Salmon for Breakfast for Kings & Queens & you

I had a yearning to learn how to smoke foods on my stove-top - yes, inside. So I did a bit of research and bit of googly-oh, and this is my recipe for the fastest, most delicious fresh smoked salmon ever. Forget paying $32 per kilo - buy steaks or fillets on special for anything between $19 and $25 per kilo. $8-worth is enough for about 6 servings. Make it Regal Salmon from the Marlborough and you'll be supporting a NZ business.
First choose your pan. I keep this rough old roasting dish just for smoking now.

Put your wood chips in a little pile inside. Manuka or Kanuka chips from the hardware shop cost about $5.50 and last for months. Experiment with adding woody stalks and herbs, like rosemary.
Over the top, place a cake rack to support the salmon.Place aluminium foil on the rack to contain the juices. Turn it up all around the edges. Do this with salmon even if you don't want the juices (but why wouldn't you?) or otherwise they'll just burn on the bottom of the pan.Add your piece of salmon and season it however you see fit. This is where the first fun bit comes in - you get to experiment! Try dark soy, brown sugar and a squeeze of lemon or lime. Or golden syrup and a little butter. The world's your oyster!

Now cover the whole dish very tightly with foil. If you have to overlap sheets to make them fit, fold them into a pleat at the join so the smoke cannot escape. You really don't want the smoke all through the house...

Turn the element to full for a couple of minutes so the wood chips ignite, then turn it down and leave for 10 minutes. Check it's cooked by lifting the foil - but be careful, the pan heats up very quickly. If there is smoke leaking around the edges, use a tea towel to squash the foil tightly all around the edges to make a better seal. The piece above is not quite cooked. It needs to be a consistent colour all the way across the surface.

After a few more minutes, it's cooked... yum!

Cover when cold and see if you can resist it until breakfast-time.. which is the second fun bit. Serve on bagels - especially the Parmesan kind - with ricotta (extra low fat stuff -and doesn't overpower the fish), lots of capers and a squeeze of lemon.

Or place the piece on a platter with crisp baguette slices - extra gorgeous on a summer evening with a beautiful Marlborough chardonnay. Or a sav... a beer? I quite like a gin.....with lime and mint.

NOW - go crazy! Try this with pears (delicious with a nice blue cheese...) and capsicums - make salsas with them. I saw a semi-dried smoked tomato dip - worth a try sometime soon! Vary the wood chips, vary the herbs, try using tea - green tea or Jasmine make it interesting.