Smoked fish niçoise

The traditional way to smoke fish is using brown sugar but you can experiment by adding different flavour combinations of herbs and spices.

Ingredients

250 g	Green beans
2	Large eggs
400 g	Gourmet potatoes
4 ½ Tbsp	Extra virgin olive oil
¼ cup	White wine vinegar
¼ cup	Fresh flat-leaf parsley leaves, chopped
1 ¼ tsp	Dijon mustard
¼ tsp	Sea salt
¼ tsp	Freshly ground black pepper
15 g	Baby gem lettuce leaves
2 cups	Cherry tomatoes, halved
100 g	Radishes, sliced
150 g	Smoked fish (Main)
50 g	Pitted kalamata olives, halved

Directions

1. Prepare a bowl of ice water. Bring a medium pot of water to a boil. Add green beans, and cook for 2 minutes. Remove with a slotted spoon; plunge into ice water.
2. Return pot of water to boil. Add eggs, and cook 6 minutes. Remove with slotted spoon; add to green bean ice bath. Once cool, peel and halve eggs.
3. Return water to boil, and add potatoes. Cook until tender, 15 to 17 minutes. Drain then chop potatoes.
4. To make the dressing whisk together oil, vinegar, parsley, Dijon mustard, salt, and pepper in a bowl.
5. Place the lettuce leaves in a large serving bowl (or divide between four bowls if desired) then top with green beans, potatoes, tomatoes, radishes, olives and the smoked fish and eggs.
6. Drizzle the dressing over salad/s.

How to smoke your own fish

There are lots of options for making smoked fish. You can smoke the whole fish or individual parts of the fish like the fillets, heads or wings. Stainless steel smokers are readily available at hardware or fishing stores, if you don’t have one of these you can use your hooded BBQ at home. Simply lay tin foil and wood chips on a roasting dish, put the fish on a tray above and away you go.

1. Season the fish with salt and pepper. Add extra salt to taste up to approximately 15gms (you can mix this up with the brown sugar if you prefer).
2. Generously coat the flesh side of the fish with the brown sugar. Cover the flesh entirely and gently pat the brown sugar down, on to the fish. The brown sugar acts as a marinade and curing agent, it will draw out all the delicious juices and lock in the taste of the salt and pepper.
3. For best results cover the fish and leave in the fridge for two hours.
4. Place the fish and tray in the smoker/BBQ on top of the foil and wood chips. Put the lid on the smoker.
5. Light the burner and put the smoker on top.
6. Cooking time for a medium sized fish is approximately 20 minutes. Check to see if it's cooked before you remove it from the heat. You're looking for the fish flesh to be pink/white and moist and just cooked.
7. Safety first - make sure you extinguish the burner(s) once you've finished cooking!