“Lox” and “smoked salmon” are often used interchangeably, but they’re not the same. Related Reading: Smoked Salmon Recipes That Go Beyond the Bagel, The salmon is then cold-smoked at a temperature roughly between 68 and 75 degrees in order to enhance that flavor while ensuring the flesh remains velvety. Here’s the main difference: smoked salmon is cured and then smoked, whereas lox is only cured, typically in a salt brine and typically for longer periods of time, but not smoked. Instead of a months-long soak, the fish only spends a few days in the sweet and salty bath. This is the most common of deli salmons and its roots can be traced back to the turn of the 20th century. Check out on of our favorite recipes that highlights the salty salmon: Sign up for our daily newsletter, Well Done, for expert cooking tips and foolproof recipes from your favorite food brands. Now I need to make a new batch tomorrow. There’s no mistaking mild-cured, mild-smoked Nova from the salty intensity of lox. The fish you enjoy on your bagel is probably not lox. Yet, other organic brands are delicious. Another that is perfect for a bagel sandwich. Gravlax. This fish has a lighter fish flavor, with an almost cooked salmon taste. You say potato, I say po-tah-to, but when we say "lox," do we really mean smoked salmon? The fish tastes fresher than its smoked counterparts, not needing the creamy cream cheese to cut through the salt. During that relatively brief time period, the salmon will excrete some of its natural oils and absorb the salt and sugar, a process that yields luscious flavor and firmness. flavors: Atlantic smoked salmon in Bacon, Main Page The further out, the better. KAREN HOCHMAN is Editorial Director of THE NIBBLE. Hope you both enjoyed the article. Cold-smoking happens over an 18-hour stretch at a temperature in the 70- to 75-degree range, yielding fish with that delicate, lox-like texture. It is common for most people to be talking about Lox and smoked salmon in the same breath as if the two were identical things. Again, this is great for bagels or salad, but definitely needs acid to bring out some of the salty fish taste. Glad you guys know about your salmons! And yet sometimes, we are wrong. Smoking is a process in which a food is exposed to, well, smoke — with a “cold-smoke” for salmon happening below 85°F, and a “hot-smoke” for salmon happening above it. The difference between lox and smoked salmon. (Like gravlax , which is cured in sugar and salt, there’s no smoking involved.) Lox is brined, but never cooked or smoked. The fish is brined in a vat filled with salt and water for six months, even up to a year, transforming the flavor of the salmon. Sometimes, some things are such a part of the fabric of our lives and our history and our surroundings that our sense of rightness about a certain topic feels almost innate. All of our salmon, except kippered salmon, is cold smoked. Check our our doughnut tasting results in 8 Best Jelly Doughnuts in NYC! Brining—preserving food with salt—is similar to curing, but takes a lot less time. no smoke involved. If someone over a certain age asks assertively for belly lox, we’re not going to question him or her, but most people end up wanting one of our seven varieties of smoked salmon.”. The difference between lox and smoked salmon is how they are prepared. Lox came about in the pre-refrigeration days as a way to preserve fish during transport. This was our hands-down favorite in the Snooth office. These fish go through a heavier smoking process and are at times double smoked, with that smoking being the main part of the preparation process, rather than brining or curing processes of some of the others. wild from Alaska, farmed from Norway, Chile, and elsewhere. MyRecipes.com is part of the Allrecipes Food Group. Smoked salmon uses up an entire side of salmon. New York does it best!! Some Scottish salmons we bought didn’t specify that they used oak, for example, but “hardwood,” which could be common to any number of types of smoked salmon. In the nova-style of smoking, the fish is salt cured and then cold smoked. Trains began to transport salted salmon from the Pacific coast to other parts of the country, including New York (which is where many Eastern European immigrants settled in the late 1800s). Last updated February 2013. Sign up for our newsletter to receive the latest tips, tricks, recipes and more, sent twice a week.