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Planked Smelts
After cleaning, remove heads and tails of most of the smelts, and sprinkle with salt and pepper. Arrange smelts in the form of a bigger fish on a well-buttered plank, putting together those with heads still on to form head of fish, and enough with tails together to form fish's tail. The headless and tailless smelts make the center. Press all close together. Brush with plenty of melted butter, fasten tight to plank and cook like any other Planked Fish beside hot open fire.
A campfire showpiece: a dozen or more small fish laid out to imitate one large one, then cooked on a board propped in front of the coals. The technique is radiant heat, not contact heat, so the fire and the angle of the plank matter more than any timing.
- The plankUse untreated hardwood at least 3/4 inch thick — oak, maple, or a cedar grilling plank soaked and then dried. Never plywood, pressure-treated lumber, or anything varnished; the fish takes flavor directly from the heated board.
- FasteningThe recipe says only 'fasten tight to plank'; it does not say how. Period planked-fish practice commonly used small nails or tacks driven into the board. Stainless skewers laid crosswise and wired at the edges hold the mosaic together without piercing every fish, and the arrangement must be pressed tight or the shape falls apart as the flesh contracts.
- Fire and distanceBuild a fire down to a deep bed of coals with flame at the back, and set the plank at a steep angle 10 to 14 inches away. Bare flame licking the board scorches the butter before the fish sets.
- TimingSmelts are only finger-thick. Expect 8 to 12 minutes total, turning the plank end for end once so the top and bottom cook evenly. They are done when the flesh at the thickest fish is opaque and pulls from the backbone; much longer and they dry to shreds.
- ButterBrush again at least twice while cooking. The butter is the only thing standing between radiant heat and dry fish, and it is what browns the surface into the pattern the arrangement is meant to show off.
- Buying and cleaningWhole smelts run roughly 4 to 6 inches; the bones are soft enough to eat, so the fish need only be gutted, not filleted. Allow about 1/2 lb per person, or 15 to 20 fish for a plank serving four.
- ServingBring the plank to the table as it is — that is the entire point of the dish — with lemon and more melted butter. Slide a wide spatula under sections rather than trying to lift the whole assembly.