Cold Smoked Salmon part 1 gravelax

I've made Gravlax several times using the recipe from this book and it's never let me down This was a required text when I was at the Culinary Institute of America.. Some great old school cold food prep and presentation. I recommend picking one up if you happen to stumble across one.

Gravelax or Marinated Salmon Yeild 4 - 5 lbs.

Salmon - - - 1 whole or 2 sides

Lemon- - - - 2 juiced

Oil- - - - - - - 3/4 oz.

Brandy- - - - 3/4 oz.

Sugar- - - - - 8 oz. or 1 cup

Fine salt- - - -7 oz.

White pepper- 1 oz.

Dill - - - - - - - 1 lb. or 2lg. bunches

Method

-Filet the salmon and remove any bones. Do not remove the skin.

-Brush the fish with the mixture of lemon juice, oil. and brandy.

-Mix sugar, salt, and dill and pack around salmon filets.

- Wrap in plastic wrap and set into a tray to catch the juices.

- Set another tray on top to hold some weight.

I reduced the recipe by half and prepared only one side of salmon

I trimmed the belly meat because it's mostly fat and after I poach it my cat likes it more than I do.

To give you a sense of scale my chef's knife is 10 inches long.

Start by laying down maybe a third of your salt mixture on the plastic wrap.

Place your salmon filet on top of the bed of salt and brush with brandy wet mixture.

Add the rest of the salt mixture to the top and sides finishing off with the fresh chopped dill.

Wrap your salmon tightly place it in a tray or pan

Have another similarly sized tray or pan handy to set on top and weigh down.

You don't need so much weight it smashes your filet but you want 4 to 6 lbs.

Then all there is to do is flip the filet every day and wait for 4 or 5 days

To be continued...