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WAKE UP AND SMELL THE OCTOPUS

Smoked food—whether fish, fowl, meat or cheese—has a heritage that goes back 5,500 years. Christopher Hirst tries smoking his own ...

From INTELLIGENT LIFE Magazine, Summer 2009

The cold-smoked salmon served as a starter at Hix Oyster & Chop House, Smithfield, is made, not at Mark Hix’s restaurant kitchen, but in the chef’s north-London garden. The results are exquisite; but do his six-hour smoking sessions generate complaints from the far side of the garden fence? “When the cabinet is closed, very little smoke comes out,” he insists, though he adds, “A small side of smoked salmon for the neighbours keeps them happy.”

Smoked food, now a luxury, was once a necessity. By curing meat or fish with smoke, our ancestors preserved gluts for lean times. The Sumerians smoked fish as early as 3500BC, and it can’t have escaped the notice of early gourmets that this mode of preservation also imparts flavour. The ancient Greeks and Romans relished smoked food, including cheese and tuna. According to the food scientist Harold McGee, among the tastes supplied by smouldering wood are “spice flavours: vanilla’s vanillin, for example, and clove’s eugenol”. Other aromas in wood smoke are likened to apple, peach, coconut, flowers and sausages. 

Applied to foods from beef fillet to bananas, smoking has a near-global appeal. It is an important part of cuisine in Ghana, where smoked shad fish—known as “bonga”—is produced in oil-drum ovens; also in the Baltic, where herrings are hot-smoked (at 82-93ºC) to make buckling. The British preference for cold-smoking (at around 26ºC) achieved its fragrant apogee in the kipper, invented around 1843 in Northumberland. The tradition of smoking split herrings continues in the north-east: since 1872, the town of Whitby, in Yorkshire, has been perfumed with smoke from Fortune’s kipper shed. Much of Bram Stoker’s “Dracula”, published in 1892 and partially set in Whitby, would have taken place in an atmosphere tinged with kippers. Sadly, the Transylvanian count was not converted from fresh haemoglobin to smoked herring.

For some years, I have attempted to recreate Fortune’s tarry smokehouse in my own garden, but have been less than successful. Lacking an “old, disused stone or brick outside toilet”—as recommended in Keith Erlandson’s
authoritative “Home Smoking and Curing” (1977)—I bought a small indoor smoker. It was fine for smoking prawns, but its effect on anything larger was negligible. My efforts with a basic outdoor smoker lived up to the description in “The Cook’s Encyclopaedia” (1981) by Tom Stobart: “probably acceptable rather than exquisite”.

Accepting defeat, I reverted to making the trek to the excellent smokehouses at Orford in Suffolk, and Cley, Norfolk. However, the embers of my smoky passion were fanned into flame when Mark Hix showed me his “bloody good” Bradley Smoker. Made in British Columbia, it consists of an electric-powered smoke generator, which burns wood “bisquettes” (they look like circular Weetabix) within an attached oven at a rate of one every 20 minutes. By extinguishing the bisquette before it burns to ash, the Bradley produces cleaner, less bitter smoke than traditional methods.

Having obtained my own Bradley, which is the size of a small fridge, I was hot to trot—but smoking is not as straightforward as you might imagine. Complications include the cure or marinade that is required for most smoked foods; the type of bisquette (you can choose from nine different woods); and whether to hot- or cold-smoke. Since the bisquettes are heated within the Bradley oven, its cold-smoking is slightly hot even when the oven heater is turned off. Mark Hix overcomes this problem by introducing a two-foot length of flexible, galvanised ducting between the smoke generator and the oven.

After some dithering, it became clear that the most important thing was to get smoking. “Remember, smoking is an art, not a science,” says the Bradley manual. “Don’t be afraid to experiment.” The results of this experimentation can be seen in Bradley’s book of recipes from Canadian owners. I decided on balance to eschew the smoked moose-heart and bear jerky. Instead I made hot-smoked salmon (moist and richly flavoured), hot-smoked partridge (somewhat mild, though fine in salad), venison steaks (rather like bresaola) and hot-smoked cod’s roe (too grainy—cold-smoked would work better).

The three stand-out successes were smoked almonds and macadamia nuts (subtle and addictive), wood pigeon that was initially cold-smoked then hot-smoked (sensational) and, much to my surprise, octopus. After being simmered, brined and briefly hot-smoked, the result was the best cephalopod I’ve ever tasted. And, yes, only the odd wisp escapes when the oven door is closed, though a great genie of smoke billows out when it is opened. The neighbours will have to endure much more experimenting. Perhaps an occasional smoked octopus will keep them happy? 

Bradley Smokers from £290 + VAT; www.bradleysmoker.co.uk

Picture credit: gagilas, deletem3 (both via Flickr)

(Christopher Hirst is writing a book about cooking with his wife, entitled "Love Bites". His last food column for Intelligent Life magazine was about the inescapable lure of kitchen gadgets.)