Cold Smoking

Cold smoking flavors food with smoke while keeping it below about 30°C, so it doesn't cook. Cheese, butter, salt and cured fish are the usual candidates. A smoke generator, a maze-shaped tray of sawdust you light at one end, gives several hours of thin smoke inside an unlit grill or a box. Do it on a cool day. Anything raw, like salmon or pork belly, has to be cured with salt first. Fish needs 6 to 12 hours of smoke. Rest smoked cheese in the fridge for a week so the harsh edge mellows.