Gravadlax is really easy to make and much much cheaper than buying it ready made. This recipe is adapted from a recipe in Esquire Magazine that I found online.
It’s brilliant if you want the gravadlax that or the next day. Instead of putting the salmon into dry ingredients, you make a sweet brine first and place it in that and it does its job much faster, and more efficiently. I have included my favourite recipe for the dill sauce too if you fancy making that too, or it’s fine with a squeeze of lemon and it’s great on canapés with pink pickled onions, capers or on rye bread with sliced boiled eggs and any of my pickled vegetables on the blog.
Recipe
Serves 6 or halve the recipe for 2 to 3.
Ingredients
600g very fresh farm raised or sushi grade salmon (check for bones)
1 pint of salt
1 pint of golden caster sugar
zest of 2 lemons
1 large handful of fresh dill chopped
1/2 tablespoon of pepper corns
Sauce (makes 1 1/2 cups)
1/2 cup of Dijon mustard
2 teaspoons of powdered mustard (I use Coleman’s)
6 tablespoons of golden caster sugar
4 tablespoons white wine vinegar
2/3 cup of olive oil
6 tablespoons of chopped fresh dill
How:
Place the salt, sugar and 1 1/2 pints of water in a largish saucepan with the lemon zest, dill and pepper corns. Bring to the boil and simmer the mixture till the salt and sugar are dissolved, (mine didn’t entirely) then cool down and refrigerate. This can be made a day ahead. Submerge the salmon in the curing liquid for four hours in the fridge, turning once every hour.
Remove from the cure and wash it under cold water. The salmon should look bright pink and slightly dehydrated. When you cut into it it shouldn’t leave a trail of fat on the knife. Alternatively you can wrap the salmon in a clean tea towel wrapped up in plastic wrap to firm up overnight in the fridge.
Slice with a sharp knife as thin or thick as you prefer, and eat within 24 hours.
The sauce
Whisk together the mustards, sugar and vinegar in a bowl then slowly drip the olive oil in as if you are making a mayonnaise till you have a silk sauce. Stir in the chopped dill and keep refrigerated in a jar till needed.
I shop at:
Waitrose
Sainsbury’s
Tesco
Lidl
