Smoked fish online: what we make in Los Angeles and ship across the US

Smoke It Fish is a small smokehouse in Los Angeles, at 2311 9th Ave. Two of us run it, Denis and Misha, both from Sakhalin Island. We smoke salmon, mackerel and halibut over real wood, we dry smelt, flounder and squid the way it is done back home, and every order goes out across the United States in a cold box with gel packs. The full list is in the catalog. The rest of this page is a walk through it, for anyone who searched for smoked fish and wants to see what is on the table before buying.

Kinds of smoked fish we make

Everything below is smoked in our own smokehouse, in small batches, over wood chips. The ingredient list is short: fish, salt, spices. No preservatives, no dyes, no gluten.

Cold smoked salmon. Tanned Nova-Lox is boned by hand, air-dried for six hours under a fan, cured for 24 hours and smoked over alder and applewood. Smoky Velvet is the belly cut, chosen for visible marbling and slow-smoked at low temperature. Take it out of the fridge 20 minutes before you slice it, and slice thinner than you think you should.

Smoked mackerel (skumbria). Mackerel Melt is a fillet, trimmed and pin-boned, lightly cured and smoked low and slow. It flakes into thick chunks. Rye bread, mustard and a cold beer is the usual way to eat it.

Smoked halibut straws. Haliwood Straws are California halibut cut by hand into boneless strips, rubbed with paprika and mild spices and smoked over alder and applewood. Lightly salted, made for beer.

BBQ smoked squid. We make three dried squids from the same cut, and BBQ Squid is the only one that goes through the smoker. It is marinated sweet and savoury, smoked over wood, then dried until the edges caramelise.

Smoked roe. Rainbow Pearls is roe from Danish farmed rainbow trout, cold-smoked over beechwood, medium-sized pearls. Next to it in the catalog sits Golden Pearls, wild keta salmon roe, lightly salted and unsmoked, the one to use for ikura.

Dried fish, if that is what you were looking for

Many people who search for smoked fish are after something dried and salted, sold by the piece next to the beer. We make that too.

Koryushka (dried smelt). Smelt is the fish we grew up catching through the ice on Sakhalin. Lightly salted, air-dried for six days, eaten whole with the head and bones. About eight fish to a 5.5 oz pack.

Dried flounder (kambala). Flounder is wild-caught in the cold Atlantic off Massachusetts, salted and air-dried slowly. The flesh peels away in flat translucent strips along the grain. Milder than squid and less salty than most dried fish.

Trout jerky. Steelhead trout, deboned by hand and dried for 24 hours. Salty Bites is the plain version with sea salt. Candy Bites is rolled in farmer's honey before drying, so the honey turns into a glaze. Both are boneless.

Dried squid. Salty Squid is squid and salt, cut into thin even strips and dried slowly over days. Spicy Squid is the same strips with red pepper, and the heat comes in after the savoury part. Thirty seconds in a dry pan wakes either of them up.

Smoked fish delivery: how it ships

Every order leaves Los Angeles in an insulated box with gel packs. The target inside the box is 32 to 39°F, fridge temperature, for the whole trip. Smoked and dried fish are vacuum-sealed before they go in.

Vacuum-sealed smoked fish keeps three weeks in the fridge and dried fish keeps one to three months. The cold box is there to cover the days between our fridge and yours.

We ship to every state. Transit times and shipping cost depend on where you are and on the carrier, so we keep the current numbers on the shipping and pickup page and update them there. When the box arrives, put the packs in the fridge.

Smoked fish near me: pickup in Los Angeles

If you are in Los Angeles, you can skip the box altogether. Order online, choose pickup at checkout, and collect it at 2311 9th Ave, Monday to Friday, 10 am to 6 pm. It is a working smokehouse, so you will smell it before you see the door.

How to store smoked fish

Unopened and vacuum-sealed, smoked fish keeps about three weeks in the fridge. Once you open the pack, eat it within three to five days. Dried fish, smelt or flounder or squid, keeps one to three months. Anything you will not get to in time goes in the freezer at 0°F for up to two months; thaw it in the fridge. The longer version, with what to look for when a piece has turned, is in how long smoked fish lasts.

Real wood, never liquid smoke

A lot of the smoked fish on supermarket shelves is flavoured with liquid smoke: condensed smoke brushed on the surface or added to the brine. Ours goes into a smoker with wood chips. Alder for salmon and trout, applewood for the fattier cuts, hickory for pork, beechwood for trout roe. The difference shows in the colour, uneven on fish that met real smoke, and in the smell when you open the pack. How to tell the two apart at the store is in real smoke vs liquid smoke.

Buy smoked fish online as a set

For a first order, the sets cover the usual cases. A Little Bit of Everything is 1.5 lb, one of each, for one or two people to find out what they like. Good Evening Set is 2.6 lb for three or four people around a table. For A Big Company is 4 lb and feeds ten.

Two people, one smokehouse, an ingredient list you can read aloud. The longer version, from Sakhalin to 9th Ave, is on the story page.