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Boy Scout Feast – A Fish Story

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If you have read my posts in the past, you know that my son’s are both involved in scouting.  My oldest son’s troop has an annual feast camp-out in the month of November every year.  Last year, when we were considering joining Troop 10, we were guests at this camp-out.  This year we were full fledged participants.  I brought my GMG Daniel Boone and a salmon recipe given to me by Steven Hartsock of Sock’s Love Rubs prepared for a long day of work and long evening of feasting.

The Grub-master told me I would be cooking turkey breasts and salmon for the feast.  I have done turkey several times before and think I make a really good smoked turkey.  Salmon on the other hand scares the heck out of me.  I really have never cooked a piece of salmon that I would be proud to serve to someone.  I am not a big salmon fan in the first place so anything I am going to serve will have to knock my socks off.  I asked a lot of BBQ friends what they did to salmon.  I received a lot of different answers.  Wet Brine?  Dry Brine?  160 degrees?  225 degrees?  What to do?  I finally settled on a recipe that was given to me by Steven Harsock creator of Sock’s Love Rubs.  It was a wet brine with some unique savory ingredients that just said “autumn season” to me.  The recipe contained brown sugar, whole all spice, clove and peppercorns.  These are things that I never would have thought to put into a brine for fish.  After 2-3 hours in the brine we took the salmon out and rinsed it off making sure none of the brine ingredients clung to the fish.  After rinsing the fish, we let it air dry for 1-2 hours.  When the fish was dry I gave it a good sprinkle with some Drapers AP rub.  I knew that the flavor profile of Shane’s rub would reinforce the flavor of the brine.  I also gave the fish a good coating of brown sugar.  The recipe also gave me instructions on how to make a baste, but I was so busy that I decided to go with just a heavy coating of brown sugar instead.

Salmon fillets after brining on the Green Mountain Grill

I had a little over 2 hours to smoke the 4 large pieces of salmon which was just enough time.  I put them on and set the GMG at 225 degrees and let them sit in the smoker.  Of course I had to open the GMG multiple times to show off the salmon, so it probably would take a little less time to make this at home when you are not looking so much.  I cooked the salmon to a temperature of 140 degrees.  Then placed the salmon in our hotbox for about 30 minutes before serving.

The buffet line was filled with a large variety of delicious meats and side dishes.  We had chuck roast that was cooked all day in dutch ovens, tur-duck-ens that were flown in from Louisiana, sausages made from exotic game meats like deer and alligator, turkey breasts, brisket and 2 whole pigs roasted for us by a local meat market.  It was really quite the spread.  I was hoping my salmon would be a favorite of the crowd.

Salmon fillets after smoking and ready to be served.

As the people got in line and began to fill there plates you could hear comments about everything.  The people loved everything we had on the table.  I tend to go get my food last when I cook usually because I have sampled my product before it hits the table and am a little less hungry because of that.  My buddies pushed me into the line and said I needed to eat with them after I had cooked all day.  When we reached the salmon, only enough for 4 small portions remained.  One serving for me and my 2 buddies and then 1 left for someone else.  The line was only about halfway done.  The Grub-master underestimated how popular the salmon would be.  We went to our table and began to eat and a lot of people went out of their way to compliment me on how good the salmon was.  I was really amazed as this was my first try at smoking salmon.  The ultimate compliment came about an hour later.  I was packing my spices back into the car and I overheard to men talking about how good the salmon was.  It was an hour later and they were still talking about it.  What a compliment!

I have never had a piece of salmon that I cared for very much.  Most salmon I have had has been palatable, but the it never has been something that I crave or have to make.  I find it is usually dry and very fishy tasting.  It is not one of my favorite foods.  That being said, this salmon was moist, savory, sweet and not fishy tasting at all.  It was the best piece of salmon I ever had (sorry for the brag) and would actually request this again.  I would like to thank Shane Draper and Steven Hartsock for all the help last week.  Without those 2 men, I would not have received all the praise that I did.

 

 

 


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