Home-Cured Gravlax (Lightly Salted Salmon)

Cooking method

1. Step 1:

   

   Choose the fish. Salmon is the traditional choice, but other members of the salmon family — trout, sockeye, coho, and chinook — work great too.

2. Step 2:

   

   Rinse the salmon fillet under cold water and pat it dry with a paper towel. Rub it with the salt-and-sugar mixture.

3. Step 3:

   

   Spread plastic wrap over a table or large cutting board. Lay the dill stalks on it, then the salmon fillet skin-side down.

4. Step 4:

   

   Sprinkle the fillet with finely chopped dill in a dense, even layer. Sprinkle it with vodka.

5. Step 5:

   

   Wrap the fish tightly in the plastic wrap so no air is left between the salmon and the film.

6. Step 6:

   

   Put the bundle in a suitably sized container and set a weight on top. Then forget about the fish for three days. It's after three days that the flesh becomes firmer and more tender at the same time, and the flavor more complex. Now that's gravlax!

7. Step 7:

   

   Cut the finished gravlax with a very sharp knife into thin, translucent slices. The traditional cut is on a slant, across the fillet.

8. Step 8:

   

   You can use rye or white bread — soft and fresh or crisply toasted — and crackers, flatbreads, or crispbreads all work. You can add butter or soft cream cheese, slices of hard-boiled egg, or rounds of fresh radish or cucumber. Mild mustard or horseradish, dill, sweet onion varieties, capers, lemon, or lime all make fitting flavor accents.