Pictured: Salmon sliders at Siesta Key's The Cottage.

Meat enters the smoker, ready and willing to soak up the flavors of hot coals and smoldering bark. Cured, smoked, quick-cooked, pulled—pork’s traditional culinary style here weds a watery bride. The marriage vows begin with a salmon filet cured for thirty minutes in a mixture of lemon zest, fresh dill, kosher salt and raw Florida cane sugar. Cured, the fish then enters the smoker, where it is cold-smoked over a bed of ice—a method that allows the fish to absorb the maximum amount of smokiness, lending the salmon a deep, Southern-style barbecue flavor. The smoked fish spends a bit of time in the oven before being “pulled,” topped with a mixture of mascarpone, cream cheese, worcestershire sauce, caper and lemon juice and wedged between two puffy slices of a mini everything bagel. The Philadelphia-esque sauce balances out smokiness, lemon juice cuts creaminess and bitter baby arugula and crunchy red onion shavings complement sweet mascarpone, proving that provided the right balance, a marriage of opposites can produce a rapturous union.

Pictured: Salmon sliders at Siesta Key's The Cottage.

The Cottage, 153 Avenida Messina, Siesta Key, 941-312-9300