Gochugaru Smoked and Canned Mountain Whitefish [homemade]

Ok kids. Spring time experimenting in the Canadian North.

Set a net for Mountain Whitefish (Prosopium williamsoni) and was blessed with quite a few. Interestingly these are a salmonid and very fatty. Optimal spring time food.

Process was catch and scale and filet using a northwest coast indigenous style where you cut up the back and go along the ribs. Optimized for smoking salmon but leaves you with nothing but pin bones and a few fins.

Did two batches. One was a maple garlic brine. Classic with peppercorns and bay leaf etc.

Other more interesting was a dry brine using Gochugaru seasoning. The standard you get from Costco. Slightly spicy and sweet. Great flavour and colour.

Both brined for about 5 hours in the fridge.

Smoked for about 24 hours over our traditional smoking woods although I added a dry piece of poplar to this and it turned out great. Pellicle was not as developed as I hoped but the fish were fully cooked and flavourful.

Cut into strips. May remove the skin on the next batch but I found it aesthetically pleasing in the jars. For the brined ones I added a bay leaf and a few peppercorns.

For the Gochugaru straight up.

Both topped with EVOO to within 1/4” of the jar and hand tightened.

Jarred in standard shorty 250 ml and baby 125 ml mason jars.

90 minutes under 10 lbs pressure in the pressure canner. Overkill IMO but don’t fuck around with botulism and parasites.

Outcomes was exceptional.

I would put these cans against any other whitefish except maybe halibut or cod cheeks.

Firm flesh. Great flavour and colour. Weirdly the olive oil slightly comes through as a flavour and the Smokey flavour attenuates with the canning. The fish off the smoking rack had more pronounced flavour and spice than the cans. The fish itself has a Smokey and spicy Gochugaru flavour but less pungent than expected. Flesh holds shape and flakes well. Firm mouthfeel and no fishiness whatsoever. Almost like a canned piece of mammal (we do smoked moose and venison and it isn’t far off in terms of flavour). No pin bones made it through the canning process.

The oil is divine…but weirdly very limited. It was like the fish absorbed the oil so you are left with a fairly minute amount of EVOO after.

Solid proof of concept at this point so I will be going back out to do a larger batch. Fairly work intensive but for shelf stable tinned fish goodies in large batches this is worth it.

May do a dry brine jerk next time or maybe a classic Old Bay dusted approach.

10/10