In this blog post, I'm going to talk about gravadlax, and a simple recipe for how to make your own. Preserving your own raw fish might sound both risky and fiddly, but this is really not the case, and preparing it will only take ten minutes or so.
Gravadlax, or gravlax is a traditional nordic foodstuff, prepared by curing raw salmon in a mixture of salt, sugar, and dill. This draws moisture out of the fish, as well as preserving it with salt, and if stored in a sealed container, it will keep for several weeks.
It is a key food for a Swedish midsummer feast, alongside pickled herring, potato salad, and strawberries.
Salmon is also a great source of several vitamins and micronutrients, being a very good source of B vitamins, especially B12, vitamins D and E, selenium, and one of the best sources of the omega-3 fatty acids EPA and DHA. Preserving the salmon in this way conserves these nutrients, and, once prepared, the gravadlax will also produce salmon oil, which contains high levels of omega-3 fatty acids, and is often used as a food supplement itself. Don't throw this out when you've finished eating the salmon!
If bought in supermarkets, gravadlax is often both expensive, and sold in tiny portions. However, it needn't be expensive to produce. Although a decent sized side of salmon will cost around £30 from a fishmonger for between a kilo and a kilo-and-a-half, this will produce enough gravadlax to last a month or so if eaten several times a week.
Ingredients
To make your own gravadlax, you will need the following basic ingredients:
A whole side of salmon, with the skin (1kg - 1.5kg)
200g salt
200g sugar
Large bunch of dill
5g freshly ground black pepper
I also like to add some chilli flakes (in this case, I have used 10g of these), and you can also add other seasonings, such as crushed juniper berries. You can also marinade the salmon beforehand in aquavit to infuse a stronger dill flavour.
You will also need a sealable container, such as a large piece of tupperware, and something with which to weigh down the salmon as it cures. I use pickling weights on top of an inverted lid from a smaller tupperware container. You can use pretty much anything that is clean, and not porous, as long as it fits inside your container.
Preparation
The first thing to do is to make sure your salmon fillet has no bones in it. If you want, you can start with a whole fish and fillet it yourself, but you will have to remove all the pin bones. For this reason, I find it easier to buy a side of slamon from a fishmonger, which should have most of the bones already removed.
To check for bones, run your hand down the length of the fillet, about 1/3 of the way down from top. Any remaining bones should stick up, and you can pull them out with tweezers or needlenose pliers.
Cut the fillet into lengths which will fit inside your container. For the container I usually use, this means cutting the fillet roughly in half.
If you are using aquavit, put the salmon into a bowl and marinade it in a small amount (50ml or so) while you prepare the rest of the ingredients.
Mix together the salt, sugar, pepper, and any other spices you are using, then finely chop the dill, and add that to the mixture.
Place a layer of this mixture onto the bottom of your container, and place the first piece of salmon skin-down on this layer.
Then place a larger amount of the cure mixture on top of the first fillet.
Build up the fillets within the container, with each the opposite way up, so that there is a smaller amount of the cure against the skin sides. In this case, I have two fillets in total. Put any remaining cure over the top of the last fillet, and pat this down, making sure all parts of the fillets are covered.
It is now time to weight the fillets down, seal up the container, and place into the fridge overnight.
To ensure that the fillets cure evenly, after 12 hours or so, you will want to open this up, and turn the fillets over. When you open this up in the morning, you will find that the salt has begun to draw moisture out of the fillets, and you'll probably find that the cure mixture is no longer evenly layered between the fillets.
Flip the fillets over, and scoop some of the cure out of the bottom of the container and back between the fillets.
Weigh the fillets back down again, and then repeat this process at the end of the day.
The gravadlax then needs to be left for at least a couple of days to finish curing. When this process has completed, the fillets should have taken on a translucency, and the cure will have drawn enough moisture from the fillets to almost completely dissolve the salt and sugar, forming a saturated brine which protects the salmon from going off.
At this stage, remove the fillets from the cure and pat them dry with kitchen towel. It's time to slice these into thin slices. I use a yanagiba long-bladed sashimi knife for this, but any sharp knife with a long blade will do.
Cutting at a shallow angle, draw the knife through the cured salmon and cut it away from the skin, which should now be tough and leathery.
You will find that the ends of the fillets are a bit tricker to get good slices from. I solve this problem by just eating those bits right away.
The end result should be slices of delicious cured salmon, about 1mm thick. These can be stored in a sealed container in the fridge for up to a month. I like to serve these on rye crispbreads with sliced cucumber and a honey mustard dill sauce.
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