Smoked salmon

[legend_018]

I'm going to be trying a homemade clam chowdah that I found. It calls for a cup of smoked salmon "not lox".

I'm gathering this isn't the salmon fillets that I sometimes get behind the fish counter at the super market right? Is this something I find in the aisles? Or should this also behind the fish counter at the market?

Thanks so much!!

[YT2095]

it comes as either thinly cut or as steaks, the thin cut sort is often pre-packed, the "Fresh" steaks you`ll have to ask you fish monger for, you Could sub it with smoked Haddock if you can`t get the salmon, there are cosmetic differences (color) and textural, but nothing that would spoil your dish :)

[legend_018]

thanks for the reply. I'm pretty sure now it's the salmon they usually sell behind the fish counter. I think the "smoked" term confused me. I see references in one recipe for smoked salmon and in another it references salmon fillets but in the end it must be the same thing pretty much.

[Andy M.]

Lox is brined and cold smoked salmon. It is sliced thin and sold in small quantities in a flat package.

You can also find smoked salmon filets that have been seasoned and smoked. They are fully cooked (hot smoked). I think this is what you are looking for. You probably break up the filet and add it to the chowder.

[legend_018]

I'm reading the recipe and at one point it just says:
Add the smoked salmon. It mentions nothing about cooking it. So I think I'll have to try to find the ones you mention about being fully cooked already. I might have to ask at the market.

Also in addition to this...since I've never dealt with clams - I have a question. The first reference to the clams in the recipe is:

Fill a bowl with cold water, and set the clams in to rinse. Leave for at least 30 minutes.

Than later on it says:

In a large soup pot, bring the stock, wine and clams to a boil and reduce slightly, about 10 minutes.

and finally toward the end of the recipe it says:

Discard any clams that haven’t opened.

When do I actually take the clams OUT of the shells based on those steps above? Is that something I do with a spoon?

[YT2095]

take them out the stock with a spoon or a Seive, the Alive ones will have opened up and die still open, the dead ones don`t open (they can`t coz they`re dead LOL).
you`ll know when to take them out as most will be open.
it`s a good idea to strain the stock at this point also, it gets rid of any sand or small rocks/shell fragments.

[Bibi]

Originally Posted by legend_018

I'm reading the recipe and at one point it just says:
Add the smoked salmon. It mentions nothing about cooking it. So I think I'll have to try to find the ones you mention about being fully cooked already. I might have to ask at the market.

......

Fill a bowl with cold water, and set the clams in to rinse. Leave for at least 30 minutes.

...

In a large soup pot, bring the stock, wine and clams to a boil and reduce slightly, about 10 minutes.

and finally toward the end of the recipe it says:

Discard any clams that haven’t opened.

When do I actually take the clams OUT of the shells based on those steps above?

Like someone said, salmon can be cold-smoked or hot-smoked. A recipe that calls for smoked salmon is usually looking for the hot-smoked salmon. By hot-smoked, they mean that the temperature inside the smoking chamber was higher than room temperature. The temperature is rarely set very high because they want the smoke to permeate the fillet and don't want to overcook the fish.

About clams: When you buy your clams, they should all be tightly closed. A clam that's open when you get it is a dead clam. When you cook a live clam by steaming it, it will gradually open up. The ones that don't open are often ones that you'll find full of sand, with no sign of the clam itself.

Strain the clam juice well with either multiple layers of cheesecloth or a single layer of filter paper. Make sure to slice the bellies open and clean them out, because even after leaving them in cold water for 30 minutes before steaming they will be chockfull of undigested stuff that they ate previously. This isn't necessary with mussels, because they don't live buried in the sand and muck like clams, and their guts remain fairly clean.

If you bought the clams from a seafood department that has live clam aquariums, letting them rinse themselves out in water for 30 minutes probably accomplishes nothing, since there's usually no food or sand in those aquariums. But when I've dug my own clams, I've always let the clams sit for 3 or 4 hours in the sink full of cold water before steaming them, just to let them filter a bunch of sand out. Some people say to add some salt to the water if the clams came from salt water. Makes sense, I guess, because I don't know how long an ocean clam will live in a sink full of fresh water.

[Funny side comment: Apparently there's some kind of auto-censor on this forum. I tried to write "salt water" as one word, and it put asterisks in place of the letters t-w- a- t. Ooops!]

[auntdot]

OK, yep as to the hot smoking of the salmon.

But the clam thing is confusing to me.

I grew up in the northeastern part of the US and we had two kinds of clams, the soft shell which had big green bellies, and hard shell whose bellies I could never discern among the other yucky, but delicious, bits.

Now maybe folks made chowda out of the soft shell, green bellied ones, but I never heard of it. All I ever made chowda out of was the hard shell type, and the big ones we called quahogs.

Those we opened with a sturdy knife, but tossing them in a pot with a bit of boiling water on the bottom for steam works just dandy. The ones that open use, those that don't, well just don't. And put the remaining clam broth through a few layers of cheese cloth and add it to the chowda.

Never heard of anyone adding salmon to a clam chowda, but there are many things I know nothing about.

Would love it if you would post the recipe.

Take care and God bless.

[Bilby]

Over here, a recipe that called for smoked salmon would mean the flat packed cold-smoked stuff. The hot-smoked salmon is not so easy to get but the other stuff is everywhere.

I guess adding the smoked salmon is adding salt, texture and extending the fish component of the dish. Don't see why you couldn't substitute cooked salmon fillet though. Over here, we also switch trout for salmon, smoked or otherwise. The rainbow trout is very pretty.

Mussels are more common in Perth than clams. Very cheap as there is a good supply just off the coast near Garden Island. (Which isn't as pretty as it sounds as it is the naval base!)

[Bibi]

I was referring to the one post that said that the recipe specified to use smoked salmon but "not lox". Here in our area, the commercial fish smokers make lox with a cold smoking method that takes considerably longer than in a heated smoker. I might have mistakenly assumed that "lox" is the same everywhere, i.e., a cold smoked fish. I'll take my smoked salmon any way I can get it!
(This year I got about 10 pounds smoked that was crusted with garlic and pepper, and it tastes incredible. I've never had that before, but gosh does it complement the flavor of the salmon. We made some salmon spread out it that was remarkable.)