It is one of our top questions. Wood storage. Where to store wood, how to store wood, temperature ideal for storing wood, shelf life of stored wood. If you are an avid follower of our readings, you are likely familiar with our two cartoon characters, Tom and Bert. Thru these characters, SmokinLicious® has been able to guide millions of home grilling and smoking enthusiasts on techniques and tips to make every wood-fired cooking event a success.
Smoked Ricotta Cheese – I know not everyone has a dedicated stove top smoker but I do know that we all have a large stock pot handy. I’m going to show you an easy way to convert that pot to a stove top smoker by using micro wood chips, aluminum foil, and a roasting rack. I’ll explain to you a combination hot/cold smoking method to bring a smoke flavor to whole milk ricotta, that will allow you to use this product in any recipe calling for traditional ricotta. Find your stock pot and roasting rack, and let’s get smoking!
Once you’ve selected a stock pot to use for the smoking, the preparation of the pot is quite simple. Start by placing 2 sheets of heavy-duty aluminum foil in the bottom of the pot, allowing it to go up the sides slightly. Then select the micro wood chips of your choice – I’m using a Sugar Maple Minuto® wood chip in size #6 – and spread into a thin layer on the foiled bottom. Add a roasting rack. Mine is round to fit easily in my pot. I also like to line the lid of the pot in foil as all hardwood contains creosote which can cause some discoloration to the pot. The foil will protect this from happening and makes clean up a breeze.
Then place the prepared pot with the lid in place over a medium-high heat and allow the chips to heat until they are consistently producing smoke. This will take less than 15 minutes.
Once the chips have started to combust and produce smoke vapor, it will be time to add the ricotta. I am doing 3 pounds of whole milk ricotta as I plan to make a dessert pastry horn and then keep some spare smoked ricotta cheese for pasta recipes.
After 12-15 minutes of heating, lift the lid and place a heat safe container of the ricotta on the rack inside your smoking pot. Secure the lid in place and allow this to stay on the heat for about 5 minutes. Then shut the heat off and leave the pot with the ricotta inside untouched for about an hour. Let the smoke infusion occur with this cold smoke technique.
Tasting Notes: Any hardwood can be used for the smoke infusion but note that by retaining the pot lid in place, you are limiting the oxygen that can enter the pot. This produces a much bolder smoke infusion than is common with the same wood used on a traditional smoker or grill.
Smoked Ricotta Cheese- Smoky, Creamy Goodness
Here’s something to keep in mind with this stove top DIY smoking technique. I have a very tight seal on my pot which means it doesn’t take a lot of wood chip product to infuse a smoky flavor in the ricotta. Plus, the fat level of this dairy product attracts smoke vapor well as this is high in water content which smoke vapor is naturally attracted to.
If after about an hour, and after you’ve sampled the smoked ricotta, you still desire more smoke, simply turn the heat back on for about 10 minutes to stimulate the chips for additional combustion. Then repeat turning off the heat and allowing the ricotta to sit absorbing the smoke for the set amount of additional time you want. Once done, refrigerate the smoked ricotta until you are ready to use it, keeping this covered well. If any liquid accumulates while refrigerated, simply pour off before using the smoked ricotta in a recipe.
To get your recipe ideas stimulated, I’ll offer up my Smoked Ricotta Pastry Horn recipe which is super easy, fabulous looking, and can be made with an assortment of filling options. Keep watching our website for the announcement on this recipe release.
What’s your favorite food to stove top smoke? Leave us a comment to opine and subscribe to get all our postings on tips, techniques and recipes. Bringing innovation to wood fired cooking with recipes, techniques and the science behind the fire, smoke, and flavor. That’s SmokinLicious®.
The Culinary Crew wants you to know…
… that experimenting with “Do It Yourself” techniques can certainly apply to using your outside charcoal or LP gas grill as a quasi-smoker too! We’ve heard from many of our followers about deep dished aluminum food serving trays and even pie tins being used to offer a quick and easy try to food smoking.
You see the options all the time. Crushed or diced tomatoes? Every chef knows when and why you choose one over the other. Did you know the same concept is true for wood chips?
At SmokinLicious®, the only true cooking wood Company, we produce our wood chips in the same manner as tomato processors! We crush the wood for our Grande Sapore® chips – these pieces produce a unique flavor because of their shape just like crushed tomatoes give a deeper flavor to recipes! These chips are meant to last and work with other ingredients for full flavor balance. We also offer our “diced” option of predetermined wood slices to produce our Minuto® and Piccolo® chips for smoldering on heat plates, cast iron, and flavor bars. Just as diced tomatoes give a fresh-from-the-garden taste, diced wood chips likewise produce a different, often more intense fresh wood flavoring.
SmokinLicious®only manufacturers cooking woods. Thatisour primary andonly business. We know hardwoods for cooking, all types of wood-fired methods. And we know wood flavoring – how to get the best clean flavors from the select hardwoods ideal for cooking!
See for yourself why we are a superior product with a superior outcome. Enjoy the benefits of the knowledge of our flavorists and get the options you are looking for. Made the SmokinLicious® way!
Dr. Smoke- there is a smoking difference between crushed or diced wood chips
Our Culinary Team wants you know…
… that the crushing and dicing method of our making of culinary wood chips is strikingly similar in concept to how grapes are processed in the phases of wine making? For example, the Ripasso method of Italian wine production starts out with crushed, partially dried grapes and proceeds on to fermentation with the leftover skins. Both Ripasso produced wine and our crushed or diced wood chips offer distinctive flavor, body and personality in a class of their own!
Stove top smoking techniques do not require fancy equipment, there are plenty of pots in your kitchen.
STOVE TOP SMOKING….
If you’re like me, over the years you’ve become a collector of various cooking gadgets and equipment to the point where you simply don’t have room for one more thing! Yet, you are enamored with the thought of doing stove top smoking & cooking when the weather isn’t cooperating or you simply prefer to be in the house rather than take food and gadgets outside.
Well, I have got just the solution for you!
Stove top smoking can be as easy as locating a deep pot with lid, metal steamer insert,aluminum foil and tools you likely already own.
Now when I say deep pot I’m talking about a lobster pot, large sauce pot, or even a Dutch oven. Anything that has capacity to hold a suitable number of food items on a steamer insert will do.
Once you have your pot and food item that you want to smoke follow these steps.
Place a second piece of foil or disposable foil pie plate on the chips followed by your steamer insert. (This will keep drippings from falling on the chips.)
Place the food items (chicken, fish, pork, beef, vegetables, fruit, etc.) on the steamer. Be careful not to crowd so the smoke can circulate around the food.
Depending on the extra room in your pot, if there is a lot of surface above the foods, go ahead and tent the steamer insert with foil so the smoke vapor has less area it needs to travel
Put the lid on the pot and seal the rim with foil to ensure none of the smoke vapor can escape
Turn the heat under the pot to high and allow to begin the smoking for 5-8 minutes
Reduce the heat to medium and cook small food items like chicken, fish, vegetables, or fruit for 10-15 minutes. Large food items like pork tenderloin, beef short ribs, etc. for 30-40 minutes.
Shut off the heat and allow the food to rest in the residual smoke vapor for 10 minutes
Remove the lid and foil tent if one was used
If you have done smaller cuts of poultry, fish, or meat, these may well be cooked through (175° F for dark meat 165° F for white meat). Otherwise, if cooking is still required, transfer the food to an oven safe dish or sheet pan and finish cooking in the oven.
There you have it!
A simple in-house, smoking technique using tools you likely already have in the kitchen! Just think, you stayed warm, dry, and comfortable in your own house while the Grande Sapore®, Minuto®, or Piccolo® Wood Chips did their wood-fired magic.
As always, we would love to see your take on the homemade stove top smoker so send along pictures.
There are over 550 annual barbeque competition events in the United States. Originally constrained to the Southern states, barbeque is now ubiquitous in most parts of the country. Thanks to the popularity of all things vintage, craft cocktails have made a huge comeback, and although it may not seem so at first glance, these two are a match made in heaven. As creative as barbeque pitmasters can get with their rubs and sauces, so, too, can you with specialty cocktails featuring smoked whiskey to pair with smoked meats.
Smoked Whiskey Manhattan- A Classic Match
You don’t need a pull-behind trailer rigged with the latest smoking equipment to make your own delicious smoked meats. As long as your kitchen is equipped with a stove, you can get in on this delicious food preparation. While you can purchase stovetop smokers, it’s fairly easy to DIY a smoker yourself with household products you probably already own. No matter what you’re serving, a Manhattan will pair beautifully with your meat.
Classic Manhattan
Classic Manhattan (up)
Ingredients:
Ice
2 oz. whiskey
½ oz. sweet vermouth
dash of Angostura bitters
orange peel
Maraschino cherry
Shake whiskey, vermouth, and bitters with ice; strain into lowball glass. Rub the rim of your glass with the orange peel and garnish with cherry. Substitute vermouth with 1 oz. of agave nectar and use chocolate bitters and Jim Beam Devil’s Cut (barrel aged whiskey) for an alternate take on this classic.
A Smoked Whiskey Summer Treat
Take this simple, two-ingredient cocktail and kick it up a notch by infusing it with a smokey flavor that matches your menu. With a smoking gun (available for around $100, or you can make your own with some inexpensive tubing and a small-mouthed container), you can “rinse” your chilled glasses with smoke, or even smoke your entire concoction, using the same wood you use for your meat. The tartness of the grapefruit juice will cut the richness of the meat and is perfect for a backyard, al fresco dinner.
Jack Honey
Jack Honey cocktail
Ingredients:
2 oz. Jack Daniels Tennessee Honey
3 oz. fresh-squeezed grapefruit juice
Pour over ice into collins glass.
Something Truly Special
If your skills as a pitmaster aren’t the only thing you want to show off, here is a very special cocktail that will wow your guests. The smokey flavor and touch of cinnamon gives the classic whiskey sour a brand new twist that will leave your guests in awe. You’ll need to plan ahead for this one, as it requires two different, homemade syrups, but if you’re looking to win for best bartender, this one can’t lose.
Smokey Sour
Classic whiskey sour
Ingredients:
Ice
2 oz. whiskey
¾ oz. fresh lemon juice
½ oz. cinnamon bark syrup (.3 oz cinnamon bark, 1 cup Turbinado sugar, 1 cup water; bring ingredients to a boil and simmer over low heat for 2 minutes, let sit for 2 hours, strain and keep refrigerated)
¼ oz. Lapsang souchong tea syrup (3-4 tea bags, 1 cup Turbinado sugar, 1 cup water; bring ingredients to a boil and simmer over low heat for 2 minutes, let sit for 2 hours, strain and keep refrigerated)
1 egg white
Add all ingredients to a shaker and shake until frothy. Strain into a coupe glass.
The bold, rich flavor of whiskey is the perfect complement to a rich, smoked meat dish; both American traditions trace their roots back to the South. If you are looking to skip the same old beer next time you smoke meat for your guests, you can’t go wrong with whiskey cocktails, either made-to-order or batched for a larger group. Let the elements of barbequing guide you to experiment with new techniques and flavors and take your pairings to a new level.
It’s time to bring a smoky flavor to one of my favorite though limited in availability, vegetables – smoked okra! Known as a super healthy food but one that sometimes confuses people on how to cook and eat it, I’m going to bring you an easy method of tenderizing and infusing okra with a pleasant smoky flavor that doesn’t stimulate the sticky juice known to lurk inside.
Though I’m going to use a stove top smoker for my infusion, you can easily adapt this method to the gas grill, charcoal grill or electric smoker using a vegetable basket or tray. Seek out some vibrant green, firm okra and let’s get started on a new way to cook and flavor this healthy vegetable.
Smoker Set Up for Smoked Okra
#smokedokra
I’m using my Nordic Ware Stove Top Kettle Smoker for this hot smoking method. To start, I place the smoker base on the unlit burner and add about ¼ cup of Minuto® Wood Chips– I’m using a #6 in Sugar Maple – from SmokinLicious®. I place the drip pan on top of the wood chips and then ensure the food insert pan is clean and dry. For vegetables, I usually use a medium heat setting on my stove – I have a gas stove top. This will register between 200-250°F on the kettle smoker’s temperature gauge. Next, I’ll do a simple preparation to the okra and we’ll be ready to turn on the heat to the stove top unit.
Tasting Notes: For the charcoal grill set up, use a two-zone cooking method – charcoal and wood lit on one half of the grill while the vegetable tray or basket containing the okra will go on the unlit side of the grill. Do the same set up on the gas grill. For the electric smoker, be sure to use a lower heat setting – around 180°F.
Smoked Okra- Trim and Smoke
Nothing could be simpler than the preparation for okra. You’ll want to ensure that the outside is clean and dry so a simple water wash is good with a pat dry. I like to remove the stem top to allow penetration of the smoke vapor into the center of the pod.
#okra
Place about one pound of fresh okra with the stem tops trimmed into the smoker’s food tray. Try making an even layer of pods so the smoke vapor can flavor the pods evenly. Cover the kettle smoker with the lid and turn the burner on to a medium setting. I use my stove’s vent on high to keep the aroma down somewhat.
Allow the okra pods to tenderize and smoke for about 20 minutes before checking. You just want them to be tender (not falling apart), to where a knife can still cut them into pieces. Once done, remove the pods to a bowl and use these in recipes calling for okra or you can serve as is with a favorite sauce.
A simple in-house, smoking technique using tools you likely already have in the kitchen! Just think, you stayed warm, dry, and comfortable in your own house while the
