My first ever job in food was working in a smokery. This was long before going to cookery school, years before embarking on anything resembling a career as a chef. I was simply looking for a way to earn some money. I believe I had a holiday that wanted paying for, or something similar.
The place I ended up working was called The Weald Smokery, and little did I know that it was one of the best smokeries in Britain. There were about four kilns when I worked there, two massive cold smokers where regal sides of salmon and chunky slabs of bacon were housed, and two hot smokers where eels, salmon, trout, duck and chicken breasts were turned into extraordinary treats. The smokery has grown, it has nine kilns now, and twenty-five members of staff. The team when I was there was just Ian, the manager; James, a chap who seemed to do whatever Ian told him; Wayne, the fella who seemed to be in charge of the kilns (and the man in this wonderful video to boot,) and another chap, he might have been called Robert or Richard or Rick, he was a very nice bloke who seemed mainly to be tasked with looking after me. It was a motley crew no doubt, but one that produced a world-beating range of smoked products.
Anyway, the point is, without intention, I received a stellar education in the world of smoked fish and other treats. Frustratingly, much of what I learned has been forgotten. As such this might be a short newsletter.
What I can remember though, the smell alone still imprinted on my fingers twenty years later, are the patés we used to make. Smoked salmon, smoked mackerel, and smoked trout.
A few weekends ago we spent a few days with friends in Hampshire. The modus operandi was rest and relaxation, we left the house to go for a pub lunch and to visit the wonderful Roche Court, otherwise, we sat, and talked, and read, and went for walks. Returning to London on Sunday night, the one thing that stuck with me from our little countryside jaunt was fishing, of all things, not that we partook, not that I’ve ever partaken (is that a word?). My understanding is though that some extraordinary trout fishing might have been available to a privileged few on the River Test, which runs right through the little bit of Hampshire we were in. I follow a charming American fellow on Instagram called David Coggins, who as the zeitgeist would have it, was in Hampshire and fishing on the Test at exactly the same time that we were passing through. It’s rather helpful to have a curatorial trend-setter experiencing a place you’re in, or you’ve been, as they are able somehow to enhance and elevate the very same things you’re experiencing. Anyway, Coggins was on the Test, and he was fishing, and he was making it look like the purest form of sport available to man.
Long story short, this otherwise irrelevant little insight into my voyeurism on Instagram is mainly to say that, seeing Coggins fishing reminded me of the country types who used to come by the smokery with a duck, a game bird or a whole fish that they’d caught as part of their weekend fun. They would get it smoked, they would pick it up and take it home and no doubt enjoy it hugely. These chaps, for invariably they were chaps, existed very much outside of my purview, and to be frank, at the time, I dismissed them as nouveau countryside dilettantes.
What did I know though? I was in the shed out the back pin boning sides of wild salmon and skinning eels for the smoker. Thinking back, someone playing at being lord of the manor wouldn’t likely bother to actually smoke and eat the thing they’d shot or caught; they’d more likely turn their nose up, find the feathers and the scales and the eyes (it’s always the eyes that get them) all too visceral. Upon reassessment, these coves respected what they caught or shot or tickled into submission (trout tickling is a genuine thing - lol.) They respected it enough to pay for it to be turned into something wonderful.
The point for me though, the chap in the shed, was that we would return these things to the customer beautifully trimmed and trussed up. Which meant trimmings and scraps left behind. Which meant wastage. Waste not, want not, though, hey? The fine businessman who owned the place would take each day’s trimmings, be they salmon, mackerel, eel, bacon or chicken, and would turn them into something else, something to be sold in the shop, or used in a sandwich or a pie. This was long before I was to be force-fed the concept of nose-to-tail eating, but that’s exactly what was going on here.
And somehow I was pulled in to produce these things.
In doing so what I learned was - you don’t need very much fish to make an extraordinarily good paté, and that paté is a very good way to stretch a premium thing, to feed lots of people with less. So we made award-winning paté and terrines.
They’re terribly unfashionable nowadays. The old English and classical French techniques for fish patés, mousses and terrines have been all but forgotten in favour of spangly new things that look better on Instagram. There’s a place for them though. A fine fish mousse is as chic as it gets and can be visually arresting too. Smoked mackerel paté, when done right, is a surprisingly complex crowd-pleaser to rival all comers, especially when served with radishes and melba toast.
And that’s another thing worth reviving. Melba toast. One of two inventions from august Auguste Escoffier for the esteemed opera singer Dame Nellie Melba; for me, it was a treat that, unwittingly, became my earliest test of knife skills. My dad’s favourite Saturday lunch was always some paté, some cheese, some grapes and some melba toast. We used to toast bread, of course, and once just toasted, we’d remove it, slice it through the middle with a sharp bread knife, before placing it on a tray under a hot grill, the uncooked sliced side facing up towards the grill bars. We’d always cut them into triangles, they’d always curl slightly up towards the grill. To this day I think there is no finer vehicle for a fish paté or terrine than a freshly made round of melba toast.
So, at the risk of being terribly old fashioned and out of touch, below are recipes for my three favourite products as I used to make them in that little shed out the back of the Weald Smokery.
Use pleasingly cheap bits of smoked fish. Buy up the scraps. Even some supermarkets sell packs of smoked salmon or smoked trout off-cuts for cheap. I mean if they’re going to produce problematic smoked salmon for the mass market, let’s at least provide a market for the scraps, and let’s learn how to use them in a standout way.
Or better still, get to know a smokery; easier said than done in London, although the slightly troubling London smokehouse Forman & Son’s sells their smoked salmon scraps for £5.50 per 200g, as opposed to £16.95 per 200g for the sliced good stuff. If you’re based in the countryside, I’ll wager there's a fishmonger or a smokery who’ll do you some scraps and trimmings of something smoked and tasty for a reasonable price.
The smoked fish in the recipes below is relatively interchangeable. We always made a coarse smoked mackerel pate, a finer smoked trout mousse and a smoked salmon terrine; but smoked eel or kippers would work just as well in the paté, salmon or cod’s roe would happily create a terrific mousse, and smoked trout could take the place of smoked salmon in the terrine.
I implore you also, to make melba toast, it is nothing but a joy and deserves reviving.
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