Smoked Recently

Well, maybe not "smoked recently." But smoked this month, anyway.

A couple of weeks ago, Cooper was ready to take the smoker out for another spin, but he wanted to experiment with something other than pig. I made a quick trip to Conrad's and picked up a couple of seafood options. We marinated most of them in an Asian-ish sauce (soy sauce, honey, ginger, maybe some rice vinegar - that sort of thing), threw them in the smoker for about an hour and a half, and ended up with a collection of hors d'oeuvres that would make anybody jealous.

The rockfish was flaky and had a sort of clean flavor:

Even though we're not huge salmon fans overall, we had to smoke some salmon. The glaze was a lovely match for the fish, which really does lend itself to smoking:

In a nod to my favorite childhood snack (canned smoked oysters wrapped in bacon), we smoked a couple oysters, which were just as delicious, if not quite as oily, as what I ate as a kid:

And finally, the surprise hit of the seafood course - smoked scallops (there's a little smoked garlic thrown in there, too):

They ended up with perfect, firm texture and the saltiness of the sauce was a great complement to the smoke and the natural sweetness of the scallop. We didn't anticipate enjoying them so much - smoked scallops aren't exactly as common as smoked salmon, so we didn't really know what to expect. They were so good, though, that we're making some more today.

Since this batch of seafood, Cooper has smoked another pork shoulder (just as amazing as the first) and we've confirmed that the smoker is one of the best investments we've made.