Ginger tea is great for a sore throat or a relaxing hot drink on a cold winter day but what do you do with ginger in the Summer? I am sure that there are many things but I do not know what they are.  There is something about Sushi and ginger but since this is a site dedicated to fire, I do not think that raw fish will work here.  It turns out that besides ginger's anti-inflamatory and pain killing properties, it also tates great on fish...cooked fish even!

I had a few ounces of ginger root left over from a spring cold and I needed to use it before it went bad (yes, ginger can and will go bad).  Here was my theory: What goes good with ginger in tea? 

You guessed it, Honey!

So I whisked 4 tbsp. of honey in with about 3 tbsp. of the juice that I could squeeze from the ginger root.  Important note: do not try to use a garlic press to extract the juice from pieces of ginger root, it will break your press and you will be bummed.  Instead peel it, shred it with a regular cheese grater then strain the shreds for the juice. 

To the ginger and honey I added 1 tbsp. of Worcestershire sauce for that salty, fishy, meaty flavor that only "W" sauce can add.

I set our Kuma grill to 295° to hot smoke some Salmon from Costco.  There is a very specific reason to set your Kuma grill to 295° for hot smoking.  Any temperature below 300° will cause the grill to automatically run in smoke mode.  In smoke mode, the grill will regulate the speed of the combustion fan to create an abundant amount of smoke even while the grill is at a relatively hot temperature for smoking.  This is important because when you want to eat smoked salmon, you may not want to wait hours and hours while your fish smokes at low temperatures.  Using a hot smoking method, you get the heat of barbecueing with the flavor of a slow smoker.

Once the grill came up to temperature I placed 4 portions (about 4 oz. each) of the fish on the grill and basted it right away with the honey-ginger sauce.  I hot-smoked the salmon for about 1 hour basting in 2 more times with the sauce and took it off the grill at 145° internal temperature.

We ate the salmon with our favorite side dishes of quinoa and grilled squash.  I am no expert in the cooking of fish but this was really tasty. So I heartily recommend that you hunt through the produce section of your grocery store for some fresh ginger root the next time you are cooking salmon.

Ingredients List:

4- 4 ounce portions of fresh salmon
4 Tbsp. of honey
3 ounces of ginger root - peeled, grated and pressed for 3 tbsp. of juice
1 Tbsp of Worcestershire sauce