I've been enjoying my smoker quite a lot lately. I really like the taste of a deep smoke on a cut of fish, but I find that no matter how I try to keep the thing humid and keep the temp down (without it being an incubator) I find that there is a significant tradeoff between well smoked fish and my favorite pan seared texture in the meat. I've tried something that seems to be really nice. I've been smoking the skin pretty intensely and keeping the meat marinading in the fridge. Works pretty nicely as I can get a good hard sear on the skin and meat without the whole of the meat getting too flaky.

Only downside is that I've got this unjoined smoky crispy bit of meat unattached to the fish. It looks great as a ribbon laid across the fish on bread as a crouton with a sprig of dill, but I think I'd like to work out some way to glue the skin back onto the fillet after the skin is smoked so I can pan fry the fillet conventionally.

Anyone ever use transglutaminase to glue fish skin onto a fillet? Heck, some of my guests sometimes don't want their skin. If I know they're coming over to dinner, I'd glue their skin onto my fillet so I can have a double sided smoked crispy skin fillet. Does meat glue lose it's bond during searing? Can it bond skin to a fillet through the fat or will the fat render and slide the skin off?