Salmon Gravlax I
This is a Scandinavian dish, and is salmon cured with salt and sugar and herbs used are just dill and fennel seeds. This is not a cooked dish, just cured.
Ingredients
- 1 kilo salmon fillets, see Step 1, (2 lb)
- ¼ cup sea salt
- 2 tablespoons light brown sugar
- 2 tablespoons white sugar
- 1 teaspoon fennel seeds
- 1 bunch fresh dill, roughly chopped
For Serving
- ½ purple onion, finely diced or cut in half then sliced
- ¼ cup capers, drained
- 1 lemon, cut into wedges
- fresh dill, chopped
Instructions
- Ideally, you would want two 500 gram (1 lb) skin on fillets from the center cut of the fillet, remove the pin bones if that is not already done. But you can use the smaller fillets from Tesco, as what is in this photo. When I make this, I will use two of these fillets on the bottom, and two on top, just reduce the salt and sugar in equal proportions.
- Mix together the salt, sugars, and fennel seeds. Sprinkle some of the mixture along the bottom of a glass baking dish, sprinkle some dill on that. Place half of the fillets skin side down on that.
- Sprinkle half the remaining salt mixture on the fish and half of the remaining dill. Lay the second piece or pieces of salmon on top of the salmon already in the dish, skin side up.
- Sprinkle remaining salt mixture and dill over the top of the fillet. Cover the dish with plastic wrap. Set another smaller dish on top of the fillets and weight it down with some canned goods, a brick wrapped in foil, or any kind of heavy weight.
- Place in the fridge for two days to cure, turn the fillets after one day, so the top piece becomes the bottom piece, this is to cure them evenly.
- After two days, remove from the fridge and remove from the dish. Rinse the fillet very well with cold water, and use your fingers to rub off all the salt and dill. Dry the fillets with paper towels.
- Place a fillet skin side down on your cutting board, hold your knife at a angle and slice as thin as you can down to the skin but not through the skin. Repeat with remaining fillet or fillets.
- Place the thin slices on a serving tray, sprinkle with purple onion, dill, and capers. Serve with toasted rye bread and lemon wedges.
Notes
The salmon fillets I will use will be from Tesco, 69 Baht each for 140 to 160 gram fillets, frozen, from Norway. Initial test will be 4 fillets for a total of 276 Baht, about $8.40. I don't know the number of servings as an appetizer until I make this and I will update the pricing. For now I will say High Cost per serving.
This recipe for How to Make Salmon Gravlax is from Simply Recipes.