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Spruce-smoked steak?!?

Botch
Botch Posts: 17,380
in EggHead Forum
Had Steven Raichlen's new show on in the background this morning, and he cooked some beautiful, 2" steaks on a hideous-looking Kamado (it was tiled like your shower).  He did 5 minutes on the first side at 600F, with a turn for cross-hatch marks, but then when he flipped them he set them on a bed of spruce branches (looked like the youngest, new tips).  He claimed the spruce smoke gave a "wonderful, piney" flavor to the meat.  
Goes against everything I've ever learned about smoking with pine.  Perhaps I'll try it someday, but I doubt it (I don't like gin either).  
 
He also smoked some fresh mozzerella balls, set on the grate, with hay smoke.  They took on a beautiful medium brown color, and he grilled the subsequent cheese on lemon leaves and also made a caprese salad with cold-smoked tomatoes (using a "bartender's smoker" that I may be searching Amazon for later).  That all looked delicious.
 
But, pine smoke??  

"Dumplings are just noodles that have already eaten"   - Jon Kung

Ogden, UT, USA


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Comments

  • Darby_Crenshaw
    Darby_Crenshaw Posts: 2,657
    Some foods are smoked over soft woods. You just need to be careful of too much, or better yet, pair it with something that makes use of the piney aspect

     cedar pairs well with fatty salmon, and both are plentiful in the same region, do that's likely why it's a common pairing

    For some of the finest german hams, speck, smoking over juniper is preferred. For a long time, too

    i have smoked with rosemary sprigs too


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  • gdenby
    gdenby Posts: 6,239
    I don't know about spruce, but various young needle clusters, fresh growth, are used in a variety of foods for flavor. I had a few bites of pork smoked in part w. Scotch pine needle buds. Quite good.  I suppose they have less of the harsh flavor that the resin from mature branches have. Maybe less turpentine and thyme flavors, which develop later to drive away insects.

    The main smoke for the pork w. pine needles was from hay, don't know which grass. Very good overall, but the cook specializes in "native" cooking methods, and mostly uses very old methods and whatever is at hand where he is cooking. I haven't tried it so far.
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  • pgprescott
    pgprescott Posts: 14,544
    I'm with you @Botch. I do drink gin, but prefer a less "junipery"  gin. I also like the cedar plank salmon as Darby mentions, but could not bring myself to smoke an awesome steak over spruce. NO WAY!
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