Back in Christmas time, I went to visit my Godparents and had dinner at their house. My Godmother had made some Gravlax which was amazing, and after talking with her a while, it seemed easy enough to make. A few weeks ago, I searched out a few recipes online and settled on a fairly simple one that called for Kosher salt, vanilla sugar, cracked peppercorns and some dill. I added chives and basil and then followed the rest of the recipe and it turned out fairly decent. So much so that when I gave about half of what I made to my parents, they finished it within a few days and asked me to make more. So here we are, a slight modification on the original recipe.
- 2 cups of Kosher salt
- 1/2 cup of vanilla sugar
- 1 1/2 tablespoons Cracked peppercorns
- 2 boxes of fresh baby dill
- 1 box of fresh chives
- 1 box of fresh basil
- 1 lemon
- 1 whole salmon
So here is another session of cooking with Clem.
The salt, sugar, cracked peppercorn are mixed together. I grated some the lemon for the zest and put that in with the salt mixture. Then prepared a lasagna pan with saran wrap and placed one half of the fish on top of the plastic wrap, skin side down. The half the salt mixture is poured over the salmon and rubbed to cover all the flesh. The lemon is sliced up and in a separate mixing bowl, the fresh herbs are mixed together then layered on top of the salted fish.
The other side of the fish salted with the other half of the salt mixture then placed on top of the bed of mixed herbs and lemon. The salty fish herb sandwich is then completely wrapped with plastic to hold everything together and create as tight a seal as possible. Bricks wrapped with foils are then used to weight the fish down. If you have a pan that fits into the pan with the fish, I recommend using the pan between the fish and the weights for a more level weighting.
The entire assembly is then placed into the fridge for 2 days. The first batch I made, I had drained the liquid after the first day, this time I left the entire assembly alone. Draining the liquid makes for a less salty final product.
After two days, the weights are removed, as well as the plastic wrap. The fish is then rinsed off and the vegetation discarded.
You should see a definite difference in color from the fresh fish to the cured fish. The fish is pat dry and then thinly sliced with a carving knife. Simple serve as is, or over a bagel with cream cheese, or even crackers. It’s pretty simple to do and VERY cost effective in comparison to just buying ready made Gravlax/lox from the market. And you have complete control on the flavoring of the salmon.
