Blog | Chez Alaska Cooking School

A couple of things before we leave cupcakes…  First of all, although I like this new cupcake fad and all the beautiful cupcakes, there tends to be a lot of frosting.  In many cases, the cupcake artists build elaborate sculptures atop each cupcake, using mostly frosting, and sometimes that’s too much frosting.  I don’t want to eat a cup of frosting unless it’s covering about eight cupcakes.

At Rosscott, Inc. someone has come up with a system for making a cupcake into a mini sandwich.  I’ve never had too much of a problem eating cupcakes myself, but if it has been a source of frustration for you, this tip may be a godsend. 

Finally, my favorite new cupcake design is the Cookie Monster cupcake, because you get a cupcake and a cookie.

To make these, you need:

• Cupcakes – any recipe

• Buttercream icing in blue and white

• Dessicated coconut tinted in blue

• cookies -any recipe (Cookie Monster not picky)

• Chocolate chips

Decorating Method

1. Cover cupcakes in blue icing.

2. Sprinkle dessicated coconuts over the cupcakes.

3. Pipe out two balls of white icing.

4. Using chocloate chips with flat surface up, put each chip on each ball for the eyes.

5. Make a cut for the mouth, and wedge a cookie inside.

For the dessicated coconut, mix a few drops of food color into a tablespoon or so liqueur, toss with the coconut to thoroughly coat, then spread the coconut out on wax paper to air dry for a couple hours.  To make the coconut better resemble the flocking material that Cookie Monster is made from, pulse the coconut in a food processor until it is the right texture.  You can add the coloring at this time, too.

It might also be helpful to make the eyes ahead of time.  You can pipe the eye shapes on a piece of wax paper (use a baggie with the corner snipped off if you don’t have a pastry bag), then place the chocolate chips and allow to air dry for a  couple hours.  Then you can glue them on if necessary with some extra icing.  Wipe away a bit of the coconut so you can get better adhesion.

- Derrick Snyder

Frozen grapes?  Yes.  Take grapes.  Freeze them.  You’re welcome.

Grapes are a good idea to begin with, and freezing transforms them.  You can just eat them as a snack, or you can drop them in white wine, and they will cool your wine without watering it down.  If it’s your birthday, you can chop some grapes and throw them in a glass of champagne, for instance.

Other frozen fruit good for snacking include blueberries, cherries (pitted, of course), and slices of mango.  Personally, I would freeze fresh fruit myself, rather than using prepared frozen fruit from a bag.  You’ll definitely have more control over the quality and presentation that way.

While we’re on the subject, here’s a recipe for One-Ingredient Ice Cream at The Kitchn.  Okay, I’ll spill the beans: it’s bananas.  You can make it in your food processor, just as soon as your bananas are frozen.  So throw some in the freezer right now, so you can try it!  As it turns out, bananas contain a small amount of fat, which makes them turn creamy when blended, instead of crumbly.

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Cupcakes

Apparently, cupcakes are suddenly a big thing.  I guess I missed that.  But these new cupcakes are a bit different from the ones Mom made, in that the icing decorations are completely out of control.  It’s almost like eating a Van Gogh.

That’s a tray of cupcakes, not meant for hanging.

Here are some safari cupcakes:

Ice cream sundae cup cakes:

Agatha Christie cupcakes:

Hamburger cupcakes:

For examples of lots more jazzy cupcakes, a good place to visit is Cupcakes Take the Cake.  They are crazy about cupcakes over there.

- Derrick Snyder

I’ve found a recipe for “Mendenhall Sourdough Gingerbread” at several different recipe sites, but I haven’t been able to find out where it originated.  One person suggests they found the recipe during a cruise to Alaska, but that post is several years old.  I suspect this recipe comes from a local restaurant or lodge.  Mendenhall, of course, is the name of the famous glacier here in Juneau.  It was named after Thomas Corwin Mendenhall, who was head of the survey department that defined the national boundary between Alaska and Canada.  You might think that’s not too big a reason to go naming a glacier after someone, and I’d have to agree.  But before that, the glacier was known as Aak’wtaaksit, which caused some problems.  Aak’wtaaksit is a perfectly fine Tlinget term that means “The Glacier Behind the Little Lake”, but if you don’t speak Tlinget, it’s a showstopper.

Tourist:  “My, but that’s a lovely glacier over there.  What’s it called?”

Helpful Local:  “Aak’wtaaksit.”

Tourist:  ??

Variations of this conversation played out almost continuously.  So they tried renaming it Sitaantaagu, which was a little easier, but not by much.  John Muir heard about the problem and flew up just to mediate and calm things down.  He renamed it Auke Glacier, after the local clan, which was a happy solution.  However, after he left, some bureaucratic sourpusses renamed it again after some survey department pencil pusher, and now we’re stuck with it.

Mendenhall Glacier

You might be wondering, “What does all of this have to do with cooking?”  To which I will answer, “I don’t know.”  Thomas Corwin Mendenhall was probably a decent fellow, but I doubt his relationship to the glacier was strong enough to justify naming the thing after him.   In a similar vein, what does Mendenhall Sourdough Gingerbread actually have to do with either the glacier or Thomas Corwin?  If the recipe was actually invented on the glacier, while traversing its fissures, that would be sufficient cause, but otherwise, I think it’s a bit of a stretch.

Regardless of the name of the recipe, or its murky origins, I think it has potential.

Mendenhall Sourdough Gingerbread Recipe

SERVES 6 -8

* 1 cup sourdough starter

* 1/2 cup hot water

* 1/2 cup molasses

* 1/2 teaspoon salt

* 1 teaspoon baking soda

* 1/2 cup brown sugar, firmly packed

* 1 large egg

* 1 1/2 cups unbleached flour

* 1 teaspoon ginger

* 1 teaspoon cinnamon

* 1/2 cup butter, or shortening

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees F.

2. Cream together the brown sugar and shortening.

3. Then add molasses and egg, beating continuously; set aside

4. In a separate bowl, sift dry ingredients together and blend into hot water.

5. Then beat this mixture into creamed mixture.

6. As the last step, add the sourdough starter slowly, mixing carefully to maintain a bubbly batter.

7. Pour into lightly buttered and floured 8″x8″ baking pan and bake at 375 degrees F for about 30 minutes or until done.

8. Best served with ice cream or whipped cream while still hot.

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Here’s the thing, though:  gingerbread is great, but what’s better is gingerbread made with fresh ginger, rather than dried.  Also, cinnamon is a nice touch, but what’s better is pumpkin pie spice, which has cinnamon and ginger, plus nutmeg, cloves and allspice.  And if you really like ginger, throw in some chopped crystallized ginger; that will give it a bit of a bite.  So here’s a modified version…and I rolled back the name as well.

Aak’wtaaksit Sourdough Gingerbread Recipe

SERVES 6 -8

* 1 cup sourdough starter

* 1/2 cup hot water

* 1/2 cup molasses

* 1/2 teaspoon salt

* 1 teaspoon baking soda

* 1/2 cup brown sugar, firmly packed

* 1 large egg

* 1 1/2 cups unbleached flour

* 1 tablespoon grated fresh ginger

* 3 tablespoons chopped crystallized ginger (optional)

* 1 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice

* 1/2 cup butter, or shortening

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees F.

2. Cream together the brown sugar and shortening.

3. Then add molasses and egg, beating continuously; set aside

4. In a separate bowl, sift dry ingredients together and blend into hot water.

5. Then beat this mixture into creamed mixture.

6. As the last step, add the ginger, crystallized ginger and sourdough starter, mixing carefully to maintain a bubbly batter.

7. Pour into lightly buttered and floured 8″x8″ baking pan and bake at 375 degrees F for about 30 minutes or until done.

Best served with ice cream or whipped cream while still hot.

- Derrick Snyder

Sourdough is a part of Alaska’s history; it was brought up during the Klondike gold rush.  That was around 1897.  Then the gold rush continued, spreading down the mighty Yukon and up its various tributaries, through Fairbanks and into Nome and down onto the Kenai.  Shoot, people still prospect all over.  If you travel in the interior, you can encounter old gold rush tailings that stretch on for miles; you can tell because the topsoil is gone, and the bush is sparse.

An active sourdough starter.

Anyway, 40,000 miners hot with gold fever spilled into the wilderness, and things got a bit chaotic.  These Sourdoughs (as they were called) happened to be pretty rugged sons-of-guns.  They had to pack all their equipment in, much of the way by foot, hundreds of pounds of gear and food, and they had to make several trips to do it.  And once things got settled down, they had to deal with brown bears, large, aggressive mosquitos (and no DEET), and -40ºF five-month winters.

One common solution to cut down on the weight of equipment was to pack only compact, essential food.  They weren’t carrying along much in the way of chips and soda pop.  The common strategy was to take in flour and sugar for carbohydrates, bacon and coffee, and then to hunt game to provide themselves with meat.

Enter sourdough.  By keeping a bit of sourdough starter alive, they were able to make pancakes and biscuits over a campfire, and even to make bread inside a dutch oven.  Without sourdough, they were reduced to eating a sort of solid, unleavened hardtack, or else flour porridge.  Nothing is going to tick off a camp crew faster than flour porridge (again) after 12 hours of placer mining.  A camp cook could get himself keelhauled for less.  That’s why they guarded their starter so carefully.

"Well, it sure beats flour porridge!"

Sourdough is a culture of wild yeasts and bacteria.  You can make it yourself by mixing a cup of flour with a cup of water and letting it sit on the counter for a few days.  Naturally-occuring yeast in the flour will start the fermentation.  If you’re making a starter like this from scratch, it’s a good idea to add a teaspoon of active, macrobiotic yogurt.  That adds lactobacillus, which is what you want, because it produces acid, which will give your baked goods that slightly tangy sourdough flavor.  You might think the flour and water would mold, but once the yeast gets going, it produces by-products that inhibit other microbes.  Some bacteria, however, such as lactobacillus, feed off those by-products just fine.  A sourdough starter can have literally hundreds of different strains of fungi (yeasts and molds are fungi) and bacteria.  Different starters have different characteristics.  Some work faster than others and give a better rise, and different starters impart different flavors to finished goods.

Here at Chez Alaska, we offer a sourdough starter for sale that has a history/pedigree stretching back to the Klondike gold rush.  This starter has been passed down from person to person.  We offer it inn a dehydrated form, and you can reconstitute it at home and be up and baking in a few days.  And you can keep it going forever, just make sure to leave a little bit when you make bread, and add more flour and water.

- Derrick Snyder

Just a quick tip:  If you store potatoes and onions together, they each will produce a gas that spoils the other.  That’s what you call a lose-lose situation.  If you wonder why your onions seem to spoil so quickly, or your potatoes get soft so quickly, this might be the problem.

Both are still alive, of course, and need to be kept cool and dry, but they also need a bit of ventilation.  If you store them in an airtight container, any spoilage that does develop will turn into a pandemic.

While we’re on the subject of tips, as concerns avocados:  leave them out on the counter to ripen, but when they are ripe, if you aren’t going to use them right away, move them into the refrigerator.  Once they chill down, the ripening process essentially stops, and they can hold for many days refrigerated.

How to keep cilantro alive, and keep it from turning into the Swamp Thing:  if you stick room temperature cilantro in a plastic bag and put it in the refrigerator, it gives off moisture as it cools down, which can quickly cause it to spoil.  On the other hand, if you just throw it in the refrigerator uncovered, it will wilt.  Cilantro is alive and needs to breathe, and it needs to be very slightly moist, but not very much.  In this, it is like all other herbs, but more so.

Wash it first.  Don’t hold it under the running faucet, that will bruise it.  Instead, fill a deep container with cold water, and throw the whole bunch in there to soak.  Swish it around back and forth to get rid of any dirt.  If it’s muddy, you may have to keep changing the water and do this several times.  Let it sit in the cold water for 10 minutes or so, to allow it to drink as much water as it likes.

Then dry it.  Take the bunch out and shake the water out, then when it’s no longer dripping, lay it on some paper towels and roll it up in two or three layers of paper.  Wrap this lightly in plastic wrap, but leave the ends open, then stick this in the refrigerator.

- Derrick Snyder

I whipped up something I think is pretty great yesterday, and I’d like to share it with you.  I like foccacia because I’m lazy and it’s easy.  Anytime the food can do the work itself, that’s great for me.  In this recipe I use a pre-ferment, where I mix the liquid with the yeast and a little bit of flour ahead of time, and let it bubble and work for a half day.  This is by no means necessary for foccacia or any bread, but I find it increases the loft.  By allowing the yeast time to be fruitful and multiply, by the time you add the rest of the ingredients and actually make the dough, there’s a lot more yeast cells in the dough mass.  The pre-ferment is kind of like a sourdough starter, but more powerful.

Blue cheese mellows a lot when it’s cooked, so even if you use the full amount here, it’s not going to be overpowering.  I used ale instead of water, plus part whole wheat and rye flours to lend a deeper, more rustic flavor.  The whole grain flours tend to produce a denser product, which I like, but if you prefer, you can use water instead of beer, and use all white bread flour.  I use unbleached bread flour because this contains the most gluten, and produces a better rise.  Bread flour yields a better loft than all-purpose flour, and unbleached bread flour better yet…chemical bleaching alters some of the gluten in bleached flour.

Toast the walnuts lightly.  I think you should always toast nuts before using, even when they are going in baked goods.  Just be careful not to thoroughly toast them…walnuts especially can get bitter.

Blue cheese and walnuts are a classic combo.  Two great modern bread gurus offer recipes for blue cheese and walnut bread, Jeffrey Hamelman in Bread: A Baker’s Book of Techniques and Recipes, and Peter Reinhart in The Bread Baker’s Apprentice.

Blue Cheese-Walnut Foccacia 450ºF

Pre-ferment:
1&3/4 c. unbleached bread flour
1 c. ale or beer (I used Alaskan Amber)
2 tsp. sugar
1 pack active dry yeast

Dough:
1&1/4 c. unbleached bread flour
3/8 c. whole wheat flour
3/8 c. rye flour
1/4 c. water
1&1/2 tsp. salt
1 Tb. olive oil
all of the pre-ferment
1 c. crumbled blue cheese
1 c. walnuts, lightly toasted, chopped

Stir together the pre-ferment ingredients the night before you’re going to bake the foccacia.  If you briefly warm the beer up to 115ºF (I nuked it), it will activate the yeast much more quickly, and you can see it start to bubble before you go to bed.  I sleep more soundly knowing there are microorganisms growing in my kitchen.  Cover the bowl with plastic and let it hang out on the countertop all night…for about twelve hours or so.  Let it work for days if you like, but you’ll need to add more sugar every 24 hours.

Mix everything together in a big bowl, and then knead a few times, adding a little flour if necessary to make a nice dough ball.  I just knead it in the bowl, because I hate to make a giant flour mess.  If I turn dough out onto the countertop and knead the heck out of it, I get flour all over the counter, on the floor, on my clothes, and then later I find sticky dough on my glasses, cupboard handles, the cat, etc.  Okay, I don’t have a cat, and you shouldn’t pet your cat when you’re making bread, but you know what I mean.

Form the dough kinto a nice ball.  Wash the bowl, dry it, pour in a little olive oil, coat the dough and then cover with plastic.  Let rise for an hour.

Oil a 12”x18” sheet pan.  Stretch out dough to evenly cover entire pan.  If it keeps springing back from the corners, let it relax for a couple mintes, then try again.  Hey, if the dough never makes it to the corners, no big whoop.

Then hold your hands like Boris Karloff when he played the Frankenstein monster.  Frankenstein was the mad scientist.  Well, he wasn’t pleased.  They didn’t really mention what the Frankenstein monster’s name was, but I think it was Jim.  So hold your fingers like Jim, and then stipple the top of the foccacia in a random fashion.  Then let it sit on the counter for another hour, uncovered.

After an hour, again using your fingers, re-stipple.  Then drizzle some olive oil over, so that a little bit pools in the depressions.  Bake at 450ºF for 12-15 minutes, or until nicely browned.  Remove from oven and immediately brush with more olive oil.  Allow to cool.

Now, what to do with it…

Roast a couple heads of garlic, then squeeze out the garlic and mash with a little olive oil (and maybe some finely minced thyme).  Use as a dip.

Crush some fresh garlic and mix with mayonnaise.  Use as a dip.

Start with the garlic mayo and add minced oil-cured or kalamata olives and/or some minced preserved lemon.

Tapenade:  1/2 c kalamata olives, 1/2 c sundried tomatoes in oil, 3-4 cloves garlic, 3-4 Tb. fresh thyme, rosemary or oregano, 1/2 tsp fresh cracked pepper, 1/2 tsp crushed red chile flakes, 1/2 c. olive oil, 2-5 anchovies.  Puree all this together.

The night before making the foccacia, when you make the pre-ferment, marinate some tri-tip or other nice steak such as rib-eye in (roughly) 1/2 c. red wine, 1 Tb. soy sauce, 1 Tb. dijon, 1 Tb. crushed garlic, 3 Tb. minced rosemary, black pepper and salt to taste.  The next day, remove the meat and pat dry with paper towels.  Re-season with salt and pepper, then sear the meat on all sides in a little smoking hot oil.  Remove to a plate when still rare, and let cool entirely…for like an hour.  Slice meat across the grain into thin strips.  Reserve.

Thinly slice a couple onions, and slowly sauté in olive oil until they are caramelized.  Reserve.

Split pieces of foccacia and toast them, slather with a bit of garlic mayo and pile on some sliced rare tri-tip and some caramelized onions.  Add some tomato, lettuce and bacon if you like, but that’s just gilding the lily at this point…  You can also make these into open-faced canapes, and serve with red wine.

- Derrick Snyder

After posting pictures of a gigantic burger and a super cookie concoction, I think it’s important to show a picture of this:

Medieval Torture Devices

This place is called a “gym”.  The objects therein are machines and contraptions designed to exercise a human body, yielding benefits to said body such as increased attractiveness to potential mates, longevity and various states of well-being.  Also, you get to OCCASIONALLY nom on an outrageous burger or chocolate thing.

And so that means as far as eating such heroic food all the time goes:  do not try this at home.  That’s a disclaimer, to absolve Chez Alaska of any culpability if the dial on your scale starts to spin so fast it makes your feet hot.  Chez Alaska councils moderation in all things, and doesn’t want to pay for liposuctions.  We aren’t Fortune 500, but our lawyers can “bring it“.

Maybe if I had personally been trained more in the healthier, boring side of the culinary landscape, I would be offering recipe suggestions involving tofu, wheat germ and library paste.  But unfortunately I was born under punches, line-cooking in restaurants where the working principle was ‘get people addicted to your food’ or perish.  So please forgive when I stop to direct your attention (frequently) to some outlandish creations!

Here’s a picture of an interesting place:

The Anti-Gym

This is Jerry’s Donuts and Burgers, a cafe in Anchorage on Airport Intl.  I used to drive by this place every day on my way to work.  I heard good things about the burgers and the donuts, but I’m sure all the EMT drivers know the route by heart.  I could never work up the courage to go in!

- Derrick Snyder

I guess the name says it all.  Please click for bigger picture to better imagine how this would taste.

From Food Porn Daily, a site which, despite it’s risqué name, is quite safe for work, unless you work with, say, a tribe of obsessive, raving chocolaholics.  “If the casserole is missionary style, FPD takes its devotees into the foodie kama sutra.”  Unfortunately, the recipe is not readily available.  However, if you’re inspired, and you’re game, we can wing it like this:

Double Chocolate Chip Macadamia Nut Cookies

1 bag (12 oz.) 60% cacao bittersweet chocolate chips
6 Tbsp. unsalted butter
3 eggs
1 c. sugar
1/3 c. all-purpose flour
1/2 tsp. baking powder
1 bag (12 oz.) semi-sweet chocolate chips
1 cup macadamia nuts, toasted, very roughly chopped

1. In a double boiler over hot water, melt bittersweet chocolate and butter, stirring occasionally until blended.  Remove from heat.
2. In large bowl of electric mixer, beat eggs and sugar until thick and pale in color.
3. In a separate bowl, combine flour and baking powder.
4. Slowly, stir warm chocolate mixture into egg mixture, then add flour mixture.
5. Stir in semi-sweet chocolate pieces and nuts.  Mixture will thicken as it cools a bit.
6. Measure out two long pieces of plastic wrap — about12-14 inches.
7. Pour half of the cookie batter onto each piece of plastic, forming a “log” about 2″ wide and 10″ long down the center.
8. Pick up long sides of the plastic wrap to sort of cradle the cookie batter.  Then begin to create a snug roll with ends wrapped securely.  Place both in the refrigerator for at least 1 hour.

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

1. Unwrap dough and with a sharp knife, but rolls into 3/4″ pieces.
2. Place about 1-1/2″ apart on a greased or lined cookie sheet.
3. Bake 12-14 minutes or until shiny crust forms on top, but interior is still soft.
4. Cool to room temp, then seal in a bag and place in the refrigerator.

Sweet Java Buttercream Icing

The base is the classic Wilton buttercream recipe, modified:

1 c. unsalted butter or solid vegetable shortening

1-2 tsp. cream or half & half

4 Tbsp. strong, brewed espresso (or 1 Tbsp. instant espresso + 3 Tbsp. water)

1 lb. confectioner’s sugar (~4 cups)

1 Tbsp. meringue powder (optional)

1/2 tsp. salt, to taste

Cream first three ingredients with a mixer. Add dry ingredients to creamed ingredients. Blend until smooth. Blend an additional minute.

To thin icing to make it spreadable, add cream.

By the way, meringue powder is not cream of tartar.  It’s made of dried egg whites, sugar and vegetable gum.  Recipes that call for meringue powder usually do so because of the growing fear of consuming raw eggs, as dried egg whites are pasteurized.  Seeing as how this product is hard to find, the best substitute is actual meringue, made by whipping an egg white with a tiny pinch of cream of tartar and a pinch of sugar…but for the purposes of this recipe, I’d just leave it out.

Link

- Derrick Snyder

Okay, I don’t want to kid anyone; I’m as much a burger fan as the next person.  What I’m trying to say is that I admit to enjoying a burger every now and then.  That being said, I find this burger to be a nice example.  Now, it’s obviously excessive, and I wouldn’t under any circumstances recommend anyone actually eat the thing…

This is called The Hickory Rancher:   1/2 pound beef patty, muenster cheese, 7 pieces of maple bacon, sauteed onions and a housemade honey hickory BBQ sauce on a kaiser roll.  It’s from The Lunchbox Laboratory in Ballard, Washington.  The Food Network ranked them as having the number one burger in Washington state.  You can see more very worthwhile pictures of their sandwiches here on Flickr.

I’d suggest you fast for a couple of days before visiting The Lunchbox Laboratory, and then clear your schedule for the rest of the day…and the day after that, because obviously you’re going to be holed up in your hotel room while your body undergoes metamorphosis.

Next time I travel to the lower 48, this place is on my list.

- Derrick Snyder

Smoked Onion Rings from Cowgirl's Country Life

Here are some onion rings made from smoked onions.  What a great idea!  You can find the recipe here.

Years ago I met a chef who told me one of his specialties was fresh spring rolls, the type that are made in Thailand and Southeast Asia.  Oh, yes, I told him, I’m familiar with those.  I asked if he used chicken or shrimp.  Neither, he said; he used smoked duck.  He said it lent interest to a traditional dish, and he smoked his own duck in-house just for that menu item.  Since that time, I’ve smoked all sorts of foods.

I’ve had a stovetop smoker for two years now, and I think it’s terrific.  It allows me to put smoked flavor into foods quickly, without a lot of trouble.  You can’t use it to make decent smoked salmon or any other sort of product that is properly smoked-dried, because it smokes foods with hot smoke rather than cold smoke.

The standard electric outdoor smokers used to smoke salmon operate at a low temperature.  There’s just a little hotplate in the bottom where you set a pan of wood chips, which smoulder just enough to produce smoke.  That smoke isn’t hot enough to boil water, so it takes hours to smoke-cook foods.  Great smoked salmon can take eight to twelve hours to finish cooking, by which time it’s partially-dried and firm, and has acquired a huge amount of smoke flavor.

Conversely, a stovetop smoker is much hotter, and cooks foods much more quickly, because the smoke box is smaller and the food is closer to the heat source.  The same piece of fish that takes twelve hours to smoke in an outdoor smoker will be fully-cooked in an hour or less using an indoor smoker.

On the other hand, a stovetop smoker still isn’t hot enough to cook most meats.  The best technique for meats and poultry is to partially smoke-cook them in the smoker to begin with, for, say, 20-40 minutes, then finish them by baking, frying or grilling.  This sort of technique isn’t useful for barbecue purists, but so what?  It still produces great food.

A stovetop smoker can steam as it smokes, if you soak the wood chips, producing products that are less dry.  Also, it allows you to infuse foods with authentic woodsmoke of whatever variety of wood you choose, versus using liquid smoke, which is usually made from hickory.  Different woods impart different flavors, so you can use hickory for pork, oak for beef, mesquite for lamb, alder for salmon, apple for shrimp, cherry for chicken, and green tea for duck.

There are tons of other foods worth smoking, including cheeses, nuts, vegetables and starches.  If you buy a stovetop smoker, it’s a good idea to buy a recipe book along with it.  There are a couple of books now available specific to this appliance, and they’re full of ideas.

Here are the five most popular brands sold in the US:

Camerons  $40-60  15”x11”x3”

This is the best-selling brand on the market.  It’s stainless steel, and solidly constructed.  It can warp under prolonged exposure to high heat, but under normal use (even daily) this isn’t a problem.  This type of smoker only has about 2” of head room, so if you want to smoke a whole chicken or roast, you need to fashion a temporary lid out of foil.

Max Burton ~$30-40

This is a cheaper version of the Camerons-style smoker.  Strangely, there’s not a lot of information to be found about this brand, even on the manufacturer’s (Athena) website.

Nordic Ware ~$60-100  13” diameter

This smoker is enamel-coated, and has lots of head room.  This is the only model of the five that will cook a chicken or roast.  The big advantage is that this brand has an installed thermometer.

Emerilware $100  22”x10”x5”

This smoker is made by All-Clad, and it’s cast iron.  It sure won’t warp under heat.  It’s called a 4-in-1 because it can be used as a smoker, grill, roaster and fryer.  But realisticly, once you start using it as a smoker, it will soon become unuseable for other purposes.  As with all cast iron cookware, it should be seasoned to prevent rust, but burning wood on the floor of the smoker will remove the seasoning.  This brand is expensive (Emeril has to get paid, after all), but it gets consistently good reviews.

Demeyere Resto ~$68-160  11” diameter

Another round smoker, this time based on a deep skillet design.  It is smaller, shallower and more expensive than the round Nordic Ware smoker.  It’s well-constructed of 3-layer stainless, so it’s warp-proof and oven-proof.  This is a Belgian company known for quality cookware, which may explain the price.

When using a stovetop smoker, it’s important to provide ventilation.  Ordinarily, the range fan should be adequate, though when you open up the smoker at the end, a ball of smoke might roll out.  If you turn off the stove and let it cool for a couple of minutes, this helps a lot.  Also important, you don’t want to smoke on high heat.  You should put the smoker on high heat to begin with, but as soon as a wisp of smoke starts to come out, you should bank it down to medium-low, and then monitor it every few minutes so that only a tiny bit of smoke comes out.  That way the smoke chips will last for 40 minutes or more.  If you try to smoke on high heat, the smoker will put out a lot of smoke at once, and it will overwhelm the kitchen fan and smoke up your house.

- Derrick Snyder