Smoked Pike Platter

[Banditto]

I got the marinate recipe from a link somebody sent me last year (not originally mine!) using skinned whole pike. The one thing different I do is to take a sizable portion of meat, throw it in a food processor with a can of cocktail sauce and mince it very fine. Then take a full bar of phili cream cheese and mash the bar onto a glass platter. Spread the smoked pike w/ cocktail sauce over the mashed down cream cheese. Cover the whole thing is heavy crackers and stand clear. People will devour it very quickly.

Recipe:

1 bottle teriyaki sauce
1/2 bag brown sugar
1/2 cup kosher salt
1/2 jar ground garlic cloves

I like to smoke my fish whole, so I had to modify this recipe some
in order to be able to submerge the entire fish in the marinade.
I do normally cut Pike in half to fit in the smoker. Here's my
modified version of the marinade:


1 gallon water
2 cups kosher salt
1 32 oz. teriyaki sauce
1/2 bag brown sugar
1/2 jar ground garlic cloves

Very important, KEEP FISH COLD UNTIL SMOKING! Put fish in marinade
and refrigerate 18-24 hours. Rinse fish off, (all the flavoring
you want will be absorbed into the fish), allow to dry on racks
for 1-2 hours before smoking. Smoke until edges are visibly darker and quite dry.

[trout]

Smoked pike is...... er was a spring tradition for me years ago.
Long story dumb kid :)
It was great!
I might have to get one this winter to try again.

[Salmonsmoker]

I have made a similar recipe using smoked salmon. Blenderize the meat, then mix with softened cream cheese and serve with crackers. With Salmon, I do not use cocktail sauce because it can easily overpower the delicate smoked fish flavor (which I love). However, I have observed that most people will add cocktail sauce to the mix (on their plate) if it is available.

The advantage to blenderizing the pike is that it gets rid of the small bones.