Hot and cold smoked bream at home

Common bream (or Danube and eastern bream, as it is also called) is an inhabitant of rivers and freshwater lakes, belonging to the carp family. The maximum body length reaches 82 cm, weight - more than 5 kg. Breams live on average 10–15 years, but among them there are also long-livers, whose age reaches 20–23 years. Freshwater species are widespread in the north and center of Europe, living in the basins of the Black, North, Caspian, Azov and Baltic seas, and are found in Siberian rivers. Bream contains a lot of bones, but its meat is valued for its unique taste, fat content and high nutritional properties.

Nutritional value, benefits and composition of bream

Smoked bream cannot be called an excellent product for dietary nutrition, but it contains vitamins and minerals that provide certain benefits to the human body:

valuable protein is easily absorbed by the gastrointestinal tract;
essential omega-3 fatty acids are necessary for the health of the heart and blood vessels, skin and hair, nervous and endocrine systems;
fish oil helps eliminate insomnia, improves health and strengthens the immune system;
meat has antibacterial properties;
even a smoked product is considered an excellent source of iodine and phosphorus, which are lacking for a person who consumes little seafood;
chromium, iron, potassium, magnesium and other minerals are needed for normal metabolism.

Bream contains about 9% fat when fresh, which is a fairly small figure.

BJU and calorie content of smoked bream
Parameter	Cold smoking	Hot smoking
Calories	160 kcal	172 kcal
Squirrels	29.7 g	32.8 g
Fats	4.6 g	4.5 g
Carbohydrates	0 g	0 g

What method do you use to smoke bream?

HotCold

However, the harm of a smoked product should also not be forgotten: during hot processing, meat absorbs many carcinogens from the smoke, which are partially retained by the scales. When cold smoking, if the fish is not sufficiently treated with a saline solution or mixture, there is a high risk of preserving harmful substances and microbes.

A high concentration of salt can be dangerous for people with heart disease, high blood pressure, a tendency to edema, diabetes, liver and kidney pathologies. Children and women during pregnancy should not indulge in smoked meats.

How to select and cut fish

For smoking, it is better to choose not too large bream or bream - young representatives of the genus, the size of which starts from 600 g. Smaller individuals are considered to be underdeveloped fish. During the season they can be purchased chilled, but most often they are found frozen. When choosing, you need to pay attention to the following parameters:

Appearance of the skin . Carcasses should be smooth, neat, without tears in the skin or thick mucus on the scales. An abundance of dents and cracks indicates improper storage and pre-treatment.
Eye condition . Convex, with a glassy sheen and without a cloudy tint.
Smell . If after defrosting or during selection the bream has a strong foul odor, then it is better to refuse to buy it.
Tactile characteristics . After pressing on the body, the marks should disappear within a few seconds. The meat of fresh or once frozen fish is elastic and does not break down into fibers.

It is believed that the most delicious bream with tender meat and a sufficient amount of fat is autumn bream.

The note

Vladimir Kuznetsov

Professional smoker

Important! When cutting fish, the scales are left, as they capture the maximum of harmful substances from the smoke during smoking.

Before salting, remove the gills and carefully cut out the insides. If the fish are small, they are smoked along with their entrails. For large carcasses, a cut is made along the ridge for high-quality salting.

Salting methods

Before smoking, bream must be salted correctly, strictly following the recommendations from the recipe. In this case, salting can be dry, wet, using aromatic marinade to obtain a brighter and more unusual taste of the dish.

Dry pickling

After cutting and washing the carcass while preserving the scales, an additional cut is made along the ridge and a mixture for salting is prepared:

1. for 1 kg of fish take 2 tbsp. l. medium salt and place in the belly and cut, rub the carcasses against the scales;

2. place the workpieces in cling film or bags for at least 4 hours for hot smoking and 8 for cold smoking, the maximum salting time is 1 day for hot-smoked and 2 for cold-smoked;

3. After processing, remove excess salt and drops of moisture with a paper towel;

4. The final stage is drying the carcasses for at least 60 minutes in the fresh air.

If it turns out that the product is oversalted, you can soak it in clean cold water for 1–2 hours before drying.

In brine

Bream can be salted in brine - a concentrated salt solution prepared from 80–90 g of mineral per 1 liter of water. Seasonings and spices are added as desired. First, the brine is boiled for 5–10 minutes, and then the completely cooled liquid is poured into the cleaned carcasses and salted for 7–12 hours.

You can also use another method of wet salting - extrusion. To do this, prepare a mixture of 500 ml of water, 3 tbsp. l. salt and 1 tbsp. l. Sahara. Take a large syringe, draw up brine, and inject 10 ml into each side. Then the fish is rubbed with any seasoning and left to salt overnight in the refrigerator.

Marinades

With the help of marinades, bream is given a unique taste and a rich palette of aromas. They improve the quality of meat processing, making it more tender and enjoyable.

For hot-spot

Marinades selected specifically for hot smoking, with strong heat treatment, better reveal the bream’s own aroma and taste:

Wine-soy marinade
. Boil 4 tbsp in 2 liters of water. l. salt and the same amount of sugar. Add 100 ml of soy sauce, 4 cloves of chopped garlic, 0.2 liters of white table wine and 150 ml of lemon juice, ground pepper, coriander and fresh or dry basil to taste into the cooled brine. Leave the fish in the marinade for 12 hours.
Mixed with honey
. You can prepare it without boiling water; just mix 100 ml of lemon juice, 120 g of melted honey, 180 ml of olive oil and 5 g of salt. Additionally use 1 clove of garlic, a pinch of parsley, pepper and 1 package of fish seasoning. Marinate the fish for 6 to 10 hours in a cold place.
Spicy marinade
. Prepare with boiling water, for 1 liter take chopped half a lemon and an orange, 2 medium onions, 5 g of sugar, cinnamon, a mixture of peppers, 50 g of salt, 3 bay leaves, a pinch of rosemary, sage and thyme. Boil the components for 10–15 minutes. The completely cooled marinade is poured over the bream for 9–11 hours.

Regardless of which recipe is used, carcasses need to be marinated in cold conditions.

For cold-smoked

Cold smoked marinades make the taste even richer:

Tuzluk
. First, prepare a strong solution from 1 liter of water and 100–120 g of salt, checking the degree of salinity with peeled raw potatoes. If the tuber floats to the surface, the brine can be considered ready. Also add slices of 1 orange, 2 lemons, 3 onions and 3-4 chopped garlic cloves to the boiling liquid. Take 1 tbsp of dry spices. l. sugar, pepper, cinnamon, 6 bay leaves. Thyme, sage and rosemary are added to taste; you can omit them. The mixture is boiled for 10–15 minutes, the cooled solution is poured into the fish for 12 hours.
Marinade with saltpeter
. You can prepare such a solution from 1 liter of water, 10 g of saltpeter, 6 cloves of garlic, 2 tbsp. l. salt and sugar, pepper. Boil the ingredients for 5 minutes. Marinate the fish for 3 to 12 hours.

The salt content in recipes cannot be reduced. It is better to over-salt and soak the fish later than to under-salt.

Recipes for bream marinades

So a little about the recipe - everyone who prepares this dish may have a different taste and preferred spices. Someone can smoke a fillet in camping conditions, someone cooks from fresh meat, but the main thing is the freshness of the fish, so it is important to start cooking as early as possible after catching the fish.

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There are several options for preparing this delicious dish:

marinated bream in brine
marinated bream with pepper and coriander
marinated bream kebab.

Marinated bream in brine

If you get a large specimen, I recommend completely freeing the meat from the bones. Adult fish have a developed skeletal system that will prevent you from eating. To do this, you need to carefully separate the fillet from the ridge with a sharp knife and carefully remove the small bones with kitchen tongs. Divide the resulting fillet into steaks 2-2.5 cm wide. At the end of the cutting, you will receive the freshest fillet, head and skeleton from which you can prepare a gorgeous fish soup. It makes sense to marinate some of the meat so that you can enjoy the fish after a couple of weeks.

When preparing the marinade, it is necessary to remember that the amount of salt reduces the cooking time, but worsens the taste.

Preparation

To prepare 1 kg of fish you will need the following products:

Cleaned bream fillet or small fish - 1 kg;
Ground coriander - 1-2 tsp;
Onions - 1-2 pcs.;
Unrefined sunflower oil - 3-4 tbsp. l.;
Ground black pepper - to taste.

For the marinade:

Rock salt (sea salt) - 2 tbsp.
Vinegar 9% - 2 tbsp.
Bay leaf – 4-5 pcs.
Sweet peas – 1 tsp.

Pickling

Let's prepare the marinade. To do this, take a small saucepan, pour water into it, add sweet peas, salt and bay leaves. Place the pan on the fire and bring to a boil for 2 minutes. Add vinegar to the cooling marinade, stir and cool completely.

To marinate fish, you need to choose a dish that allows you to lay out all the fillets in 2-3 layers.

Place the pieces of bream in the container of your choice; I recommend sprinkling the fish with dry coriander and black pepper between the rows.

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Pour chilled marinade over the fish, cover with a plate and apply pressure.

To do this, you can use, for example, a bowl of water.

Marinated bream with pepper and coriander

You will need:

Bream or bream fillet – 1kg
Onions - 0.3 kg
Bell pepper – 1 piece
Rock salt – 0.1 kg
Ground coriander – 0.02 kg
Vinegar 9% - 2 tbsp.
Vegetable oil – 5 tbsp.

Preparation

Before cooking, the fish is cut and boned. The resulting fillet is cut into pieces 2-2.5 cm. Then, they are placed in a prepared container and sprinkled with salt.

Leave the resulting workpiece for 3-4 hours. Afterwards, rinse the fillet and place it on a dry napkin, this will remove excess salt from the fish. Take two medium-sized onions and cut into thin half rings. It’s also a good idea to add thin half rings of bell pepper.

We lay out the fish and onions in layers in a pan or jar, you can add spices such as lemongrass or coriander. Add vinegar and vegetable oil alternately. Place the closed container in the refrigerator.

Marinated bream shashlik

You will need:

Bream or bream fillet – 1kg
Olive oil – 3 tbsp.
Lemon - 1 pc.
Garlic – 2 cloves
Paprika – 1 tbsp.
Ground coriander – 1 tsp.
Cloves – 2 buds
Hot pepper - 0.5 tsp.
Fresh herbs (basil, marjoram, tarragon, thyme) - 2 sprigs
Rock or sea salt - 1 tbsp.
Soy sauce – 7-8 tbsp.

Hot smoking

Hot smoking involves processing the product at a temperature in the range of 80–120 °C. This requires a special unit with a sealed lid. You can buy a factory-made hot-smoker smokehouse quite inexpensively by ordering a device of suitable size via the Internet.

Traditional smokehouse recipe with dry salting

To prepare hot smoked bream you will need fish, salt, chopped bay leaf, coriander, ground black pepper, parsley, dill and fresh lemon. The process looks like this:

Thawed fish is cut, washed, dried and prepared for further salting, preserving the scales.
The dry method is used for salting. Prepare a mixture of spices and rub the dried carcasses with it. After preparation, sprinkle them with lemon juice.
Bream is salted, wrapped in cling film, in a cool place. After salting, clean with a cloth and rinse with ice water inside and out.
Read also: How to cook smoked peled for the home table
Place fresh chopped herbs and 3 slices of lemon inside.
Prepare the smokehouse: 20–30 minutes before smoking, alder or apple wood chips are soaked in water.
Make a fire from wood or coal, when the fire subsides and the coals are hot enough, place a smokehouse on top.
A layer of wood chips is placed on the bottom, adding rowan sprigs and currant sprigs to them.
The grate is greased with vegetable oil and the carcasses are placed on top. If the breams are large, then spacers are inserted into the bellies.
Cover the smokehouse with a lid as soon as the wood chips give off smoke. Fish weighing 1–2 kg is cooked for 20–30 minutes. The temperature should not be allowed to decrease below 60 °C or increase above 120 °C.

Ready smoked bream has a beautiful dark shade, slightly singed scales and a bright aroma.

In a smokehouse on a gas stove with wet salting

Smoked bream can also be cooked in an apartment on a gas stove. In this case, the fish is marinated in brine. If you don’t want to soak the carcasses for a long time in a large volume of water, use the extrusion method. Cooking process:

The cleaned and gutted carcass is soaked in cooled brine (90–100 g of salt per 1 liter of water).
The fish is kept in this mixture for 12 hours, then washed and dried in the fresh air.
The wood chips are soaked in mineral water, 20–30 minutes is enough. It is placed in the smokehouse in its pure form or packed in foil, making several holes in it.
Place the box on 2 burners, place a baking tray inside to collect fat, covering it with foil.
Place a grill with fish on top and cover with a lid. If there is a water seal, pour water and lead the tube from the smokehouse out the window or hood.

Smoke the dish on a gas stove for 30 minutes, checking readiness by color and smell. In finished carcasses, the meat easily separates from the bones.

Grilled

You can smoke bream on the grill if you don’t have a smokehouse. The carcasses seem to be cooked in smoke and taste as close as possible to smoked fish.

The carcasses are gutted, salted, and left in the cold for 3–10 hours.
Wash, soak for 40 minutes, wipe.
The soaked wood chips are placed on top of the coals, which have been lit and placed on one side of the grill.
The fish is placed on the opposite side of the grate, with its head facing the coals.
Smoke for 2–3 hours, keeping the temperature in the range of 80–100 °C.

If the grill thermometer is located directly above the coals, then its temperature is 40–50 °C higher than it actually is.

In the oven

You can smoke bream directly in the oven using traditional alder wood chips. You will also need a mixture of salt and pepper.

Preparation:

The bream is gutted, washed, rubbed with salt and pepper inside and out, and placed in a bag or cling film. Salt for 4–6 hours in the refrigerator.
Then the workpieces are washed, wiped with paper towels and lubricated with a thin layer of vegetable oil.
The oven is preheated to 200 oC.
Make a mold out of foil, poke holes in it with a toothpick, and place the bream.
Place several sheets of foil on a baking sheet, leaving edges. Wood chips are poured onto the bottom and pebbles are placed along the edges.
A form with fish is placed on them, the edges are folded, forming an airtight container.
Smoke on the lower level of the oven for at least 50 minutes.

You can also use metal baking bags that come with instructions. Using this method, bream turns out just as tasty as in a regular smokehouse.

How to marinate bream

1. For marinating, you can use fresh fish fillet or whole fish without removing the bones. Rinse the bream. Remove scales using a special fish peeling knife. Afterwards, rinse well in cold water. Trim all fins and tail. Rip open the belly and remove all the entrails. Rinse thoroughly and remove the black films inside. Cut off the head. Cut the fish carcass into small pieces up to two centimeters wide. If you want to marinate boneless fish, then separate the fillet from the ridge.

2. Cut the bream fillet into portions.

3. Place the fish pieces in a container with a lid, generously sprinkling with salt. Cover with a lid or cling film. Place in the refrigerator for 2.5-3 hours.

4. In the meantime, peel the onion and cut into rings. Wash the sweet pepper, remove the seed pod without damaging the fruit, cut into slices.

5. Place the salted fish in a colander and rinse well. Leave the excess water to drain.

6. Remove excess moisture with a napkin.

7. Place the dried fish slices in a bowl. Add thyme and rosemary, ground pepper, lemon zest. Stir gently so that the fish pieces are well coated in the spices.

8. Take a container with a lid. Place half of the washed parsley sprigs, some onion rings and sweet pepper on the bottom.

9. Place pieces of bream, alternating with onions and sweet peppers. Cover with parsley sprigs. Pour in sunflower oil and table vinegar. Cover with a lid and turn over a couple of times. Place in the refrigerator for 3 days. From time to time, take out the container and shake it so that all the fish is marinated.

Place the marinated bream on a flat dish along with onion and sweet pepper rings and serve.

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Cold smoking

When cold smoking bream, it is important to maintain an accurate temperature of 25–27 °C and not allow it to increase. The best results are achieved when using factory units - with a smoke generator, hose and smoking compartment. A worthy alternative could be a stationary smokehouse, made by hand, taking into account the cooling of the smoke going to the food. However, making such a device is much more difficult than buying it.

Alder or aspen wood chips are used for cold smoking - this is the standard option. You can achieve a slightly different aroma by using apple, cherry, and plum sawdust. If you add juniper branches to them, you can improve the antiseptic treatment.

When using the cold smoking method, the following subtleties must be taken into account:

do not interrupt the procedure during the first 6–8 hours of fish processing - constantly opening the lid will lead to the penetration of bacteria;
monitor the condition of the wood chips - it should smolder slowly and not burn;
strictly monitor the cooking time - no less than indicated in the recipe, this is important not only to destroy bacteria, but also to obtain the required taste qualities;
ventilate in the fresh air at the end - this is how the ripening process of bream occurs.

Even for the first time, you can achieve perfectly cooked cold smoked bream, but you shouldn’t limit yourself to just one option.

Traditional way

Bream are small and large and are salted in different ways. The recipe uses 3 options for each size.

The traditional method of preparing bream requires a minimum set of spices used for dry salting: for 1–1.5 kg, take 2 cups of salt, a glass of sugar, 1 tsp. red pepper, coriander, allspice, cloves in inflorescences. The fish is salted for 2–3 hours. After this, the resulting liquid is drained and kept under pressure for another 5–6 hours. However, dry salting is suitable if the carcasses do not exceed a weight of 900 g.

For kilograms, it is better to use brine prepared from 1 cup of the salting mixture according to the recipe above and several bay leaves. The brine is boiled for 2–3 minutes, cooled and the fish is placed. The carcasses are salted for 8 hours. Fill them only with completely cooled brine.

The cooking technology looks like this:

Fresh or frozen fish, previously defrosted in the refrigerator, is cleaned of entrails and salted. Small carcasses up to 1 kg, previously frozen, do not need to be gutted.
If bream from 1 kg are used, they need to be flattened, cut along the ridge using kitchen scissors for gutting: lay them skin side up, make an incision along the ridge, remove it, take out the insides.
Clean the layer of remaining entrails and wipe with paper napkins. It is advisable not to wash the carcasses so that the fish does not absorb the liquid.
Along the back, in the direction from the ribs, shallow cuts are made to the bone every 1–1.5 cm.
The cut fish is salted with the same mixture, with the addition of 1 tbsp. l red hot pepper, 10 g paprika.
For convenience, use a baking sheet. Rub the bream on both sides and leave to salt for no more than 4 hours. Place the baking tray at a slight angle to allow liquid to drain.
Cut-up fish may have protruding bones, so when rubbing the carcass it is important to follow safety precautions.
The layers are not washed, just scrape off all the excess salting mixture with a spoon.
Small carcasses are washed after salting, but medium ones after brine are not. Wooden spacers are installed in the abdomen.
While the fish is being ventilated, add a mixture of apple and alder chips to the smoke generator, turn on the compressor, and set it on fire. Apple tree gives a delicious aroma, and alder gives a beautiful color.
Smoke, laid out on racks or hung on hooks, for 8 hours, not allowing the temperature to rise above 30 °C.

Ready smoked bream is aired for at least 1 day.

With liquid smoke

You can prepare cold smoked bream at home without using the following units:

The cleaned fish is placed in a container, sprinkled with salt, then a second layer is placed and also covered.
Pour a third of a glass of liquid smoke onto 1 kg of raw material.
The carcasses are turned over every 5–7 minutes for an hour.
Place in the refrigerator and leave for 2-3 days.
After the specified time, the carcasses are taken out, wiped with towels and hung out to air for 1 day.
After drying, place the bream in the oven, preheated to 40 ° C, for 1 hour.

The bream is not as tasty as in a real smokehouse, but without any extra effort and with a bright aroma.

In a convection oven

You can prepare smoked bream in an air fryer: for 1 fish, take 100 g of salt and a special seasoning for smoking. The process looks like this:

The carcass is cleaned, gutted, pickled or salted. You can use the simplest recipe with a minimum of additional spices.
Heat the grill to 65°C and set the speed to medium.
The fish is placed on the middle grill.
Cook in this way for at least 3 hours. Carcasses weighing over 2 kg require longer heat treatment (2 times longer).

After cooking, wrap the bream in foil and cool. If you increase the temperature to 140 ° C, you will get hot smoked fish, and the cooking time will be 50–60 minutes.

How to prepare bream for pickling?

The fish must be cleaned - remove the entrails, head and tail. Then we thoroughly rinse the carcass with plenty of water and let the product drain, placing it in a colander.

You can marinate bream whole, in pieces or fillets. Choose any method convenient for you. To obtain fillets, it is necessary to remove the bones and spine from the fish carcass. This process is quite labor intensive.

How to marinate bream in pieces?

For 1 kg of fish we will need:

250-300 g salt;
15-20 black peppercorns;
2-5 pcs. clove buds;
3-5 pcs. bay leaves;
80-110 g oil (sunflower or olive);
30-35 ml vinegar;
1 liter of water;
0.5 kg of onions.

Prepare the marinade. Boil water and add all the ingredients except vinegar and vegetable oil. Boil for three minutes and let the marinade cool to room temperature. After this, dissolve the oil and vinegar in it. Peel the onion from the top layer and cut into rings or half rings.

For pickling, it is better to choose glass or enamel dishes. Place the chopped pieces of bream in a container mixed with chopped onions and pour in the marinade. Cover with a lid and place under pressure. Send to a cool place for 1-2 days.

How to marinate whole bream?

To marinate 1 kg of fish we will need the following ingredients:

500-600 g salt;
15-20 peas of allspice;
5-8 pcs. bay leaves;
100-120 g oil (sunflower or olive);
30-40 ml vinegar;
1000 ml water.

Take 100-200 g of salt and rub the bream prepared for pickling. Leave the fish at room temperature for 2-2.5 hours. At this time, prepare the marinade. In a separate container, mix salt (the remaining 300-400 g), allspice, bay leaf, vinegar, and vegetable oil. Dissolve the prepared ingredients in a liter of boiled and cooled water. Let the marinade sit.

We wash the bream to remove salt with plenty of running water. Place the fish in an enamel or glass container and fill it with marinade. If desired, you can add a clove of garlic, chopped into small cubes, and 2-3 onions, cut into rings.

Step 1: Salt the bream.

First, rinse the fish well under cold running water, then cut off the tail and head. Gut it, you don’t have to throw away the ridge, but leave it for another dish, for example, fish soup. Rinse the fish fillets thoroughly under water again. Then dry slightly with a kitchen paper towel, cut the fillet into pieces, sprinkle with salt to your taste, put in a container and leave to for about 3 hours
. If the season is hot, then it is best to put the fish in the refrigerator so that it does not spoil.

Step 2: Season the bream.

After this, you need to rinse the fish under water to wash off all the excess salt, then pepper it at your discretion. You can add special fish seasoning, it's at your discretion. Peel the onions, rinse under running water and cut into half rings.

Step 3: Layer the fish in layers.

Now take a clean liter jar and place the onion on the bottom first, then the fish, and so alternate the layers. Then add vinegar, then vegetable oil. Close
the jar with a lid and place in the refrigerator at
least overnight
. It’s better if you leave the fish to marinate for a day.

Step 4: Serve the marinated bream.

After this time has elapsed, remove the fish and arrange beautifully on a serving plate.
As decoration you can use finely chopped fresh herbs, olives, black olives and lemon slices. Enjoy your meal! Using exactly the same recipe, you can marinate any other fish if you wish. From experience I can say that any river fish turns out very tasty.

Bream meat is very rich in vitamins and various microelements, therefore it is very beneficial for the human body. In addition, it is well absorbed and gives strength and energy.

For obese people, doctors often recommend a fish diet, so in order to diversify your diet, you can use the above recipe.