Having never smoked before we thought we would 'buck the trend' and start in our early 50's. We figure that if you haven't tried something new by our age and you really fancy having a go, well then you should make the effort. We have long thought about starting but knew so little and we were put off by a lack of understand of the paraphernalia and it was for this reason that we decided we would get some professional help to start and to ensure our health and safety would not be compromised.
It was with this in mind that Alison gave me a Christmas present of a days training in how to smoke safely and she joined me on the course too.
I particularly have longed to start smoking because I love kippers and since we have lived up here in Norfolk I have frequently visited our local smokery and bought smoked garlic, mussels, prawns, bloaters and even the wonderful Red Herring which I may just have fed you with at the beginning of this article.
We thought it would be great to set up our very own smokery in our garden or perhaps in the garden tool store but with no practical knowledge of the subject Alison went on the web and found a fantastic course run by two really nice ladies. So we packed our overnight bags filled the car with juice and set off to the opposite coast and probably my favourite area (after Norfolk, of course) The Lake District.
We stayed in a brilliant Inn called The Wild Boar inn, just near Lake Windermere which unusually has its own smokehouse. The food was exquisite cooked by chefs that really know their stuff and featured many items smoked to perfection in their own smokehouse. As if that wasn't brilliant enough then the smoking course exceeded all our expectations.
The two tutors had on a whim rejected the rat race in London to pursue a whole different life style (mmmm, sounds familiar that). They were both high up in the Police force and gave it up to buy an old artisan smokehouse with which they built up the trade until they were supplying the likes of Fortnum & Mason, Selfridges, Harvey Nicks and even smoking privately for The Prince of Wales.
They were just fantastic and took us through all the basics of curing, cold smoking, hot smoking, the different types of equipment and the heath and safety aspects too. For a one day course it appeared to cover everything.
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| Some examples of the homemade equipment that you can smoke in. |
We were under the misapprehension that we would need something the size of a garden shed to smoke food but as you can see in the photo above an old barrel BBQ, a clapped out old stove and even a filing cabinet can be used to smoke foods in. Please note the Inn's smokehouse is the building right behind these Heath Robinson affairs and is state of the art but the rough shod, moonshine, on the edge style of smoking is a lot more fun.
By lunch time we had smoked enough food to have a filling lunch. The course then continued and we smoked and learnt a whole lot more. At the end of the course we handed all that we had smoked over to the restaurant's Chef to do with as he so desired and we returned in the evening to a sumptuous meal of totally scrummy food. Smoked Gammon, Sausages, Wild boar, Trout, Beef steak and well the list just went on and on. We sat there as if it were a medieval banquet with one course after another laid before us and EVERY SINGLE ITEM was an explosion of taste. I cannot recommended both the Course and the Inn highly enough to do them justice.
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| My hands on the left and Alison behind. This was just the 'snack' lunch! |
There is a link at the end of this blog.
So we have purchased the two simplest methods of smoking as we are just dipping our toes in the water so as to speak.
Firstly for cold smoking..... a cardboard box! Sounds daft as there is no smoke without fire and with fire there is good reason to think that after a while there would be no box. However this kit has a clever little gadget in it which allows oak sawdust to just smoulder and with a simple placing of metal racks (provided) inside the box you can smoke foods on several shelves at once for many hours.
We have cold smoked cheeses, prawns, mussels, garlic cloves, peppers, mushrooms and even fillets of duck breasts. Do you know that even as I write this my mouth is slightly salivating at the memory of how tasty these were.
We also bought a small hot smoking pan which can be used in the kitchen on your hob (disable your smoke alarm first!) or outside. We have found that our fireplace is so big we can actually use either of the smoking devices there and the flu takes away all the excess smoke. Having seen these lovely scented white whisps of smoke curl up the chimney breast I now know what those Cardinals were really doing in the Sistine Chapel.... genuinely getting one step nearer to heaven!
In our Hot Smoking unit we have smoked Salmon, Trout, Cod and more Salmon fillets.... And even more Salmon fillets as they are mind-blowingly Wowwwwww in their flavour.
So now our guest menus will, on occasions, feature home cured and smoked ingredients, that is of course if we don't eat them ourselves first!!!
Links;- Smoky Jo's course website
http://www.smokeyjos.co.uk/
The Wild Boar Inn;-
http://englishlakes.co.uk/hotels/lake-district-hotels/windermere-hotels/wild-boar-inn/
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