Yum! Hot-smoked salmon on the BBQ this weekend. Actually, it was a boneless steelhead trout fillet. This is a very simple recipe from Ron Shewchuk’s first cookbook, Barbecue Secrets. Rub the fillet with sesame oil, then sprinkle on salt, pepper and hot pepper flakes to taste, then sprinkle with a light coating of brown sugar, and drizzle with lemon juice.
This went on my Traeger Lil’ Tex for about an hour and a half or two hours at 225F, and came out moist and flavourful. I drizzled some more lemon juice on top when serving, and people just forked out sections of the fish onto slices of fresh Granary baguette from True Grain Bakery in Cowichan Bay.
The other great thing I’ve used the Traeger for lately was to smoke a rack full of whole chicken legs and thighs. This was another recipe from Ronnie’s book, and the flavours were supposed to be Thai in nature. I found that after the 4-hour smoking process, the chicken was fantastic, but tasted more like smoked, barbecued chicken, then any Thai flavours. I also crowded the legs a little too much on the rack, so they weren’t quite done in the middle. A flash on my propane barbecue took care of that problem. The rack is supposed to be for chicken wings, but you can hang the thigh-leg combination on them is well. Using it for wings is fantastic. It keeps the fatty skin off the grill…so no sticking, and most important, no burnt wings!
You might have a hard time finding these racks, so here’s a picture and a link to help you. I got mine from a friend who was working at a Hot Tub/Barbecue shop in Ontario a couple of years ago. They’re not very expensive at all, so they’re worth the search!
