Comparing hot and cold smoked fish

Smoked fish is one of the most pop­u­lar del­i­ca­cies. Lux­u­ri­ous, rich and full-bod­ied taste and del­i­cate tex­ture make it per­fect for both fes­tive feasts and every­day meals. In addi­tion, it has a rich, char­ac­ter­is­tic aro­ma, which fur­ther enhances its nutri­tion­al qual­i­ties.

How­ev­er, there are two ways to cook this dish — hot and cold. And the same fish — for exam­ple, mack­er­el — can be pre­sent­ed in sev­er­al “options”. And it is not clear what is bet­ter to serve on the table.

In this mate­r­i­al, we will fig­ure out how hot and cold smoked fish dif­fer — and which is bet­ter to choose.

Hot smoked fish

Hot smok­ing prod­ucts, as the name implies, involves heat treat­ment. So, for exam­ple, fish is heat­ed to 80–125 degrees, depend­ing on the vari­ety. This cook­ing method is very fast.

In par­tic­u­lar, hot smok­ing of fish takes only 1.5–2 hours. In this case, it is not nec­es­sary to pre­pare the prod­uct. It is desir­able, of course, to remove the gills and offal — but not nec­es­sar­i­ly. The fish can go to the smoke­house imme­di­ate­ly after being caught.

Thanks to hot smok­ing, sev­er­al impor­tant advan­tages of the fin­ished dish are achieved at once:

1. Char­ac­ter­is­tic brown col­or. It is giv­en by volatile resins deposit­ed on the sur­face of heat­ed pulp or skin. How­ev­er, their num­ber is insignif­i­cant and you can ignore their con­tent in the com­po­si­tion of the fin­ished dish;

2. Soft, del­i­cate, crumbly tex­ture. With high-tem­per­a­ture pro­cess­ing, the fish, while in the smoke­house, is lit­er­al­ly boiled in its own juice. That is why its meat eas­i­ly lags behind the bones or skin, and also acquires a very del­i­cate and soft tex­ture. Such a dish is good for eat­ing direct­ly in pieces, but bad for use in sal­ads, soups, pies or oth­er prod­ucts;

3. Var­i­ous bac­te­ria and par­a­sites are destroyed. Espe­cial­ly a lot of them in riv­er or oth­er fresh­wa­ter fish. There­fore, any sil­ver carps or carps are not suit­able for con­sump­tion in an unheat­ed form.

After smok­ing, fish car­cass­es or fil­lets can be served imme­di­ate­ly. Addi­tion­al dry­ing or dry­ing is not required.

The taste of hot smoked fish is rich, “smoky”. For many peo­ple, it is espe­cial­ly attrac­tive. At the same time, if you over­ex­pose the fish in the smoke­house, it will become tart and bit­ter, sat­u­rat­ed with resins, and prac­ti­cal­ly unsuit­able for con­sump­tion.

At the same time, hot smok­ing slight­ly wors­ens the nutri­tion­al qual­i­ty of the prod­uct. Dur­ing heat treat­ment, the vit­a­mins con­tained in its meat, includ­ing the espe­cial­ly impor­tant vit­a­min D, are destroyed. Fat is also ren­dered from the meat — a source of ben­e­fi­cial acids and trace ele­ments. There­fore, some hot-smoked mack­er­el is a deli­cious del­i­ca­cy, but of lit­tle use.

In gen­er­al, hot smoked fish is char­ac­ter­ized as fol­lows:

1. Soft, del­i­cate tex­ture. The meat eas­i­ly moves away from the bones and skin, and also lit­er­al­ly melts in the mouth;

2. Bright taste with pre­vail­ing “smoky” shades. Intense smoky aro­ma;

3. The char­ac­ter­is­tic gold­en or brown col­or of the meat, due to the large amount of volatile resins. How­ev­er, their con­tent is trace and safe for the body;

4. A small amount of vit­a­mins and fat­ty acids, which is due to heat treat­ment;

5. Heat treat­ment also allows you to get rid of bac­te­ria and par­a­sites.

It is worth con­sid­er­ing that some types of fish, espe­cial­ly those suf­fer­ing from par­a­sites — and these include almost all riv­er and fresh­wa­ter species, as well as some marine (like her­ring) — must under­go heat treat­ment. That is, the only smok­ing option for them is hot.

So, let’s sum up.

Cold smoked fish

Cold smok­ing does not imply heat treat­ment. Instead, the fish are exposed to the smoke for an extend­ed peri­od — at least sev­er­al days — at a room tem­per­a­ture of about 30 degrees. This process is sim­i­lar to clas­sic dry­ing, but gives a dif­fer­ent, rich­er and more char­ac­ter­is­tic taste.

Before cold smok­ing, the fish must be salt­ed. This allows you to extend the shelf life. And the salt itself serves as a preser­v­a­tive and pre­vents the fin­ished car­cass­es or fil­lets from spoil­ing. After smok­ing, addi­tion­al pro­cess­ing is also required — dry­ing or dry­ing. The spe­cif­ic tim­ing of the dura­tion of these culi­nary process­es depends on the vari­ety.

Thus, cold-smoked fish cooks for a very long time. At best — only 2–2.5 weeks, at worst — more than a month. But the time spent is well worth it. Cold-smoked fish is not only tasty — it can also be stored for a very long time, up to sev­er­al months, sub­ject to tem­per­a­ture and humid­i­ty con­di­tions.

When salt­ed and dried, the tex­ture of the fish changes. It becomes more dense and elas­tic. The pulp does not sep­a­rate well from the skin and bones, so cold smok­ing is poor­ly suit­ed for small vari­eties of fish like capelin — it will be at least dif­fi­cult to “dis­as­sem­ble” the dish dur­ing use.

But with low-tem­per­a­ture dry­ing in a smoke­house, you can make excel­lent baly­ki. The firm, resilient flesh makes them suit­able for sand­wich­es, hol­i­day cuts, or sim­ply tossed into oth­er dish­es like sal­ads or pies. And they keep for a very long time.

Also, the absence of expo­sure to high tem­per­a­tures dur­ing smok­ing allows you to save use­ful sub­stances in the dish. Fat is not ren­dered, vit­a­mins are not destroyed. Such a fish is espe­cial­ly use­ful in the cold sea­son, when the body is expe­ri­enc­ing an acute short­age of var­i­ous nutri­ents.

At the same time, salt­ing and dry­ing do not help get rid of par­a­site eggs. As a result, cold-smoked riv­er fish can­not be con­sumed with­out heat treat­ment! This also applies to sil­ver carp balyks.

The taste of fish cooked in this way is quite pecu­liar. “Smoky notes”, of course, are pre­served, but they do not dom­i­nate the main “bou­quet”. Rather, the smoked taste com­ple­ments the nat­ur­al aro­ma. In some species, such as trout, pink salmon or sea bass, it is prac­ti­cal­ly not felt at all.

In gen­er­al, cold smoked fish is char­ac­ter­ized as fol­lows:

1. Elas­tic, dense tex­ture. The pulp is dif­fi­cult to sep­a­rate from the bones or skin, but it is eas­i­ly cut into neat thin strips or straws;

2. Char­ac­ter­is­tic taste, which is com­ple­ment­ed by “smoky notes”. Smoked fla­vors are present, but do not pre­vail. Cold smok­ing is ide­al for fat­ty breeds that do not boast a strong taste of their own — like salmon or sea bass;

3. Light col­or. With low-tem­per­a­ture dry­ing in smoke, the fish acquires an unsat­u­rat­ed gold­en or brown hue. The amount of resins in com­par­i­son with the hot ver­sion also slight­ly decreas­es, espe­cial­ly in the thick­ness of the pulp;

4. Fat­ty acids are pre­served because fish oil is not ren­dered. But vit­a­mins can be destroyed — although in the thick­ness of the pulp, where nei­ther smoke nor air enters, they “remain intact”;

5. Cold smok­ing does not involve heat­ing to dis­in­fect­ing tem­per­a­tures, so it is not suit­able for riv­er or oth­er fresh­wa­ter species. They may har­bor bac­te­ria or, more dan­ger­ous­ly, par­a­site eggs.

Cold smok­ing is great for oily fish. Salmon breeds, ocean perch­es, mack­er­el and sim­i­lar vari­eties are best “revealed”. The absence of heat treat­ment and a dense tex­ture allows you to save, and does not allow fat to melt. But it is rec­om­mend­ed to smoke already cleaned fil­lets in this way, since after all the pro­ce­dures the meat will “stick” to the bones and skin.

So, let’s sum up.

Comparison

So, cold-smoked fish is health­i­er, and hot-smoked fish is safer. But the dif­fer­ences between the two cook­ing meth­ods are not lim­it­ed to this.

Hot-smoked fish is a safe del­i­ca­cy for smoky lovers and fresh­wa­ter cook­ers. Cold smoked fish is more suit­able for lovers of ocean species.