Pickling and Brining and Fish named Ed, Moe, and Curly

Time to pickle! We spent a day learning about pickling, brining, canning, and preserving. This method of cooking and preserving food is extremely useful for people who live in areas without refrigeration, or people who want to store food for months or even years.
We started with preserved mushrooms: They were cooked, drained, and packed in seasoned oil in mason jars.

Next, we worked on pickled scallions and red onions to use as garnish or snacks.

You can see the brine here, made with salt, brown sugar, pickling spice, and honey.

Next, the scallions and onions were placed in vacuum-pack bags and kryo-vac'd to suck out all the oxygen.

Here's Ed, a fish that we planned to brine and smoke.

Below, Ed and Moe in their brine:

Ed, flat.

Going into the stovetop smoker:

All done! This fish was smoked over hickory chips.

Fish faces

Below, a skinless filet of Ed with horseradish sauce, pickled red onion and scallion, and pink peppercorns.

Round 2 of smoked trout - Moe and Curly.

This is the stovetop smoker, layer 1:

Layer 2:

Ta da!

Here's Moe, butterflied and smoked.

Then we cut him up and removed the skin for plating.

Here's another plating:

And a little bite! This is a piece of bread with horseradish sauce, smoked trout, pink peppercorns, a pickled red onion and scallion, and a slice of cornichon (pickle).

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Brined Smoked Trout
8 whole trout
2 quarts water
10 oz salt
1 oz brown sugar
1 tsp garlic powder
2 tsp onion powder
1 oz pickling spice
1 oz honey

Mix the brine ingredients and pour into a deep (2" or deeper) stainless steel or glass container.
Slide the trout into the brine and refrigerate for up to 8 hours.
After 8 hours, rinse the fish and soak in cool water.
Pat dry.
Hot smoke in a stovetop smoker or an outdoor smoker at 215 degrees for about 2 hours. (Less if your smoker can increase the fish's internal temp to 145 degrees)
Cool the trout completely and serve cold.
Smoked trout can be kept in the fridge for up to two weeks.
Serve with horseradish, mayonnaise, tartar sauce, or plain!
    

Enjoy!