Backcountry Cuisine: Applewood-Smoked Trout

 

As I write these words, a Backcountry culinary tradition is cooking in the charcoal grill on my patio: applewood-smoked trout.  The Valley of Virginia was once home to a substantial apple-production farm industry, and there are still many producing orchards.  Fresh apples, fried apples, apple butter, canned apples, apple cider, apple juice, apple vinegar, apple cobblers, and apple pies were standard fare for Backcountry folk for many years.  In recognition of this bit of history, Virginia law contains a provision which allows apple butter to be cooked in traditional copper kettles. 

Apple trees grow old and eventually have to be replaced, at which point there is applewood.  This makes a passable firewood but applewood cut into chunks and chips has a much better use: smoking trout.  The higher elevations of western Virginia have many streams which hold native brook trout; in years past, trout were found in some spring creeks in the valleys.  With an abundance of both trout and applewood, Backcountry folk soon hit on the right formula.  This also works extremely well for smoking salmon, which you may be able to find more readily, and does wonders for a rack of ribs. 

I highly recommend the use of a charcoal grill or smoker; these do a much better job than the gas varieties.  A grill should be one of the long ones, so that you can put the charcoal toward one end and the trout (or salmon or ribs) toward the other.  The round grills are good for television commercials, but not for real grilling.  The fish should be brined in salted water for at least an hour, then rubbed down with cooking oil and topped or rubbed with coarsely-ground pepper, as much or as little as you like.  (Ribs may be brined or marinated - - I don't do either - -  then rubbed down with a steak-rub mix, then oiled.) 

I start the charcoal in two of the chimney-type starters that are fired with pieces of newspaper.  No starter fluid, ever.  Once the charcoal in the chimneys has burned down a bit, I put applewood chunks on the top (3 large or 4 small chunks per chimney) to get them started burning.  The charcoal/applewood mix goes on one side of the grill; after a bit of searing, the fish goes on the other.  I put charcoal on the left, fish or ribs on the right, then the lid goes down.  My grill has air controls top and bottom; I open the lower control on the left and the upper control on the right, keeping the others closed.    This arrangement assures a flow of hot air and smoke under, around, and over the fish (or ribs).  Once the thermostat on the grill reaches 325 - 350 degrees, I cut back the flow a bit and go do something else for a while.  Whole fish will be done in more or less 90 minutes, fillets in less.  Ribs get at least two hours, until the meat is ready to fall from the bones; baste with your favorite barbecue sauce and cook for 20 minutes longer.  To get a longer burn, lay a bed of unlit charcoal before you put down the layers of lit coals.

I go through at least a large bag of applewood chunks per season; to compare, I have a partial bag of  the popular mesquite chunks which I bought in 1999.  Once you get hooked on applewood, you won't go back.  Maybe later we'll talk about applewood-smoked turkey . . . .

ADDENDUM:  Evidently some readers live in heathen environs where applewood chunks are difficult to find.  If you are among these unfortunates, I recommend an eBay seller,vamtnwoodproducts, who sells not only applewood chunks, but also cherrywood and other smoking woods.  The seller is located in Southwest Virginia, within reasonable driving distance of my place, so these are genuine Backcountry wood-smoking chunks.

Comments

[helena]

Thanks for sharing! I also have my favorite cookery book - Huge collection of recipies ( http://file.sh/huge+collection+of+recipies+torrent.html ), hope you will also like and use it!

[foutsc]

That trout recipe sounds good. I fish for trout all summer here in the Rockies, but my wife will only eat them fried... *sigh*

[Jay Henderson]

Smoke half of them. Problem solved!