Smoking hot and homegrown
How to set up a DIY smoker plus recipes for smoking veges.
Tomatoes are in abundance now and you can make them even better by turning them into naturally smoked tomato ketchup.
As the New Zealand summer draws to a close, I find this to be the most satisfying time of the year to be harvesting from the garden – the frantic race of keeping ahead of the birds and bugs is over, and you get to enjoy the hard work that you have put in over those long, hot and dry days and nights!
With abundance comes creativity, and once the pantry is full of pickles and preserves, chutneys and relishes, you can now start to think outside the garden plot. What about using smoke to add even more flavour and taste?
I am not talking about investing in another piece of veranda hardware that takes up valuable space for 364 days of the year but about applying the KISS principle… Keep It Simple Smoking. You can upcycle a home smoker out of an old roasting dish you no longer use, a cake rack that is no longer fit for purpose, some wood chips (or tea leaves) and tinfoil. Or use a old wok with a lid or even an old metal filing cabinet. Even your barbecue grill with a lid (or upsidedown roasting tray) will suffice. The wafting aromas emanating from your backyard will soon be the envy of the neighbourhood (you are best to confine your smoking to outside unless you have a very good extraction unit in your kitchen!).
Just like gardening, hot or cold smoking food requires patience and a little know-how. But it’s not as hard as you might think so get off your backside and just do it.
At this time of the year, tomatoes are in abundance and you can make them even better than they already are by adding a waft of smoke and then turning them into naturally smoked tomato ketchup. Sweet baby onions and garlic are lifted into a new dimension by being smoked. Sweetcorn started in the smoker and then finished on the hotplate is heaven on the cob, and you can’t go past mushrooms hot smoked over tea leaves. The natural sweetness of apricots or apples makes them perfect for smoking – the slight bitterness from smoke will enhance their taste.
While you may have always naturally associated smoking with kaimoana, many of your homegrown harvests can be smoked to create delicious dinner table stars. As well as the crops already mentioned, try eggplants, k¯umara and zucchinis.
Everybody uses different tools, fuel sources and equipment for smoking, so there is no one recipe or time frame for smoking that applies to all. Just like in the garden, you use what you have and change to the conditions as your experience grows.
Wood chips come in different sizes, and the finer they are (sawdust), the quicker the burn. You can slow this down by wetting them lightly. More smoke can make food taste more bitter, especially if you smoke it for a longer time. The larger the wood chip, the slower the burn and you can smoke over a longer time frame without getting the ashtray taste effect – smoking food is about complementing flavours, not smelling or tasting burnt!
Other factors that will influence the result include the thickness
Everybody uses different tools, fuel sources and equipment for smoking food, so there is no one recipe or time frame for smoking that applies to all.
The larger the wood chip, the slower the burn and you can smoke over a longer time frame without getting the ashtray taste effect.
of the ingredients, mother nature’s huff and puff (wind) when you are working outside, the size of the wood chips or shavings, the type of smoker that you have assembled and what fuel you are using will ultimately determine the cooking time.
Your choice of fuel depends on what you have: a tray of methylated spirits will burn out naturally in 10-20 minutes, your gas barbecue with a lid will work wonders and you can put a foil bag of wood chips directly onto the flame and then use the rack above to hold your produce. The key is to get the smoking fuel up to a good smoke point and then turn down the heat just to maintain the smoke, adjusting it to suit your needs.
Remember that you are dealing with a combustible product, so keep safety in mind when using fuels and discarding wood chips. The easiest way is to have a metal bucket with some water to soak them in when finished and then putting the spent ash into the compost bin. Like in the garden, the rewards come from being patient and don’t be afraid to experiment.