My old mate ' Blind Pugh' from across the fields had a bit of a Beano today off the rocks at the bottom of the golf course. He caught this lot and only finished early because he couldn't carry anymore. Well done Noel
He brought them to our place to be hot smoked overnight in the smoker that flatiron somehow managed to bring over on the plane. He only went and took it on to the plane as hand luggage.
This was a few years ago when he visited us from NYS in the good old US of A.
First of all, 'Rare One' , thats Pughs wife and our Martin have to set about gutting the catch. For some reason, I've always been taught to leave the heads on.
They soon made quick work of the job.
Now its time to prepare the smoker. The first task, is to soak sufficient oak shavings in a bucket of water.
A fire is prepared using charcoal in a fire box. This will form the base of the smoker when its set up. Young Rob bravely puts a match to it.
This is a water bowl that fits just above the fire box. In this way, the food is not only smoked but is steamed as well. In this way, any food cooked in it, is kept nice and moist.
When the fire is lit slightly better than shown in this picture, the fire is banked down with handfuls of the soaked shavings and the fire closed down to smoulder.
Here's the smoker with most of its constituent parts.
Time to get cracking and put it together.
The water pan is put into the main body of the smoker and in turn, the body is put onto the fire box which is now smoking nicely. The mackerel are then placed on the racks and the racks placed above the fire and the water pan. There are two layers of mackerel in this smoker and on this occasion, we managed to fit in 34 fish.
and now the lid is put on. I still don't know how flatiron got this through customs, it must have looked very bomb like.
All i've got to do now, is to keep nipping out to check that the soaked shavings havent burnt through and that the fire remains nicely closed up.
Touch wood, in the morning i should be greeted with two racks of nicely smoked golden mackerel.
Pictures of that in the morning.
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August 24, 2013, 14:24