More smoking

Last night I did another batch of smoked salt to continue getting the process down and being able to replicate the good results I had a few weeks ago. this time I used the water pan in my charcoal smoker and cooked it for 3 hours, using Cherry and Walnut for smoking wood. The salt didn't taste as good as the first good batch where I didn't use the water pan so I put the salt into the smoker without the pan today for another hour and it seems to come out better without the added water in the smoke chamber. For some reason the water/steam tends to decrease the salt's ability to absorb smoke flavor. I guess I'll eliminate the water pan from now on because it doesn't matter if there is too much heat; the smoke volume is the key for those three hours. I also made a smoked Red/Yellow Pepper and Red Onion Ragu after the salt was done. I had some leftover peppers and a red onion and cut them into fairly good sized pieces, separating the onion into separate layers and laid them on an anti-splatter screen I found at IKEA. I smoked it at very low heat using the same Cherry and Walnut wood for about 45 minutes. I put the whole works in a food processor for a few seconds to cut it into small bits and then refrigerated it until the next morning. By the way, it smelled fabulous! Sunday morning I made scrambled eggs with cheddar cheese and put about a Tablespoon of the ragu onto the cooked eggs as a garnish. Excellent!
Tim