First, make a delicious cure: 1/3c of flakey salt, 2 tablespoons of sugar, the finely grated zest of a lemon, lime and an orange (optionally, half a grapefruit as well) and a bit of white pepper are combined together. The zest has enough moisture to sorta damped the sugar and salt. Next, take a piece of salmon fillet, and press the cure mixture on to the non-skin side. Gaps are okay (: Don’t panic if there are gaps.
Wrap the salmon in a sheet of tinfoil, then put it in a dish in the fridge (You want the dish because a bunch of liquid will be pulled from the salmon, and while foil usually does an admirable job of containing the liquid; it’s better to avoid having it dribble through your fridge if it doesn’t (: ). Leave the salmon for 2-3 hours.
Once it has finished curing, remove the cure mixture. I usually put it under cold running water d: Pat it down with paper towels so that it’s dry. It sure looks delectable at this point.
Almost finally: Preparations for smoking – Get a disposable foil roasting pan, and put a layer of wood-pixie-dust in the bottom (I got a bag of manuka-pixie-dust from the supermarket a while back..) It doesn’t need to be super-deep. Put the salmon on to a wire rack (like a *cough*uncoated cake cooling rack*cough*); then put the rack on the roasting pan (I have a rack which is longer than the roasting pan so that it’s nicely supported, about 4cm above the woodchips). Then build a tent to loosely cover the salmon from more tin foil (Another foil roasting pan, upside-down would probably work pretty well too).
Finally: Smoking – put the roasting pan on the barbecue for 15 minutes.
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