cooking challenge week fifteen: gravad lax

Like salty foods? Refreshing and flavoursome? This is the definition of all those things. Texturally gravad lax is not dissimilar to smoked salmon, and the flavours really exceeded my expectations.

It's important to note that various health bodies recommend that you freeze the salmon prior to curing it, as raw fish can carry various parasites, but the consensus in all the recipes I read during my research is that this will make the finished product watery. I think it's a personal choice. I am quite relaxed with these things: I figure if it was good enough for Norse fishermen in the middle ages, it's good enough for me.

The recipe I used was for the two of us (though again, technically, it would easily serve four. We are piggies, remember.) You can scale up the quantities as required, but probably would recommend that you don't scale them down too much further.

Allow 3 days to properly cure. Apparently it will then store for up to 2 weeks in the fridge, but I think - eat it as soon as possible, it's really too good to save!

You will need:

Side of Salmon, skin on. Buy this as fresh as you possibly can - sashimi grade. I got a piece about 15cm long, thoroughly deboned.

100g sea salt

80g caster sugar

1 cup loosely packed dill, finely chopped

2 tablespoons vodka (optional)

1 tablespoon white pepper, freshly milled

1 lemon

What to do:

Slice the salmon in half so you have two equally sized portions.

Slice the lemon into thin rings and place half of them on the base of a dish big enough to fit the salmon into. This will need to go in the fridge so choose your dish wisely ;)

Mix the sugar, salt, vodka and half the dill. Lay one piece of salmon in the dish, on top of the lemons, with the skin down. Layer the salt mixture over the salmon with your fingers, rub it in well. Sprinkle the pepper and add some more fresh dill.

Lay the other salmon fillet on top, skin side up (So you effectively have a salmon sandwich, with the skin visible on top and bottom). Sprinkle any leftover salt mix and dill on top, and the remaining lemon slices. Cover well with cling film and put in the fridge, with a weight on top. I used a bottle of wine!

The salmon will water A LOT (if it's fresh) and so approximately every eight hours, I took the salmon out of its dish, strained off the liquid and flipped the salmon so the top is now on the bottom. Some recipes say this is overkill - but I loved the excuse to touch, smell and admire my salmon!! It gets quite hard, as well, which I wasn't prepared for, but found oddly reassuring. Here was proof that my cure was a success!

To serve, rub off the salt mixture, or dampen your fingers and wipe it off carefully. Slice horizontally as thinly as possible (watch the fingers) and serve with the traditional mustard and dill sauce (Whisk 2 tbl spoons dijon mustard, 1 organic free range egg yolk, 1 tbl spoon caster sugar in a large bowl, then trickle in 150mL vegetable oil whisking constantly to make an emulsified sauce. Add 4 tablespoons finely chopped dill and combine.)

I am going to start grading my cooking challenges on one simple criteria: "Was it worth it?" You know, given the hassle and expense and stress, would I make these meals again. With gravadlax, the answer is a resounding YES, YES, YES! It's a really impressive looking dish, and is rare and uncommon, and packs a real flavour punch. The idea of being able to do everything but the slicing well in advance is great for dinner parties (and even the slicing could, I suppose, be done ahead of time..?).

I also served it as part of our breakfast, delicious!

Happy Easter to you and yours. dd.x