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kirkcudbrightA couple people asked about this last night, but I don't recall who, so I'm just going to post it here, and hope they find it.
This isn't cooked or even smoked, so get really good, fresh salmon.
Gravlax (Cook's Illustrated, issue 18, Jan/Feb 1996)
3 medium-large red onions
1 cup kosher salt
¾ cup sugar
1 teaspoon ground white pepper
2 cups coarsely chopped fresh dill leaves and stems, plus 1 cup minced fresh dill leaves
1 whole salmon fillet, 3-4 pounds
Skin the fillet, remove excess fat, brown flesh, and pin bones. Of course, I forgot to do this last time, and it was fine.
Juice the onions. Yes, that's right, juice them. Francie makes me do this outside, for some reason. If you don't have a juicer, you can pulverize them in a food processor, then strain through a double thickness of cheesecloth, squeezing to extract the juice. Or don't strain; the onion pulp won't harm anything.
You should have about 2 cups onion juice at this point. Add the sugar and salt; stir to dissolve. Stir in pepper and coarsely chopped dill.
Place the salmon in a 2-gallon zip-lock bag with the onion juice brine. The marinade should just cover the fish. Put the bag on a large rimmed cookie sheet. (The recipe actually says "jelly roll pan," but I've never made a jelly roll, and I'd use a rimmed cookie sheet for it if I did. Unless what I have really is a jelly roll pan, and I've been mis-using it for cookies all these years.)
Anyway, seal the bag, put it on this jelly roll pan thingy, put another jelly roll pan on top, and set about 7 pounds of weight on top. Use heavy cans, a bag of sugar, or bricks. (Yes, the illustrations for the article show bricks. Now, I don't know about you, but I don't keep bricks in my kitchen, much less in my fridge.) Refrigerate until the fish is very firm (the bricks will already be firm), 12-18 hours, depending on thickness of fish.
Remove fish from bag, and dry with paper towels. Evenly distribute the minced dill over the belly side of the fish, and press the dill into the flesh. Gravlax can be wrapped in parchment paper then plastic wrap, and refrigerated for a week or two.
Classically, gravlax is cut on a bias (angle from the axis of the fillet) and at a shallow angle to the surface of the cutting board, and cut about 1/8" thick. They say to start cutting from the tail end, but I find it easier to hold the tail end, and cut from the head end.
This isn't cooked or even smoked, so get really good, fresh salmon.
Gravlax (Cook's Illustrated, issue 18, Jan/Feb 1996)
3 medium-large red onions
1 cup kosher salt
¾ cup sugar
1 teaspoon ground white pepper
2 cups coarsely chopped fresh dill leaves and stems, plus 1 cup minced fresh dill leaves
1 whole salmon fillet, 3-4 pounds
Skin the fillet, remove excess fat, brown flesh, and pin bones. Of course, I forgot to do this last time, and it was fine.
Juice the onions. Yes, that's right, juice them. Francie makes me do this outside, for some reason. If you don't have a juicer, you can pulverize them in a food processor, then strain through a double thickness of cheesecloth, squeezing to extract the juice. Or don't strain; the onion pulp won't harm anything.
You should have about 2 cups onion juice at this point. Add the sugar and salt; stir to dissolve. Stir in pepper and coarsely chopped dill.
Place the salmon in a 2-gallon zip-lock bag with the onion juice brine. The marinade should just cover the fish. Put the bag on a large rimmed cookie sheet. (The recipe actually says "jelly roll pan," but I've never made a jelly roll, and I'd use a rimmed cookie sheet for it if I did. Unless what I have really is a jelly roll pan, and I've been mis-using it for cookies all these years.)
Anyway, seal the bag, put it on this jelly roll pan thingy, put another jelly roll pan on top, and set about 7 pounds of weight on top. Use heavy cans, a bag of sugar, or bricks. (Yes, the illustrations for the article show bricks. Now, I don't know about you, but I don't keep bricks in my kitchen, much less in my fridge.) Refrigerate until the fish is very firm (the bricks will already be firm), 12-18 hours, depending on thickness of fish.
Remove fish from bag, and dry with paper towels. Evenly distribute the minced dill over the belly side of the fish, and press the dill into the flesh. Gravlax can be wrapped in parchment paper then plastic wrap, and refrigerated for a week or two.
Classically, gravlax is cut on a bias (angle from the axis of the fillet) and at a shallow angle to the surface of the cutting board, and cut about 1/8" thick. They say to start cutting from the tail end, but I find it easier to hold the tail end, and cut from the head end.
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no subject
Date: 2004-01-03 03:23 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-01-03 05:03 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-06-27 05:47 pm (UTC)Does your recipe really only call for 12-18 hours' curing? Mine says 2-3 days, turning it over every 12 hours or so.
[yes, I am stalking you, but please don't be alarmed: I'm just procrastinating on this quilt I'm supposed to finish today.]
no subject
Date: 2012-06-27 06:36 pm (UTC)According to the article, gravlax is traditionally dry-salted rather than brined, but that tends to create "hot spots", where the fish is over-salted. Chef Rick Moonen says "Red onion juice imparts a lovely sweetness to the salmon so that I can use less sugar. Some traditional recipes call for shallots in the dry cure. That made me think that some sort of sweet onion juice could be used as the liquid in a wet cure."
I used to use a 70s-era centrifugal juicer on the onions, but last time I just macerated them in the food processor, and that produced hardly any fumes at all. I think I put the dill in the food processor with the onions. In any case, I dumped the slurry into the zip-loc without straining, and it came out fine.
Does your recipe really only call for 12-18 hours' curing? Mine says 2-3 days, turning it over every 12 hours or so.
IIRC, last time I didn't weight it, and left it in for about 2 days.
The article is firm that you should use just enough liquid to cover the fish, and weight it down, to produce a firm gravlax. "If you use too much liquid, the fish will become too soft." But I don't recall it being a problem.
[yes, I am stalking you, but please don't be alarmed: I'm just procrastinating on this quilt I'm supposed to finish today.]
:-) And this post is old enough that it's not tagged. Now I have a new procrastination task...
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Date: 2012-06-27 09:10 pm (UTC)Now I have a new procrastination task...
nonononono. No procrastination! Back to work! (How's that going, anyway?)
I finished a quilt. (yay.) It just wasn't the quilt I was *supposed* to finish today. (boo.) Then I went to the farmers' market and now I have to invent a beet-and-fennel salad.
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Date: 2012-06-28 05:48 am (UTC)There's also this recipe for Beet Salad with Horseradish (http://www.lottieanddoof.com/2012/02/beet-salad-with-horseradish/), which I've been meaning to try.
But neither of them uses fennel. I've only recently started using fennel, and I tend to just cut it up and oven-roast it with a bit of olive oil and salt (it's hard to go wrong with that).
no subject
Date: 2012-06-28 02:45 pm (UTC)I hadn't heard of Lottie+Doof -- thanks for another blog to feed my food-photography addiction. :)