Impress your Jewish grandma with gravlax, or just impress yourself. Actually, my Nana preferred the cold-smoked cousin, lox, but gravlax is an incredibly easy, positively delicious way to cure salmon. The name comes from any number of Nordic fish dishes inspired by the openly morbid technique of burying in the ground (grave) your salmon (lax) with some salt cure. I like this dish because it yields a particularly moist, delicate, and lightly salted gravlax, since the salinity of the salt block does not migrate as readily into the fish flesh as a packed cure of loose salt. Also, because you don’t need plates and weights, and because the salt blocks can be reused over and over again, the method boasts a certain elegance and economy of tools. See page 267 for more about salt blocks.
Recipe information
Yield
serves 6
Ingredients
Preparation
Step 1
Cover one salt block with half of the dill sprigs.
Step 2
In a small bowl, combine the pepper, coriander, mustard, and sugar. Coat the fleshy parts of the salmon with the sugar mixture. Place on the dill-covered salt block. Cover the salmon with the remaining dill sprigs. Place the second salt block on top. You now have a salt block and salmon sandwich. Wrap the whole thing in plastic wrap and refrigerate until the fish feels resilient, but not firm, to the touch. The top surface should be dry and the sides moist, and it will have lost its raw look, with the flesh having turned slightly opaque. Also, it will feel heavy for its size. This will take one day if you are using a thin fillet of wild salmon and up to three days if you are using a thick fillet of farmed salmon.
Step 3
When the gravlax is ready, unwrap it completely, remove it from between the salt blocks, rinse off the seasoning, and pat dry. To serve, put the salmon, skin side down, on a cutting board and, starting at the wider end, slice thinly on a slant. Serve on melba toast or crackers. A dollop of crème fraîche or a squeeze of Meyer lemon is a nice addition.
