Smoked fish

Smoked fish is fish that has been cured by smoking. Foods have been smoked by humans throughout history. Originally this was done as a preservative. In more recent times fish is readily preserved by refrigeration and freezing and the smoking of fish is generally done for the unique taste and flavour imparted by the smoking process.Smoked fish in smokerSmoking fish at the highland gamesMackerel cold-smoked for eight hours and then hot-smoked for an hour in a homemade smokerSmoked salmonFish being smoked in Tanji, The GambiaSmoked eelsSmoked aspA kipper is a herring which has been split from tail to head, eviscerated, salted, and smoked.Still Life with Kippers, Oysters and Smoker's Accessories – Floris van Schooten, 1590–1655 Smoked fish is fish that has been cured by smoking. Foods have been smoked by humans throughout history. Originally this was done as a preservative. In more recent times fish is readily preserved by refrigeration and freezing and the smoking of fish is generally done for the unique taste and flavour imparted by the smoking process. According to Jeffrey J. Rozum, 'The process of smoking fish occurs through the use of fire. Wood contains three major components that are broken down in the burning process to form smoke. The burning process is called pyrolysis, which is simply defined as the chemical decomposition by heat. The major wood components are cellulose, hemicellulose and lignin.' 'The major steps in the preparation of smoked fish are salting (bath or injection of liquid brine or dry salt mixture), cold smoking, cooling, packaging (air/vacuum or modified), and storage. Smoking, one of the oldest preservation methods, combines the effects of salting, drying, heating and smoking. Typical smoking of fish is either cold (28–32°C) or hot (70–80°C). Cold smoking does not cook the flesh, coagulate the proteins, inactivate food spoilage enzymes, or eliminate the food pathogens, and hence refrigerated storage is necessary until consumption', although dry-cured hams are cold-smoked and require no refrigeration. A smokehouse is a building where fish or meat is cured with smoke. In a traditional fishing village, a smokehouse was often attached to a fisherman's cottage. The smoked products might be stored in the building, sometimes for a year or more. Traditional smokehouses served both as smokers and to store the smoked fish. Fish could be preserved if it was cured with salt and cold smoked for two weeks or longer. Smokehouses were often secured to prevent animals and thieves from accessing the food. Today there are two main methods of smoking fish: the traditional method and the mechanical method. The traditional method involves the fish being suspended in smokehouses over slowly smouldering wood shavings. The fish are left overnight to be naturally infused with smoke. In the mechanical method smoke is generated through the use of smoke condensates, which are created by the industrial process of turning smoke into a solid or liquid form. The flow of smoke in the mechanical kiln is computer controlled and the fish generally spend less time being smoked than in a traditional kiln. Laminar air-flow technology allows mechanical kilns to achieve a higher production rate, while the use of micro-processors has allowed mechanical kiln smokers increased sensor coverage within the kiln. High-quality smoked fish is a high-end product sought after by restaurants. The most common types of smoked fish in the US are salmon, mackerel, whitefish and trout, although other smoked fish is also available regionally or from many ethnic stores. Salmon, mackerel and herring are universally available both hot-smoked and cold-smoked, while most other fish is traditionally preserved by only one of the smoking methods.