Becky and I truly enjoy smoked foods. During the spring and summer months, I can be found on weekend mornings smoking a pork shoulder, a beef brisket, or a few racks of baby back ribs. My 9 hour smoked Thanksgiving turkey is always a winner. There are some rules when smoking that, through trial and error, I’ve learned: do not smoke with too much wood, do not over smoke, and last but not least, be patient.

Well, we are in the winter months and even though I am in the South, the lower temperatures are not always conducive to firing up my Brinkman on the deck. So I turn to my stove-top smoker.

After watching Emeril Lagasse use the Cameron stove top smoker on his show, I bought one.



This one is actually my second smoker. I found them, ahem, Becky told me, that they are ridiculous to clean. And I mean she really, really, complained. I couldn’t blame her. The soot would “glue” itself to the bottom of the drip pan and I found that the smoker would warp. After it warped, the top would not completely seal and, for all my efforts, I got a smoked filled kitchen. I bought a second one after Becky decided to circular file the first. I kept the rack and drip pan and I now use them to cook bacon in the oven. It is perfection when it comes to separating the bacon from the grease. No paper towels needed.

One day, I’m sitting in my “easy chair” and my wife walks in and asks me to help her remove a package from the car. She tells me how sick-up-and-fed she had gotten with the Cameron smokers and the cleaning of them. She had purchased a new one. Okay. I am skeptical. Emeril can’t be wrong, can he? She can just use more elbow grease, right? No, she decided that there was another solution and it even had Emeril’s name on it, so she trusted it. So began the saga of the new cast iron stove-top smoker. It is a multitasker, so Alton would be proud, and it allowed me to whip up this weekday dish of smoked rainbow trout. Follow the link to check out the recipe and the smoker.

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This smoker is heavy, like 30 pounds. I have to keep it in the garage. It takes a little while to fully heat up and create smoke. But, it will not warp, it is easy to clean, it holds heat intensely, and the top can be used as a grill pan. Overall, I am quite pleased with it.

Anyways…

Here is a quick dish that I like because it is quick, flavorful, and, save the butter, pretty healthy. I just cannot resist the need for butter on trout. Maybe it’s just me, but the lemon-butter sauce with capers just sealed the deal.

What was used:

3 fresh rainbow trout fillets
1 lemon
1 tsp salt (I used Hawaiian red salt)
1 tbsp butter
1 tbsp capers
1 drizzle (this is a measurement, right) EVOO
a lot of black pepper

I started with a combination of oak and cherry wood chips.



I insert the rack, the drip pan, and grease them with Pam. The bottom is wrapped with foil which aids in clean up where the cinders meet the drip pan.

Here I have three fresh rainbow trout fillets seasoned with Hawaiian red lava salt and a generous amount of cracked black papper.

I add to them some lemons.

This gets covered, the heat gets turned up high and I wait for the first whisk of smoke.

When the first small whisk of smoke is seen, it is time to cover the pan and wait 25 minutes.

The fish is moist and flaky after the expired time.

As an accoutrement to the trout, I added some roasted asparagus. Just topped, spritzed, with EVOO, salt, and pepper, wrapped in foil, and blasted in the oven for 15 minutes at 400 degree-f.

Top the fish with lemon butter sauce which is made in the “mike” from the butter, capers, diced lemon pieces, and EVOO.

The rice is a sweet brown rice from Whole Foods. It is sticky and tender.