- Smoking is a popular creative cooking technique that gives food special, personalized aromas.
- The smoke effect of the dishes has been developed to the point of being able to apply it to your own home without difficulty
On this occasion, we bring a creative and avant-garde cooking technique to your kitchen at home: smoking. Thanks to the fusion of technology with gastronomy, the smoke effect has emerged that gives a special aroma to the dishes of large restaurants. However, you can also achieve it at home in a simple way and at NIUS we will tell you how.
You can apply this technique to any type of food such as meat, fish, cheese, and vegetables, and even drinks such as cocktails. Getting that smoke effect is very simple and does not require very advanced knowledge or large investments, since you only need a food kamado smoker.
In the first place, the two most common techniques for smoking food are smoking and cooking at the same time , that is, hot; or smoke the food when it is already cooked : cold.
hot smoked
Hot smoking is common on barbecues so that the meat is cooked and flavored simultaneously. For this, it is necessary to submit the food to a heat source such as coal , to cook the food with the burning of wood to give it the desired smoke effect .
cold smoked
Cold smoking is done at a much lower temperature so the food is not cooked, just flavored for a short period of time. In this case, most raw and cold-smoked foods must be cooked afterward, although there are some meats such as veal or fish that can be eaten raw. This is as long as you are sure that it does not have organisms that are harmful to health . Foods that can be cold smoked and with which good results are obtained are cheeses.
Utensils needed to smoke food at home
To smoke food at home, you generally only need an electric smoker , although there are other optional utensils that you can incorporate into the process depending on the system that generates the heat:
Smoker Types
- Charcoal: consists of a container in which red-hot coal is placed with pieces of wood moistened to prevent the flame from being produced. Once the desired temperature is reached, the food is introduced for the time necessary for its preparation.
- Electric: these are the most recommended for home use, since they are very easy to use. There are so-called smoking guns or pot-type smokers, in which food is smoked directly and does not require an external utensil for use such as the bell.
- For the barbecue: these are containers that can be placed on a barbecue and have what is necessary to smoke small pieces of meat.
The bell
Smoking hoods are usually made of high-quality glass that resists high and low temperatures. This utensil allows the entry of smoke, steam and aromas to smoke food, but if you do not want the smoke to escape before serving, they usually incorporate a silicone self-closing injection valve .
In addition, the bells can be used as a presentation element for the dish , raising them in front of the diner and letting the smoke escape.
Sawdust
Wood is the fundamental element of the smoking process because it consolidates the characteristic flavor. Thus, there are different sawdusts that produce smoke with distinctive odors that will then be transferred to the food and give it a specific smoked flavor. In this sense, you should always use that wood that provides the smoky touch that you like the most.
