Pellicle (cooking)

A pellicle is a skin or coating of proteins on the surface of meat, fish or poultry, which allow smoke to better adhere the surface of the meat during the smoking process. Useful in all smoking applications and with any kind of animal protein, it is best used with fish where the flesh of, say, salmon, forms a pellicle, the surface that will attract more smoke to adhere to it than would be the case if it had not been used. Without a pellicle the fish would be inedibly dry from enough smoking to produce a tasty finished product. It is the pellicle which permits the transformation creating delectable smoked salmon.