Smokinlicious® Smoking Wood Tips

Our Fresh Herbs smoked and Iced ready to bring great flavors to our winter soups!

HERBS SMOKED AND ICED MAKE THE PERFECT WINTER FLAVOR CUBE

#smokinlicious

Here’s the perfect way to keep great flavors on hand for when you need them. I’m going to show you how to make smoked herb flavor cubes which consist of our previously smoked fresh herbs and, in my case, bone broth. Whether you smoke all the components of these flavorful cubes or not is up to you. I happen to like the combination of smoked bone broth and smoked herbs for some of my soups, sauces, and glazes. These are the perfect little flavor gems for all your recipes and the prefrozen cubes make adding so simple.

Herbs Smoked & Iced- Tools

#flavorcubes

Here is all you need to make these flavorful cubes . Silicone ice cube trays, your choice of herbs and spices, as well as broth or stock. It will take about one quart of broth to make 40 flavor cubes.

To make portioning the cubes a snap, I use a measuring cup for the liquid. As I previously smoked my herbs and placed them in spice jars, I can portion out the herbs directly from the jars. Today, I’m using smoked parsley and oregano dust for infused broth cubes. These are two of my more popular blends for sauces, soups, and extra flavor to vegetables. Be sure your broth or stock is well strained before adding to the cube trays.

Tasting Notes: Don’t forget about fruits as well. These make perfect flavor cubes and can be cold smoked using a handheld food smoker .

Herbs Smoked & Iced- 1-2-3 And Done!

The best part of making flavor cubes is the freezer does most of the work. I simply place previously smoked herbs of my choice into the bottom of the silicone tray compartments and pour in the broth. I like to put my cube trays on mini sheet pans for easy placement and removal from the freezer. Just be sure to label the trays so when you go to un-mold, everything will be easy to identify. That’s it! How easy is that??

Tasting Notes: You do not have to use silicone cube trays but I prefer these to metal or plastic. I find they don’t taint the flavor of the cubes and they are extremely easy to release.

A New Umami

#smokedherbs

After adding smoked herbs to silicone ice trays and pouring in smoked bone broth, these flavor cubes just take hours of freezer time to set and then they are ready for use. I like to un-mold mine and place in storage bags that allow me to reach in, grab what I need, and reseal the rest. The depth of flavor these little cubes add to soup and sauces, whether for meats and poultry or vegetables, is fabulous.

Don’t forget to experiment with a variety of tastes and don’t feel you are restricted to just one herb or spice per cube. Make flavor blends like Indian flavor cubes with curry, ginger, allspice, and cumin. Or an Italian blend with oregano, basil, marjoram, thyme and rosemary. Or, combine fruit and spices for cocktail-like blends. There are no rules to the combinations you can use so find the flavors you love and flavor cube away!

SmokinLicious® products used in this blog:

Wood Chunks- Double & Single Filet

Wood Chips- Minuto & Piccolo

More of our blog writings other than -Herbs smoked and iced #flavorcubes . follow us weekly as we update our blogs

Related reading:

-SMOKED HERBS FLAVORS WITH SMOKED HERB DUST

-STOVE TOP SMOKED CHIVES

-SMOKED BONE BROTH FOR HEALTH & FLAVOR

Dr. Smoke don’t waste the flavor of fresh herbs this winter. Herbs smoked and iced for winter use brings great flavors all winter long! #smokedherbs

Tom and Chef Burt discuss the Fun Things to Smoke other than Meat!

Fun things to smoke beside Meat! Click To Tweet

We are going beyond the obvious and the traditional when it comes to items that you can smoke. It’s time to up your skills and menu items with the top things you would never think of to smoke.

Keep in mind, we are not just referring to hot smoking. We’re including the quick technique of handheld food smoking as well as stove top smoking in a pan.

Let’s get to it!

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Our preparation of smoked herbs, from picking, smoking and grinding to make smoked herb dust. Adding great flavor to dishes.

SMOKED HERBS FLAVORS WITH SMOKED HERB DUST

Don’t make the mistake of thinking fresh herbs are to be used in dishes as, well, fresh only. Although you may have dried your fresh herb harvest before, we are bringing another alternative to you, smoked herbs.

We hot smoke the fresh herbs on the grill then turn them into a dust for use in all types of dishes. The smoking process will bring a depth of flavor that you’ve likely never experienced before. Go to the herb garden and pick your favorite varieties and let’s get making smoked herb dust!

Smoke Vapor Infusion

One thing about this smoked herb technique is you can do the smoke infusion by a variety of equipment methods.

For those with a gas grill, add wood chunks either directly to the heat shields on one side of the grill or add wood chunks to a metal smoker box that can be placed on the heat shields or the grill grate. For charcoal grill owners, light your charcoal and allow to reduce to hot coals only. Add a piece or two of hardwood chunks or a handful of hardwood chips to the hot coals. If possible, push the hot coals to one side of the grill. For both grill types, you want to use a two-zone cooking method so the herbs don’t catch fire.

For those that don’t own grilling equipment or who simply don’t want to bother lighting up the grill, you can use a handheld food smoker. Simply place micro wood chips in the bowl of the unit, place the herbs in a storage bag with the tubing of the smoker unit, cinch the end of the bag around the tubing, and light the chips. I like to leave the smoke in the bag for maximum smoke vapor infusion.

I used both my gas grill and charcoal grill for the smoke process by placing my herbs in a vegetable basket and grilling with the herbs on the unlit side of the grill. Within the first 5 minutes, you’ll see how the herbs lose moisture and begin the drying stage.

Tasting Notes: I find the handheld food smoker will produce the boldest smoke flavor to the herbs. The intensity of flavor rated from lightest to boldest based on equipment would be a gas grill, electric smoker, pellet smoker, charcoal grill, handheld food smoker.

Grinding Process

Once the herbs have charred and dried, it’s time to remove them from the grill and bring them to the food processor. I have a mini processor that only has two settings: chop and grind. I prefer to use this appliance to bring the smoked herbs to dust level but a spice grinder works just as well.

First, remove all the herb leaves from the stems and place a small quantity in the food processor bowl. You can remove the leaves by placing the entire herb sprig in a colander and pressing the leaves through to parchment paper. Secure the lid and grind until you get as fine a dust as the appliance will allow. Both the appliance and the herb will determine how fine the herb dust will get. As you will see, basil dust becomes finer than oregano. This technique will work for just about any herb you can grow or locate at the market. Store the herb dust in glass or metal jars for up to a year.

Tasting Notes: Smoked herbs are much stronger in flavor than the standard dried herb. Adjust the amount used in recipes as needed. It is often best to start with less, taste, and then add more as needed.

So Many Uses

Experimentation is key when it comes to #herbdust. Most often, herbs will be applied to meats and poultry, perhaps rice and pasta dishes, but there are so many more foods that are good pairings for herb dust. Let’s take parsley as an example. Commonly used with fish and beef, parsley is a great pairing for sweet items as well. This includes banana and cream. It’s important that you look beyond the traditional side dishes and entrees and explore the sweet side of what herbs can offer. By doing so, you’re sure to find endless combinations that will tickle your palate and give you more pleasing menu experiences.

The Culinary Crew wants you to know …

… that the two-zone method is certainly a practice that you will want to master and prioritize in your wood cooking toolkit, especially when grilling and smoking delicate fresh consumables like herbs. Not only will two-zone cooking avoid those acrid tastes associated with flare ups, it will infuse your food items with a nice balance of wood smoke flavoring.

SmokinLicious® products used in this blog:

Wood Chunks- Double & Single Filet

Wood Chips- Minuto & Piccolo

More Related reading on smoked #herbs and other great grillable flavoring idea

Additional reading:

-WHY TWO-ZONE COOKING METHOD LET’S YOU WALK AWAY FROM THE GRILL

-STOVE TOP SMOKED CHIVES

-PAN COOK ZUCCHINI ON THE GRILL WITH WOOD FLAVOR

Dr. Smoke- Our process to prepare the smoked herbs is easily done on our gas grill with our double or single filet wood chunks!