Things are damp and mild outside and really not very Christmassy at all. At least warm weather at this time doesn't induced the panic it once did - a few years back when we sold Christmas geese rising temperatures before Christmas was a serious business. We didn't have a chiller room back then and the dead geese, killed 10 days before Christmas (hanging is essential for the flavour and texture of the meat) were left to hang high in the rafters of my parents shed. I'm not sure there was really much chance of them going off but even the merest hint of risk was enough to make me feel extremely tense and the odd bluebottle putting in an appearance, the stuff of nightmares. This year's handful of geese and turkeys are safely behind sliding doors, but it doesn't pay to be too complacent. Last summer the chiller room broke down with a third of a tonne of bullock hanging in it - that really put worrying about a few geese into perspective!
Christmas birds in chiller
My days have largely been spent inside of late, preparing for Christmas with the family, and in between learning Hayden’s St Nicholas Mass for a concert early in January, I managed to finish the gin and trim up the sides of smoked salmon. Producing smoked salmon for Christmas has become something of a tradition and although the raw product is another brought in ingredient, it is a way of getting the finest quality luxury food at a fraction of its normal price. Surprisingly perhaps, smoked salmon is one of the simpler smoking projects, especially in the winter when brining can be done outside in cold weather. The only real barrier to most people is having a cold smoker, but they're easy enough to make. Mine consists of a large plywood box with a concrete base, a door and simple vents top and bottom. Sawdust is piled on the concrete, lit and allowed to smoulder filling the box with copious amounts of cool smoke. Other designs include a wood burner with the chimney rooted into a whiskey barrel or other suitable wooden container - anything will do as long as it results in a large amount of cool smoke in a confined area.
Smoked salmon
Ingredients
1 fresh salmon around 5 kg in weight
1 lb. 14 oz. salt
1 tbsp white sugar
1 gallon cold water
Method
- Using a sharp knife remove four patches of skin from each side of the salmon where the flesh is thickest to aid salt penetration.
- Fillet the salmon allowing the rib like bones around its cavity to come off as part of the fillet.
- Make the brine by mixing the salt, sugar and water in a plastic bucket or something similar (must be non-metallic).
- Place the fillets in the brine and put a non-metallic plate on top to ensure they are properly submerged.
- Put somewhere cool and leave overnight.
- In the morning (or after 12 hours or so) put the fillets on plastic or wooden drying racks (I use the blue vegetable trays thrown away at farm shops, market stalls etc) and leave somewhere cool and well ventilated to dry off. Putting the trays at a slight angle will aid the brine dripping off.
- When the fillets feel tacky to the touch place them, still on their trays, in the smoker and smoke using oak sawdust for 24 hours or until they had developed a light golden hue. (Smoking time is really a matter of taste, but this works for me)
- Wrap the fillets in cling film and put in the fridge to mature for 24 hours.
- Trim the fillets by cutting away the rib like bones and fins. Pull out the line of bones which are buried in the flesh two thirds up towards the back and start were the fishes head once was. They can be found by running a finger from the head end towards the tail.
Carrying on from my entry on 13th December detailing how to distill unpleasant wine into useful spirit here is my recipe for gin.
Gin
Ingredients
1 L single distilled spirit
zest of one lemon thinly sliced
10 juniper berries crushed
1/2 inch of cinnamon stick bruised
5 cardamom pods crushed
6 plum kernels crushed (or six drops of almond essence)
1/4 of vanilla pod bruised
Method
- Setup the still and place the spirit and other ingredients in the bottom.
- Heat slowly and gather the distilled spirit as it gathers in the bowl.
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