It adds to and enhances the flavor, of course, but it also helps the fish to retain moisture during the smoking process. Cover and refrigerate while brining - a minimum of four hours.īrining the bluefish is important. Pour over the bluefish to cover in a shallow pan and add the bay leaves, mustard seed, and peppercorns. Add the salt and sugar and stir or shake to dissolve completely. You can make as much as you’ll need to completely cover the fish - I usually make it by the quart:Ĭombine the water and soy sauce. He said that during the off-season he would welcome contact via his website,, from anybody interested in purchasing his products.Start by making a brine. Slovak winters in Manhasset, he spends most of his time from May to Columbus Day on his boat in Montauk, traveling daily between that hamlet and Southampton to get the products ready for the weekend farmers markets. Slovak and his wife were on a sport fishing trip in Florida, whenever the captain saw fish breaking the water surface, he would shout "Fins!" From those two sources, a brand name was born. The Finnish are considered masters of the art of smoking fish, and their methods have influenced practitioners the world over. In addition to its original mahi-mahi dip, Finn's offers a Cajun version that uses a blackened blend of three peppers.įinn's is not a family name.
Mahi-mahi and other Gulf Coast fish are smoked over live oak and Florida citrus embers. He is also part of the East End Food Institute's virtual farmers market, which operates year-round, but the holiday season, during which he offered home delivery, exhausted his inventory.Īmong the many varieties of fish he has processed are mahi-mahi, bluefish, Spanish mackerel, salmon, cod, wahoo, cobia, and amberjack, depending on what's running when. "We're going to try to reset some of that this year," he said, adding that he planned to be in Sag Harbor, Montauk, and East Hampton on the South Fork, as well as elsewhere on Long Island. In March, he had plans to expand his reach, but the pandemic made that difficult. He decided to sell instead through farmers markets, which last year included those in Montauk, Westhampton, and East Hampton. I said I could only give them one." A deal was made, but while doing a store check in one of the accounts he discovered that the sell-by date had been changed. He originally envisioned Finn's Smoked Fish as a retail brand and placed the dips with several gourmet chains on Long Island, all of which wanted him to add preservatives to make the product shelf-stable. As the business has grown he has turned the actual fishing over to his suppliers. Petersburg on the Gulf, and one on Coney Island, so that, depending on where the fish are caught, they can be smoked dockside. In order to have the freshest fish possible, he works with three H.A.C.C.P.-certified smokehouses, one in Stuart on Florida's East Coast, one in St. The freshness and sustainability of his product is paramount. Then the institute's kitchen, where the dips are made, had to be similarly certified for fish processing.
(Hazard Analysis and Critical Control) certified, which he did by taking a course at Stony Brook University. When he approached the Amagansett Food Institute, now the East End Food Institute in Southampton, he was informed that he had to be H.A.C.C.P. "I didn't realize how much learning there was," he said.
The shift to making it a business - Finn's Smoked Fish - happened in 2017. "I got a liking for the product."Īfter marriage, children, and corporate life, he resumed smoking fish as a hobby a few years ago and began to give his smoked fish dips to friends and family.
#SMOKED BLUEFISH DIP HOW TO#
"He taught me how to smoke bluefish and everything else we would catch," he said. Slovak went fishing with his father on Long Island Sound. Paul Slovak had a career in advertising, but a passion for fish, especially smoked fish, has been in his blood since childhood.
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