I grew up in Saskatchewan not realizing that absolutely nobody there knew how to cook fish except to batter it and stick it into a deep fryer. Years later a business partner came back on a Friday afternoon from a trip to Winnipeg with a suitcase full of that city's famous smoked goldeye. Everybody at the office gorged themselves. Even more years later I discovered basa while travelling in Southeast Asia where it usually was grilled over a hot charcoal fire about 5 minutes after it was swimming contentedly in an estuary.
So now I'm trying a couple of basa fillets. These two guys total 500 grams. I put them in a marinade of 1/2 cup EVOO, some shaved carrots, some chopped green onions and celery (total maybe 1/2 cup), a couple tsp of kosher salt, 1/4 cup lemon juice and some ground pepper, a tsp of thyme, three garlic cloves thinly sliced. After a few hours (would have preferred overnight) I took them out and threw away the marinade, but patted them dry and sprinkled just a touch of my standard pork rib rub (mostly paprika, brown sugar and salts of various kinds--everybody has a favourite).
Here they are, ready for the smoker. If this works, then some other day I'll do up a whole bunch and invite the neighbourhood over.
I'm using my new Bradley digital 4-rack with the original equipment water pan at the bottom, plus a second water pan under the rack that the fish will be resting on, with some apple juice in the water. The second pan helps stabilize the temperature, which I have set for 220F. I am using a mixture of 3 alder and 2 apple smoking bisquettes, enough for an hour and a half.
Friday afternoon kit: smoker, fridge, instrument of musical torture, friendly dog:
And now the finished product:
I thought the smoke was a little heavy, but otherwise the flavour was excellent and the flesh was perfectly done. So next time 1 1/2 hours of cooking at 220F, with alder smoke for the first hour.