Chef Roger Mooking from Fire Masters shares his tips on how to use wood chips, the best type of wood chips to use and how to impart smoky flavour into your dishes when smoking food with wood chips.
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Wood chips are exactly what they sound like, he shares, chips of wood! Small chips of hardwoods are best: think maple, hickory, peach and black cherry. Hardwoods will burn and retain heat for longer, making them ideal to cook with. Each will impart its own type of smoke or flavour into your dishes.
For strong, robust flavour, mesquite and hickory woods are ideal. For a robust, but sweet flavour: Fruit and nut woods like lemon are a great option, but he recommends using them sparingly. Roger’s tip: Mix stronger woods with a clean, dry hardwood. If you’re after a more neutral flavour, work with maple, bourbon or certain oaks.
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Be wary of the most common mistake when working with wood chips, Roger suggests: Don’t use too many. You really don’t need a lot to produce a good amount of smoke.
Watch the video above to learn all of Roger’s tips for cooking with wood chips. To improve your grilling chops even further, watch new episodes of Fire Masters, Sundays, at 7PM ET/PT on Food Network Canada. Also Available on STACKTV with Amazon Prime Video Channels, fuboTV, Rogers Ignite TV and Ignite SmartStream.