My next door neighbour delivered two lovely fresh caught Trout, good size as well, and we bought a 2kg chicken as well to test the Tennessee Smoker out. Thought it best to play with it first before inviting people over for a BBQ and have it all go wrong.
Gave the chicken some care and attention by giving the bird a lemon up the bum and a massage with paprika, thyme and a bit of garlic in some oil. Let that sit in the fridge until the Tennessee Smoker was ready.
The Trout just got a wash with salt water that was it.
The smoker took longer than I had expected to get going, had to get the temperature up to 225'F and I struggled a bit to get it all going. Mainly due to lack of experience with this type of BBQ
Once I got the fire going and the temperature to the correct level, in went the meat and fish. Then I dropped the hickory onto the coals and set the Tennessee Smoker to maintain 250'F on the built in temp gauge.
Two hours for the Trout and 3-4 for the chicken according to my research. The chicken went close to the firebox, and the trout laid nose first along the back.
I put my external temp probe on top of the fish so I could keep an eye on what was going on inside the Tennessee Smoker without lifting the lid and losing heat.
After an hour had passed with the outer temp gauge staying a steady 250'F I opened up the lid to turn the fish over, don't know if it was really necessary as both sides looked as though they were doing what they were supposed to do.
An hour later, two hours total, the fish was done. The smell was lovely, the skin had gone a wonderful tan colour and the flesh pink and moist. Lifted the Trout out and put them on a plate to cool a little.
So I can smoke fish at least.. they look wonderful.
The Tennessee Smoker now only has the Chicken inside, so I slid it more to the middle of the smoker and put the temp probe into the breast of the chicken. I noticed that the juices where already starting to run clear and that the probe was reading 165'F but I wanted to make sure it was thoroughly cooked through so gave it another hour.
At this point there wasn't much smoke coming out the Tennessee Smoker and after a quick check I found that there was no hickory left in the fire box. So a note for next time, soak more wood!!! I chucked in a couple of small dry bits of hickory for the last hour but these burnt out far to quick so for the last 1/2 hour or so it was just heat in the smoker to finish of the bird.
While the chicken was finishing off, I removed the flesh from the trout into a bowl, had a little taste, and you can certainly taste the hickory. It's some of the BEST cooked Trout I have EVER had. Really looking forward to this later tonight with a fresh salad and the chicken of course.
So three hours have now gone by, far to quickly, and the temp probe in the bird is still at 175'F, according to my research the bird is safe to eat when the temp reaches 165'F so the chicken is ready to be removed.
Again a lovely Tan colour all over the bird, no real charing so that's a bonus. Juices are all running clear, and just in case I cut into the bird to check the breast and it's lovely and moist with no signs of pink anywhere.
Wrapped the bird in tinfoil to retain some heat ready for dinner later on tonight.
All in all, a successful attempt at smoking both Fish and Chicken in the smoker, as long as I remember to prepare more wet hickory next time.
No comments:
Post a Comment