Tony Floor, WDFW
Tony's Famous Smoked Salmon

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Preparation: Dry brine mix: 3 cups of dark brown sugar to 1 cup of rock salt, mix and multiply relative to the amount of salmon. Place serving size pieces of salmon, skin side down on the bottom of a plastic bucket and sprinkle enough of the dry brine mix to just cover the flesh of the salmon. Continue to layer salmon in the bucket, again, skin side down, and apply the brine mix to each layer until all of the salmon is in the bucket.

Store in cool area (40-60 degrees) for 10 hours.

Rinse each piece of salmon and place on smoker rack. Allow the salmon to air-dry for at least overnight. The longer the fish sits on the smoker rack, drying, the deeper the "glaze" or color of the final product.

Smoking: Begin smoking, adding smoke chips every two hours. Fruit wood chips such as apple or cherry seem to give the best flavor.

Depending on outside temperatures, begin checking the salmon after four hours. This is a critical part of the smoking process. Temperatures and individual heat from smokers will affect the cooking time. Also, do your smoking outdoors to prevent fire. Successful batches of smoked fish are usually removed from the smoking process when the fish is considered "cooked" in the early stages. Caution: Do not overcook. Overcooked smoked salmon is dry and hard. Also, overcooking a northwest salmon borders on a criminal offense.

Bon appetit

Doug Milward of Olympia, Washington
Chum Salmon Teriyaki Kabobs

Preparation: Fillet and skin salmon, cut into 1½ x 1½ inch chunks, and remove bones. Mix the marinade ingredients together (soy sauce, sesame oil, vinegar, and honey) and marinate fish in the mixture for at least ½ hour, turning occasionally.

Cooking: In a large non-stick pan heat 2 tbsp sesame oil and add 1 tbsp minced garlic and marinated salmon chunks. Turn after 3 minutes and add chopped green onion and toasted sesame seeds. Cook until done and serve over rice.

Chris Gih of West Seattle, Washington
Asian Way Chum Salmon or Halibut

Fish should be cooked with the slightest dash of seasoning as possible so as not to overwhelm the taste of freshness: 6 minutes prep time.

Preparation: Place a salmon fillet on aluminum foil. Slit the meat (not deep) and insert slices of ginger. Salt and pepper to taste. Coat with genuine sesame oil.

Cooking: Oven bake it, and I like to brown the top in the broiler.

For Halibut: I add Japanese/Chinese cooking wine with green onion, a dash of salt/pepper and sesame oil. Not too much, however, because you don't want to kill the taste of the fish. Oven Bake enclosed in aluminum foil.

Rick Johnson of Tacoma, Washington
Salmon Pepper-steak

This cooking method sears the fish and seals in the juices. Given the low fat content of chum, this is my favorite way of preparing it. The recipe earned third place in the News Tribune (Tacoma) contest a couple years ago.

Preparation:

1. Season the flesh side of the fillets generously with black pepper.
2. Dust with lemon pepper and/or dill weed, if desired.
3. Heat the oil to near smoking temp.
4. Place salmon in pan, flesh side down. Cover.
5. Depending on thickness, turn in 3 to 5 minutes.
6. Cover & cook skin side down for the same length of time.
7. Test for doneness (finished as soon as it loses it's translucency).

Cooking:

1. Cook it hot (setting 8.5 out of 10 on my stove) but never overcook the fish.
2. This dish is going to smoke up the kitchen, so fix your spouse a drink on the patio and turn the range hood fan on high.

Sam Ingram of Arlington, Washington
Chum Chowder

We refer to this recipe as "Chum Chowder" due to the fact that it looks very similar to a thick clam chowder. Two variations that work well are to add a small amount of smoked chum to give it a little smoke flavor, or to add some bay scallops or fresh prawns to enhance the chum.

Preparation:

Clean, fillet, and remove skin. Cut fish into bite-sized pieces.

Cooking:

Cook bacon in 4 ½ quart dutch oven. Drain, reserve 2 tbsp drippings. Crush bacon and set aside. Cook onion and shallots in reserved bacon drippings until tender. Remove from heat. Add wine, water, salt, and thyme. Tie celery, garlic, parsley, and whole cloves in a cheesecloth bag and add to pan. Bring to boiling, then reduce heat. Cover and simmer for 20 minutes. Remove cheesecloth bag. Add fish to dutch oven. Cover and cook gently about 8-10 minutes or until fish flakes when tested with a fork. Blend flour and softened butter or margarine to a smooth paste. Stir into simmering liquid. Stir in cream. Cook and stir until thickened and bubbly. Season to taste, and sprinkle bacon over top before serving.