Gravlax Part I

Today, I decided to make some Gravlax. It’s something I used to do for years in Nick’s restaurant, in Killorglin (Ireland). I really love it. And obviously I wasn’t the only one… My mighty cat was looking at it with great envy.

Gravlax was a way to keep salmon for future use. Like smoked, dry or salted food. You can cure any kind of fatty fish that way, but salmon is the most common. I should try one day to cure Mackerel that way.

Thanks my cat knows she can’t jump onto the table, even if I’m gone to collect some gears. Clever girl. She is just looking & waiting licking her lips… “Gimme some, gimme some, gimme some for f-ck sake!” she seems to think (she is an irish cat).

The Recipe

The main ingredients are coarse sea salt, brown sugar and dill. I think there are as many recipes are chefs. Beside these basics ingredients, I use freshly ground black pepper and some gin – I think it gives a nice taste.

For 500g of raw salmon, you will need 30g of coarse sea salt, 30g brown sugar, 10g of freshly ground pepper, plenty of dill, chopped (or not) and 2.5 cl of gin.

Now, normally, when I make gravlax at work, I use full salmon sides, and I leave the skin on. Here, I will cure a small piece of salmon, and therefore, I removed the skin. Don’t ask me why… I’m used to do it that way, and there is no scientific or logical reasons.

First, mix all the ingredients together. Then check the salmon for any bones left, and remove them with needle nose pliers. Now, on a quite big piece of parchment paper, spoon some of the mixture, lay down the salmon on it (the side-with-the-now-gone-skin-side down), and cover as much of the exposed areas as possible with the rest of the mixture. Finally, pour in some gin. Fold the paper around the salmon, and wrap tightly and thoroughly with cling film.

Place the surprise packet into a dish as the salmon will give out some juice while curing. Refrigerate for at least 2 day.

See you in 2-3 days for the end of this recipe. If you can’t wait any longer, before using this gravlax, just remove the mixture and rinse in cold water. It’s nice to eat like that, plain, thinly sliced and with some nice toasted bread. But for a different way of using and serving it, you really have to wait 3 days… I will also show you how to slice the gravlax.

This entry was posted on Sunday, January 22nd, 2012 at 17 h 42 min. It is filed under Cuisine, Food, Photography, Posts, Cold Starters, Fish and tagged with Gravlax. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.