For lovers of good food, smoked foods are an indispensable element of a festive feast. The taste and aroma of these products are tempted by the unique shades that give them sawdust and wood chips for smoking. When using different types of wood, the same meat is also different in color.
How to choose
Chopped wood when heated gives aromatic smoke, which gives a seductive smell and taste to the products. Usually, wood chips are used for smoking from hardwood: beech, birch, oak, alder, and walnut. A wonderful taste is given to the dishes by the wood of cherries, pears, plums. Chips from apple trees make smoked products softer and more refined; this is ideal for pork and chicken.
Beech is best suited to lamb and poultry. Alder wood chips - for smoking fish and rabbit meat. To improve the taste of dishes, blackberry branches , eucalyptus leaves or black currants are used in small quantities. You can add aromatic herbs to the sawdust: mint, sage, rosemary, bay leaf.
Precautions
You can not use woodchips for smoking from coniferous wood. The resins contained in it will give the product an unpleasant odor and a bitter aftertaste. Birch is also not suitable. Too wet will smolder for a long time, and over-dried chips will have to be moistened with water from time to time.
Home cooking
If you have a mini-smokehouse, you can, for example, easily smoked chicken fillet. For this you will need: table salt - about 120 grams, sugar - no more than 5 grams and 1 liter of water. All this is necessary for pre-processing. From the above ingredients, it is necessary to prepare a brine in which to place the fillet. This is best done in an enamel pan. A few peas of black pepper can be added to the brine. The chicken should stand in the refrigerator for about sixteen to eighteen hours at a temperature of +4 ... + 5 degrees. From time to time, pieces need to be turned over.
After the fillet is salted, it is necessary to transfer it already in a dry container and again place in the refrigerator for 1 hour. During this time, excess fluid will drain from it. After this, the meat must be placed in a grid for smoking. The size of the latter is chosen depending on what you will smoke and how. In the next step, you just need to place the net with the product in your home smokehouse.
At the bottom of the latter, pour wood chips for smoking - preferably fruit, two tablespoons - and install a tray to collect fat. After that, close the device and place it on a very hot surface (for example, a gas stove). After you hear a crackle (usually after 5-15 minutes), the fire can be turned off, because the chips inside began to smolder. It is necessary to leave the device to cool for about three to six hours. After that, the smokehouse can be disassembled and extracted product that is fragrant and pleasant in color. However, the meat will still need to be boiled. The grid can not be removed. Bon Appetit!
Where to buy wood chips for smoking
Such things, of course, are best purchased in specialized, including online stores. If you want to make wood chips for smoking yourself from improvised materials, you may come across a tree soaked in some chemical composition unsafe for humans.
In production, specialists also specially process raw materials, but the solution that they use minimizes harm and gives food a pleasant aroma and taste.
The price of woodchips varies greatly in online stores. It directly depends on the type of wood, as well as on factors such as distance from Moscow, for example. Well, or from another major shopping center. In the capital, packing alder wood chips costs fifty rubles. However, remember that wherever you buy this product, it must be protected from moisture and direct sunlight. And only then can you enjoy quality home-made products at any time of the year.