Aquavit Gravlax

gravlax and mustard dill sauce from the Aquavit cookbook with is filled with wonderful foods

recipe #88

This is an amazingly simple thing to do. It is also sort of like magic as you can turn a $15-20 piece of fish into a $50-60 piece of delicious fish.

Here is the basic recipe from the Aquavit cookbook:
Gravlax
2.5-3 lb. filet if salmon w/ skin on one side- as fresh as possible
1/2 c. salt
1 c. sugar
1 tsp. white pepper
large amount of fresh dill chopped

wash and pat dry fish. Mix together salt, sugar and pepper. sprinkle skin side of fish with mixture. Place fish in large glass dish and pour the rest of the salt/sugar mixture over the fish, covering it. Then, spinkle mixture with an even coat of chopped dill. Cover and leave in a cool place for 6 hr. After 6 hrs. cover well and leave in fridge for 36 hrs. After 36 hrs., scrape off mixture and dill, slice up and serve.

Good. Very good. It is sort of odd because about 12 hours into the curing process the fish is basically sittingin a huge pool of liquid. This worried me the first time I did it, but it is normal, just pour it off.