How To Smoke Salmon In 13 Minutes

This is a dish we knocked up for a function night at the college restaurant - a supreme of salmon smoked in lemon and ginger tea, and then pan-fried until the skin is crisp. It was served with roasted cherry tomatoes and spinach.

You start by scaling and filleting a salmon and then cut each side into supremes the width of your middle three fingers. As you slice each supreme, turn the filleting knife with a hand motion as thought unlocking a door and this will give you a nice, curved effect to the pieces.

If you don't have a stove-top smoker, you can easily make do with a metal tray, foil and a wire tray to put the fish on (the wire tray obviously needs to be small enough to fit inside the metal tray). You also need oak or similar saw dust or wood chippings and/or tea leaves for the smouldering of.

Put a couple of handfuls of saw dust in the metal tray and spread over the bottom evenly. Then sprinkle three lemon and ginger tea bags - or a similar amount of loose tea - over the wood. Put the wire tray inside and cover tightly with foil. Put the tray on a medium heat on the hob and wait until you can see smoke escaping from the foil.

Lay the salmon pieces skin side down on the wire tray, and then recover with the foil. Put the tray back on the heat for one minute to let the smoke build up again.

Then take the tray off the heat, and leave covered for 12 minutes. Remove the salmon and you'll find it has a yellow-orange patina of smoke.

We then vac-packed ours, two in each bag, ready for service.

When you're ready to serve, brush a frying pan with oil, and also brush the skin of the salmon. Sprinkle the fish with salt. Heat the pan and then lay the fish in skin side down. Leave for two or three minutes, then turn over and fry on the flesh side for two or three minutes. Finish it for another minute on the skin side and serve.