The Smokehouse – It’s a Family Affair

I like getting close to stuff, and there’s nothing like getting the chance to see an amazing (and delicious) family business up close.  I mean really close.  Like walk-away-munching-on-product-kind-of-close.

We had the chance to travel to the Eastern Shore and visit the Krauch family and their smoke house operation in Tangier.  This family isn’t new to smoking things from the sea; they’ve been doing this since Willy Krauch started the business in 1956.  J. Willy Krauch & Sons Ltd.  has seen three generations perfect a very traditional means of preparing fish.  We had the pleasure of meeting Alice, Willy’s daughter, and she took us for a wonderful tour of their facilities.

Willy Krauch smokes several types of seafood on site, in both a hot and cold smoke. The cold method is reserved just for salmon. Salmon, trout, mackerel, and eel all receive the hot smoke treatment. The shop in Tangiers holds all of their processing, smoking and manufacturing.

Let’s use a lovely piece of salmon as an example. The salmon arrives at the smoke house, it’s filleted and cleaned in-house and portioned.  The salmon is then flavoured with pepper spice from another great Nova Scotia business, Mallet’s Maple Pepper.  It is then on to the magic – either a hot or a cold smoke.  Both methods impart their own quality to the meat; a hot smoke lasts a couple of hours, and is prepared over heat. It results in a firmer fish.  A cold smoke takes place over a couple of days, uses indirect heat and usually results in bright pink, thinly sliced salmon pieces.

Hot or cold, Willy Krauch’s goes through a lot of salmon – Alice let us know that in the course of one day, they see close to 300 pounds of salmon!

We had the opportunity to see both smokers in action – both of them use maple.  Maple imparts an amazing flavor, but doesn’t leave a resin-like flavour to the fish that some other woods do.  To get just the right flavour, both wood pieces and sawdust are used – the process is low and slow with lots of flavour.

Keeping in line with the traditional method brought over from Denmark, all of the smokers are tended to by hand, and this is a theme throughout Willy Krauch’s.  The reason for the high quality of the products produced at Willy Krauch’s is that the employees see the product through every piece of its processing – it is constantly under great care and surveillance.  And this attention to detail has not gone unnoticed.  On the walls of their shop are letters from international dignitaries and newspaper articles from around the world attesting to their exceptional quality.

My husband and I were keen to get home and use some of these exceptional ingredients for dinner. We took stock of our loot from Willy Krauch – Alice had generously provided us with several hot smoked salmon pieces (in lemon pepper and maple), delicious salmon jerky, cold smoked salmon, and smoked mackerel (we also picked up a small bag of salmon ends – we had the perfect use for these!!).

We settled on three different salmon dishes: Smoked Salmon and Asparagus Risotto with the lemon pepper salmon,  Seafood Chowder with the salmon pieces and maple hot smoked salmon, and a great traditional breakfast – cold smoked salmon, cream cheese, red onion and capers.  The great thing about all these dishes is that they’re exceptionally easy to make:

For the Risotto
Dice onions and garlic in butter and sautee with asparagus cut into small rounds.  Once those have softened, add your Arborio rice and make sure it’s well coated; deglaze with a bit of Nova Scotian white wine.  Keep adding warmed vegetable broth one ladle at a time and stir until the rice absorbs all the liquid and is close to cooked all the way through.  Then add in the lemon pepper smoked salmon along with some of the lemon pepper seasoning.

Chowder
There’s nothing more Maritime than a chowder – check out the Adventures in Taste Chowder Trail if you need more proof!

This one is incredibly easy to make and has a delicious sweetness.  Start by sweating a diced onion in butter, and add a few chopped celery stalks.  Then add a cup of milk and a cup of cream (and season with salt and pepper).  Add in the salmon pieces and keep a bit of a simmer going. Don’t let the chowder come to a boil. Then add in the maple hot smoked salmon, keep it at a little simmer – then serve. Throw this one together for a quick dinner party – your guests will love it.

Breakfast
One of the best ways to start your day is with something fresh and Willy Krauch’s cold smoked salmon with cream cheese is definitely one of the best ways.  Thinly slice a red onion and let it sit in a little bit of cold water (this takes the super sharpness away from the onion so it can be eaten raw).  Toast a bagel and cover it with cream cheese (I found one made of goat cheese for an extra creaminess).  Fold your smoked salmon on the bagels, add some capers and the red onion and a thinly sliced lemon.

There’s something about getting the opportunity to see things right where they’re produced.  There’s a closeness to what you cook with,  that always makes the dishes taste better.  Having the chance to visit J. Willy Krauch & Sons Ltd. provided me with another opportunity to see some of the great things people are producing in Nova Scotia.

For Willy Krauch, producing quality products is all about respecting a traditional method and keeping it in the family – smokehouse and all!