rogerdodger
Moderator
Most Featured
I am sure that others have favorite ways to make the most of their catch, catching King salmon is new for us and we really wanted to utilize all of the fish, so here is what we did:
after the filet process, which is never perfect, there was still some meat along the bones, not too much but in some places close to 1/4" thick, and on a big fish (25# in this case), it adds up. so I tried a fast brine/smoke/bbq experiment, starting at 3pm and ready by 6pm:
1 hour in low salt brine: 2qt water, 1/2cup salt, 1/2cup sugar, 1/4cup lemon juice.
dry and place on smoker racks, 15 minutes air dry
1 hour in the smoker soaking up 1 full pan of apple/alder smoke (just smoke, no real drying or cooking in the smoker)
move to BBQ, add lemon/pepper seasoning, low heat (200F) with foil pan underneath the racks to keep direct heat off the meat, fully cooked in about 15minutes.
in the BBQ picture, you can see on the left and right sides the nice meat along the backbone, the other pieces are meat along/between the skinny rib bones, the oil of the Chinook kept the meat moist and it basically slide right off the bones, like eating little tiny smokey ribs (the inner white membrane just slide off after it was cooked)...what we didn't eat for dinner with our fingers, I cleaned off the bones while still warm and added to chowder the next day and also had some at breakfast on toast/cream cheese, all this from what in many cases might get tossed out after the filets are removed, I am not sure this would work as well with smaller or fish with less natural oils, but for any Kings we catch, we plan to do this again...cheers, roger
after the filet process, which is never perfect, there was still some meat along the bones, not too much but in some places close to 1/4" thick, and on a big fish (25# in this case), it adds up. so I tried a fast brine/smoke/bbq experiment, starting at 3pm and ready by 6pm:
1 hour in low salt brine: 2qt water, 1/2cup salt, 1/2cup sugar, 1/4cup lemon juice.
dry and place on smoker racks, 15 minutes air dry
1 hour in the smoker soaking up 1 full pan of apple/alder smoke (just smoke, no real drying or cooking in the smoker)
move to BBQ, add lemon/pepper seasoning, low heat (200F) with foil pan underneath the racks to keep direct heat off the meat, fully cooked in about 15minutes.
in the BBQ picture, you can see on the left and right sides the nice meat along the backbone, the other pieces are meat along/between the skinny rib bones, the oil of the Chinook kept the meat moist and it basically slide right off the bones, like eating little tiny smokey ribs (the inner white membrane just slide off after it was cooked)...what we didn't eat for dinner with our fingers, I cleaned off the bones while still warm and added to chowder the next day and also had some at breakfast on toast/cream cheese, all this from what in many cases might get tossed out after the filets are removed, I am not sure this would work as well with smaller or fish with less natural oils, but for any Kings we catch, we plan to do this again...cheers, roger
Last edited by a moderator:
