Bake your salmon in a smoker instead of in the oven

When most folks hear "smoked salmon" they think of the stuff you eat on crackers, or maybe Nova lox salmon, which is cold smoked and eaten on a bagel. Don't be fooled though, this recipe describes how to bake your salmon in a smoker (for ~1 hour) instead of baking it in the oven.

First, you need a nice piece of salmon with the skin still on. Rinse it off and pat it dry and place it on a piece of parchment paper:

Then cut the parchment paper so it's somewhat form fitting. This will allow the smoke to get to the salmon a little easier:

Then, sprinkle some rub on the salmon if you desire:

Let the fish sit out for 30 minutes then put the salmon in the smoker at ~200 degrees for ~1 hour. Use alder of pecan wood; not too much, you're not making "smoked salmon" but rather baking the fish and imparting a light smoke flavor.

You can check periodically using a thermometer to ensure the fish's temperature is at least 140 and no more than 145; fish is done at 145.

If you're a stickler for appearance, be sure to cook the salmon away from the heat source to lessen how much albumin (the white stuff that oozes out of fish when it's cooked) is on the surface of the salmon. Here you can see the albumin on this piece of fish:

Despite the albumin, this fish is great! Serve it with some rice and you've got a great meal that's sure to disappear:

Okay, okay, I had some leftover fish and rice, so I took it to work the next day, and still had a little left over for something else (I'm thinking an omelet):

BBQ Chicken Leg Quarters

For a cheap and delicious meal, chicken leg quarters are the way to go. I picked up 6 of them for ~$5. Compare that to the price of a whole chicken and this really is a money saving meal.

Before I put the chicken in the smoker, I brined them for three hours. I chose to brine the chicken for three hours because I was brining three quarters. How long to brine (if at all) is really a matter of personal taste, but the chicken is more moist if it's brined.

Brine recipe:

1 cup of kosher salt
1 gallon of water
1 cup of dark brown sugar
1/4 cup of Worcester sauce

Make sure the salt and brown sugar are dissolved completely, then add your chicken quarters skin side up and put the chicken in your refrigerator. Do not use a metal container to brine the chicken. Feel free to modify the ingredients, but I do recommend 1 cup of kosher salt (not table salt) to 1 gallon of water. Anything beyond that is up to you.

After the chicken was removed from the brine, I rinsed them under cold water, trimmed off the excess skin and fat and sprinkled some of my favorite rub on both sides.  Because I was going to begin cooking the chicken within the hour, I left them out to come up to room temperature:

I fired up the smoker to 275 degrees and using pecan wood, cooked these quarters for ~2 hours (go easy on the smoke). Be sure to go by the chicken's temperature and not time. Chicken is done when it reaches a temperature of 165 degrees. These quarters were at ~180 when I pulled them off and they were moist; the brining helped with that.

I let the chicken rest for ~5 minutes while I finished up the rest of the meal. I'll definitely make this again:

tIC