoilage bacteria during the long cure.

The step that matters

Drain and dry the fish before smoking. Salt draws moisture out of the fish, and the cure leaves a sticky surface. Wiping the fish dry lets the smoke adhere and form a glossy, preserved skin rather than a damp, unevenly smoked surface.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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