yoso-greedy: Camerons Stovetop Smoker

I had a parcel meeting me at the door this evening, turned out to be a delivery from Amazon; my Camerons Stovetop Smoker that I ordered 2 weeks ago:

This is the handy dandy kitchen gadget that is often seen on Emeril and other shows - it was on sale for $34.99 at Amazon, with free shipping I thought why not. Not much in the box, just the smoker, a drip tray, and a wire rack, oh wait; it's the New and Improved Non-stick wire rack!.....got to make sure I got this right! Also, included were four little containers labeled, Alder, Cherry, Mesquite, etc....  So I open the Alder, and there lay a little pile of sawdust, smelled like sawdust, felt like sawdust, I didn't taste it, but I'm sure it was going to taste like sawdust. Where was the magic? This is going to give us the "succulent flavors of wood smoking"? There's no way that this is going to work! By this time my OCD kicked in and I just HAD to make something, anything. So we jumped in the car and sped off to Costco to buy some salmon (no sense in using anything too expensive).

Back home, salmon in hand, I trimmed off both end cuts and seasoned the middle piece with sea salt and fresh ground pepper. I placed a little pile of "Alder" (at least that's what the container said) sawdust in the middle of the smoker base (sort of like I was going to try and start a fire with two sticks - my confidence was waning). Covered the drip pan with aluminum foil and placed that over the "wood chips" (in the most loose definition of the word chips!), and set the wire rack on top of the drip pan, covered and was ready to roll! I turned on the burner, set the smoker on top, than opened up the instruction book! Hey, I'm a guy, what can I say...... I noticed a bit of smoke leaking out so wrapped some foil around it, and caught a whiff, and damn if it didn't smell like real "smoking smoke"! Well now that I had the little "Cooking Guide" opened, I realized my first mistake; I should have left the cover of the smoker two-thirds of the way open until wisps of smoke appear, than cover the smoker. Uh-oh, I missed the "wisps" step, would this ruin the salmon?....No Salmon Salad! No Salmon Gravy!, Salmon Hash! No Salmon Ala King! Ooops sorry too much Christmas Story....

After about 25 minutes later I checked on the salmon, and it looked a sort of "gloppy", so I replaced the cover and left for about 7 minutes more. At this point the salmon was starting to flake(sort of like me.....how appropriate), so I decided this was enough and removed it from the heat. At this point the salmon still had sort of a poached look:

So I tasted a piece, damn if it didn't taste pretty darn good! So it's smoked salmon and bagels tomorrow! Visions of smoked corn, smoked clams, smoked duck, and smoked tri-tip danced in my head!

So I guess this piece of equipment is pretty "idiot proof", it seems that if you (unlike me, but it still turned out) follow instructions this is pretty fool proof. Easy and fast. The only things that I need to do next time is to season a little more generously and follow the instructions for starting the cooking process.

So what did I do with the rest of the salmon? I just did a "quick and dirty" togarashi rub and seared and fried under high heat:

Comments

[Jo]

Figgers you wouldn't bother to open the book till it was to late. ::sniffs haughtily:: You remind me SO much of Mike, are you related somehow? Sounds like you got a pretty good deal and I'm glad you didn't "taste" the sawdust. Are you going to be able to restock the dust? Real chips might not do the job... Let me know when you try pulled pork! ::wink::

[Kirk]

Well Jo - I have a spice grinder that I think can do the job, just gotta find me the wood......Actually I've got a step-brother ( and I'm removed, go figure) named Mike...don't know if he can cook, but all guys in Hi(think they can) can cook. I'm still wondering about the cookbook Meme.......

[Reid]

Hi Kirk,

We can cook...didn't you know that? Most of the women in the office don't cook. They don't know how. hehe.

I can cook, or at least I pretend to. At least I don't read the instructions AND I don't tell anyone that I didn't read the instructions. That way, if something comes out bad, I just blame the recipe, which was probably written by a woman anyway. LOL! =P Just kidding! hehe

[Kirk]

Reid - I'm really not going to go there ;)! I like the blame the recipe excuse - I think I'll use that the next time.....

[Jo]

ACK! WAIT A MINUTE HERE! ::pouting:: Y'all jest pickin' on me! ::snivel:: Of course men in Hawaii can cook... How hard can it be to slice up a can of Spam and toss it around a frying pan?

Actually, my Mike is a pretty decent cook. ::laughing:: He used to make me liver and onions that were to die for when I was pregnant. THEN I found out why it was so awesomely delicious... He was using a half pound of butter every time!

I've been pondering the wood dust thing, just how "dusty" was it? Do you think you could get chips and put them through the blender? If you did, would it ruin the blades? Maybe you could get spare blades, one for regular use and one for the wood.

Reid, you just might be right on the recipe deal. You'll notice that with crust ingredients I didn't list quantites. I checked my coca recipe, I had the quanities for everything EXCEPT the flour! GADS! I wonder what I was thinking about THAT day?!?

[Kirk]

Jo - The wood dust is not really wood dust per se; more like "small chips" or maybe flakes. I think you can buy them from Camerons the maker of the smoker. You don't need much - just maybe 1-2 tablespoons of the stuff. I wouldn't go out and grab some lumber and grind it down - because most lumber and stuff is treated. This smoker is pretty much "idiot proof" and really doesn't smell up the place.

[Jo]

I've never really tried to smoke anything. I am DYING to try doing a pulled pork on our gas grill. I have heard that it is much simpler than one my think. Do you think your stove top smoker could do a piece of meat that large though? Do you think you would ever try something like bacon or ham? I've been toying with the notion of getting a "butcher pack" of meat. It would be fun to smoke our own stuff as an experiment. It would also give us a better idea of what we might be looking at if we ever buy the farm of our dreams.

[Kirk]

Actually I bought the book Smokin' by Christopher Styler which has recipes for the stovetop smoker, and there's one for pulled pork - bascially it's smokin the pork for 45 minutes over alder, cherry, or hickory. But I think you can do this using an oven Kalua Pork Recipe! I make this 2-3 times a year, and even the ex-pat Kama'aina's love it! So if you want to try I'll be posting soon, since it's almost time....

[Jo]

45 minutes? Geez, the recipe I have takes a couple days!!!

[Kirk]

Well if think about it - the smoked salmon took 25 minutes. I do wonder about tenderness. I'll be trying Baby Back Ribs soon - so that'll give me a good indication of how the smoker works with Pork.

[Jo]

Let me know on the pork. I'm not crazy about salmon. Used to be. Seems I've lost my taste for it in the last few years... =o(