When I was experimenting with the recipe for quick-cured salmon in today’s food section, I slipped a nice chunk of salmon aside for myself. Not to grill or fry or bake, but for gravlax. You know, like for bagels. Or sandwiches with avocado and red onion.
Or just to slice and eat at the kitchen counter while finishing off the last drops from that box of chardonnay you bought at Target.
Who, me?
They say that the art of directing a movie is 90 percent in the casting. Cooking is no different — it’s 90 percent ingredient selection. Especially when you’re preparing fish.
So I called the folks at Marczyks Fine Foods on 17th Avenue, who hooked me up with a glorious chunk of sunset-saffron salmon, skin on.
Then, I turned to Norwegian fish-master Andreas Viestad, whose 2003 cookbook “Kitchen of Light” set me off on a now-five-year mini-obsession with Scandinavian food, especially fish.
You can make gravlax (or gravlaks, as Viestad spells it) simply by packing salt around your fillet and letting it sit in the fridge for 3 days.
Or you jack it up a little, like with Viestad’s zingy recipe below.
Spicy Gravlaks with Aquavit
Adapted from Kitchen of Light by Andreas Viestad.
Ingredients
2 one-pound salmon fillets, skin-on
1 tablespoon caraway seeds
2 teaspoons aniseed
5 juniper berries
1/2 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes
1/2 teaspoon black peppercorns
3 tablespoons salt
1 1/2 tablespoons sugar
3 tablespoons finely chopped fresh dill
2 tablespoons aquavit, brandy, eau-de-vie, or Scotch
Directions
Rinse the fillets in cold water and pat them dry with paper towels. Crush the caraway seeds, aniseed, juniper berries, red pepper flakes and black peppercorns using a mortar and pestle. Or place the spices on a cutting board or other hard surface and crush them with the underside of a heavy skillet. Combine with the salt, sugar, and dill.
Place one of the fillets skin side down in a deep dish just big enough to hold the fillets. Rub the fillet with half the spice and dill mixture. Rub the other fillet with the mixture and place it skin side up on top of the first. Pour the aquavit on top, cover the dish with plastic wrap, and place a heavy weight, such as two heavy plates or a saucepan, on top of the fish. Refrigerate for three to four days,turning the fish every 12 hours and basting it with the brine that accumulates in the dish.
To serve, dust off some of the spices and slice the fish into thin slices with a sharp thin knife. The flesh from the tail will be leaner than the flesh from the belly. Serve with mustard sauce and dark rye bread, for open-faced sandwiches, or with mustard, pickles and capers.
