First, I spread alder chips on the bottom of my electrical smoking box. I used aluminum foil for covering them. We don’t want the slime of the fish to put out the smoldering wood.

Like said, fish are salted with sea salt over night.

Then put into the smoking box.

I got my smoking box from my sister’s husband a long time ago and I still use it. Cheers! I use a separate thermometer for following the temperature. Usually, I let the temperature to go around 100 degrees of Celsius and I smoke my fish about 30 minutes. The flavor of smoke attaches better if the fish are sliced to thin pieces. They also need less time to be cooked.

So far my neighbors haven’t said anything about my fish smoking. Usually, I let the smoking box to cool down before I open it for avoiding the huge blow of smoke at once. 😀

The fish are ready if the fins can be detached easily.

Fishbones are removed as accurately as possible, although they can be blended to tiny dust if needed. The meat is collected for the blending. Btw, I noticed how tench have interesting fat right under their skins. I didn’t remember this, it would be good staff for the smoked fish paste. It was hard to separate from the skin, why I need to scale my tench next time.

Smoked fish, chives, dill, tomato puree, sea salt, citron pepper and melted butter are blended together. Then the whole mess is let to cool down and it is enjoyed over bread!

One box of smoked fish paste is also a good gift for relatives. 🙂

Here are the seeds of my hero chives I have talked about. The chives of these flowers survived over the winter in my small balcony jars. I need to plant these or store them over the next winter for having more of these strong chives.