Gravlax - house beautiful

10 servings

Ingredients

Quantity Ingredient
2 pounds Fresh salmon, center cut
(2 equal sized fillets) with skin on, pinboned by a fishmonger
1 tablespoon Pernod
¾ cup Granulated sugar
¼ cup Coarse salt
1 tablespoon White peppercorns, coarsely crushed
¾ cup Coarsely chopped fresh dill, reserving some sprigs for garnish
Sweet dilled mustard sauce
(separate recipe below)

Directions

Wipe salmon with a damp paper towel and remove any small bones from fillets with a tweezer.

Sprinkle flesh side of the fillets with Pernod and rub in well all over.

In a small bowl, mix together sugar, salt and pepper. Sprinkle the bottom of a glass casserole dish with 4 T of the sugar mixture, cover with ¼ C chopped dill. Lay one of the salmon fillets on top, skin side down, and sprinkle with 4 T sugar mixture, rubbing into salmon well. Sprinkle over ¼ C dill and cover with the remaining salmon fillet, skin-side up. Sprinkle salmon with the remaining sugar mixture and dill, cover tightly with plastic wrap and wrap in a sheet of aluminum foil. Place a cutting board and several heavy cans on top to weight it down. Marinate salmon in the refrigerator for 36 to 48 hours. Every 12 hours, remove wrapping, turn salmon in the marinade and rewrap.

To serve, scrape marinade off salmon fillets. With the skin-side down, cut into very thin slices with the grain. Allow about 4 slices for each serving. Garnish with a dill sprig and spoon some sweet dilled mustard sauce alongside. Serves 10.

House Beautiful/March/94 Scanned & fixed by DP & GG

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