The Founder's Smoked Fish

The house cure, refined over years of putting speared and caught fish into kiawe smoke. Three things matter and one of them matters most: a simple brine, a rinse at the salinity of the ocean the fish came from, and the pellicle — the tacky, glossy skin the fillet forms as it air-dries. The pellicle is the biggest thing. Smoke doesn't stick to wet fish; it slides off with the moisture. Give the fillet its pellicle and every minute in the smoke lands.

The island finish is the founder's twist: a warm kiawe honey and shoyu baste painted on the moment the fish comes off the smoker — warm fish drinks it in — or a shoyu-ginger boost stirred straight into the brine. Kiawe honey comes from the blossoms of the same tree as the wood in your smoker. The tree flavors this fish twice.

Ingredients

• 2-4 lbs firm fish fillets, skin on - salmon, trout, marlin, ono, ahi
• Brine: 1 cup coarse salt + 1 cup sugar + 1 gallon filtered water, stirred until dissolved
• Rinse: sea salt + filtered water mixed to ocean salinity, about 1/2 cup per gallon - it should taste like the sea
• Island baste: 3 Tbsp kiawe honey (any raw honey works) + 1 Tbsp shoyu + 1 tsp grated ginger, warmed
• Or the brine boost: add 1/2 cup shoyu + 1/4 cup brown sugar + a smashed thumb of ginger + a strip of lemon peel to the gallon
• A cookie cooling rack and a fan on low - the pellicle station

Cook Sequence

1. Submerge the fillets in the cold brine, in the fridge: 4 hours for thin fillets, 6-8 for standard, 8-12 for thick slabs. Don't overshoot - past 12 hours it just gets saltier.
2. Rinse in the ocean-salinity sea salt water, not fresh - fresh water pulls the cure back out of the surface unevenly. An ocean-strength rinse cleans the fillet without undoing the brine.
3. The pellicle - the biggest thing: fillets on the cooling rack, fan on low, 1-2 hours until the surface turns tacky and glossy like lacquer. Smoke sticks to pellicle. Skip this and the flavor slides off with the moisture.
4. Smoke at 165-180F until 145F internal - 2 to 4 hours depending on thickness. Thin blue smoke, never white.
5. The moment it comes off, paint it with the warm honey-shoyu baste - the warm fish drinks it in and sets to a soft gloss as it cools.
6. Cool completely before wrapping. Better the next day; keeps a week in the fridge. It will not last a week.

Round Out the Plate

• Furikake Rice — if it makes it past snacking
• Hawaiian Mac Salad — for the full spread