Hot Smoked Salmon With Salsa Verde Recipe

We love smoked salmon on everything from bagels to blinis. The cured fish is technically raw when served, but it is safe to eat thanks to the long smoking process. Hot smoked salmon, on the other hand, is roasted at a higher temperature while also being lightly smoked. This gives it a texture more similar to baked or roasted salmon but with a light kiss of smoky flavor. 

Recipe developer Taylor Murray still starts the recipe with a brief cure in her hot smoked salmon dish. "I like to infuse the salmon with a bit of flavor before even starting to cook to combat the smoke flavor," she says. The dish is finished with a tart and herbaceous salsa verde. This Italian herb sauce (not to be confused with Mexican salsa verde) is a great addition to fish and seafood of all kinds. Serve the salmon with salad, roasted potatoes, or steamed white rice.

To make hot-smoked salmon, first choose a good-quality cut, ideally at least 3 pounds. When you smoke fish, the flavor penetrates the exterior, so you want to choose a bigger piece to avoid overwhelming the flavor with smoke. The fish will get a quick cure made from a mixture of kosher salt, granulated sugar, and piment d'Espelette. To finish off the salmon, we'll make a fresh, herby salsa verde. The sauce is made from fresh Italian parsley and dill, plus finely chopped shallot and garlic, lemon zest, olive oil, and a dash more of the piment d'Espelette. Finish the dish with some of the lemon's juice, if desired.

In a small bowl, combine the sugar, salt, and one teaspoon piment d'Espelette.

Sprinkle the cure over the salmon, spreading it around to coat the filet.

Refrigerate for 5 hours.

Rinse the salmon and pat it well with a paper towel to dry.

Heat a smoker to 400 F.

Place the salmon on a roasting rack and place the rack in the smoker. Smoke until the internal temperature reaches 145 F (or your desired doneness), about 20 minutes.

Meanwhile, combine the herbs, shallot, garlic, olive oil, and remaining 1 teaspoon piment d'Espelette in a small bowl.

Zest the lemon into the bowl and stir to combine.

Remove the salmon from the smoker and place it on a large serving dish.

Drizzle with the salsa verde and sprinkle with lemon juice, if desired.

For this recipe, Murray went with hot smoking, as opposed to cold. To do that, you need a heat source that can both cook and smoke the salmon. In some methods, like cooking over an open fire, the same source does both tasks (the burning wood). You can use an electric pellet smoker to accomplish this, as well. The benefit of using this type of smoker is that you can set the thermostat to the desired temperature, which take a lot of the difficulty out of the process.

If you have a charcoal grill, you can set up an easy hot smoker. First, soak some wood chips in water for at least 30 minutes. Drain the chips and wrap them in foil. Meanwhile, light the briquettes in your charcoal grill, stoking them as needed to encourage heat. Use a thermometer to gauge when the grill has reached about 400 F. Place the foil-wrapped wood trips on the briquettes, then add the salmon and cook as directed in the recipe.

Piment d'Espelette is a specialty chile powder made from a variety of peppers grown in the Basque region of France. It has a bright red color and a complex flavor profile that differs from pepper varieties grown in North and South America. It's a key part of Basque cuisine and cooking, but it can be a wonderful addition to dishes of all kind.

That said, there are plenty of substitutions of it isn't available in your area or isn't cost effective. For mild heat, paprika can work as a reasonable alternative, and smoked paprika will offer a pleasant match to the salmon. Cayenne pepper is significantly hotter but can be subbed in much smaller amounts (start with ¼ teaspoon). Ancho chile powder will give a similar heat level but with a slightly fruitier flavor profile.