How to Smoke Fish

This is a technique near and dear to my heart, for I do it almost every Saturday. My wife likes her Sunday morning bagels with home-smoked salmon, you see, so smoking fish is a frequent ritual. Given its steep price and gastronomic cachet, smoked salmon may seem difficult to make at home. Although you do need to budget your time so that you have 4 hours for the fish to cure, you may be surprised to learn that the actual preparation time is measured in minutes, not hours. And you can do it on your backyard charcoal grill. The method in question here is hot smoking, which cooks the fish as well as smoking it. (Cold smoking is a more complicated process wherein the fish is smoked but remains essentially raw.) I’ve tried smoking salmon on a gas grill, but the results were unpredictable; it’s hard to get enough smoke going. But smoking on a charcoal grill results in a terrific kipper-style salmon, and I can’t think of a better topping for a toast point or bagel.