TasunkaWitko Tries Gravlax

[TasunkaWitko]

alright - in order to get in the spirit of this new international foods forum, i've decided to try a true scandinavian specialty, gravlax. the recipe i used came from the scandinavian volume of time-life's series, foods of the world, circa 1968

here's the goods:

amounts are as follows:

non-iodized salt - 1/4 cup
sugar 1/4 cup (i used turbinado "sugar in the raw," guessing that this would be closer to what they had in the days of yore
freshly-ground black pepper - 2 TBSP
1 large bunch of fresh dill
1 fillet of salmon
the salmon used was a chum salmon, which is not as vividly orangish-pink as some, but a very good eating salmon; plus, the price was right. the package that i got unfortunately had a salmon fillet that was pre-cut into four equal sections down to the skin. this wouldn't have been so bad, but it did complicate things a little when i sandwiched the fillets.

i prepared this cure by mixing the salt, sugar and pepper:

then gave the dill a rough chop, stems and all:

i laid down the center-cut fillet, then generously rubbed it down with half of the curing mixture:

then spread the dill out evenly across the top of the fillet:

after spreading the remaining salt/sugar/pepper cure evenly on the dill:

i laid the other fillet on top. it is important to lay them "belly-to"back" so that the thick pars of each fillet are evened out and not sitting on top of each other. i then double-wrapped it well in saran wrap:

and put the wrapped package of salmon in a rectangular glass baking dish. this was bigger than it need to be, but that's alright.

i set a square baking dish on top (which covered the salmon perfectly) and weighted it down with a two-pound block of cracker barrel sharp cheddar (thanks, RIVET!). the whole thing then went into the fridge, where it will remain for about 48 hours.

due to serendipitous timing, this salmon was wrapped at exactly 8pm friday night. every 12 hours, i will turn and rotate the package of salmon. the instructions also suuggest basting the fillets with the juice that seeps out ofthe salmon and becomes a marinade. as far as how long it needs to be there, different instructions vary from 36 hours to three days. i plan to unveil this for halftime during the superbowl sunday night, so it will probably be just shy of 48 hours in this time zone. due to the fact the the fillets are a little thin compared to big salmon, this should not be a problem.

gravlax is traditionally served on rye toast with a kind of sweet mustard sauce, but we will simply be using keebler club crackers and koops mustard (thanks again, RIVET!).

we'll see how it turns out! if anyone has any questions about the history or preparation of this awesome traditional cured salmon, please let me know.

 

[Beer-B-Q]

Be watching to see how it comes out.

Since we are doing Scandinavian Dishes I might warn you not to do ludefisk a Norwegian dish...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lutefisk
Lutefisk (lutfisk) (pronounced [lʉːtəfɪsk] in Southern Norway, [lʉːtfesk] in Central and Northern Norway, Sweden and the Swedish-speaking areas in Finland (Finnish: lipeäkala)) is a traditional dish of the Nordic countries and parts of the midwest United States. It is made from stockfish (air-dried whitefish) or dried/salted whitefish (klippfisk) and soda lye (lut). Its name literally means "lye fish", because it is made using caustic lye soda derived from potash minerals

 

[TasunkaWitko]

lutefisk is GREAT stuff! (but then again, i've got a few swedes in the woodpile ;D)

my old church is having it's annual lutefisk dinner tomorrow night - wish i could be there!

 

[TasunkaWitko]

gave it a turn and rotation this morning - everything is looking fine!

there's quite a good amount of "juice" that has been drawn out of the fish - you just know that in its place is going some sweet/salty/spicy/savory goodness ~

will keep you posted!

 

[Beer-B-Q]

lutefisk is GREAT stuff! (but then again, i've got a few swedes in the woodpile ;D)

my old church is having it's annual lutefisk dinner tomorrow night - wish i could be there!

I watched them eat that on the Diners, Drive Inns and Dives show with Andrew Zimmer as a guest and he is the guy that will eat anything and he said they had to force him to eat it. LOL

Guy wasn't crazy about it either...

 

[TasunkaWitko]

after a third turn at 0800 this morning, mine was at the 36-hour mark, which is the minimum "finished" time.

right now it is waiting patiently for the superbowl, at which time i will open it up slice it in preparation to be served with a traditional swedish mustard sauce called hovmästarsåsgravlaxsås. RIVET found it Swedish food site. here's what he had to say about his research:

I had it translated via google translator from the Swedish, so the grammar is clunky.

"This classic was one of the most important sauces in the Swedish restaurant kitchens during the 1900s. It was served not only for gravlax - cold and grilled - and other marinated fish, but also to the shellfish cooked lobster and crab, as well as pickled herring. Now has the reputation, but at certain times and many have seen the bottom of this a bit extreme sauce. It was among other master chef Auguste Escoffier who found the tomb of the salmon delicious but despised hovmästarsåsen and instead proposed a tartar sauce as an accessory. A Danish version also contains egg yolks, and some lace sauce with a little brandy or honey. Sometimes excluded and dill sauce is then called simply the mustard."

This recipe calls for decilitres (dl). 1 decilitre is equal to .4 cup measure, or slightly less than half a cup.

2 tablespoons granulated sugar
1-2 pinches of salt
4 tablespoons finely chopped fresh dill
1 / 2 dl Swedish sweet mustard I guess a light honey-mustard could be substitued wig good results.
possibly 1 tablespoon Dijon mustard
1 tablespoon red wine vinegar
1 dl neutral oil
salt, white pepper from the mill
Mix sugar, salt and dill (it is said that the dill flavor arrives best this way).
Mix the mustard and vinegar.
Stir in oil, little by little so that the sauce does not crack. Season with salt and pepper. Let stand awhile before serving.

 

[Beer-B-Q]

Sauce sounds like it might be kind of a sweet and sour type sauce... It sounds good though...

 

[TasunkaWitko]

alright, the hovmästarsåsgravlaxsås is finished and looking great. i prepared it as described above, choosing to use extra virgin olive oil rather than something "neutral" like canola. results are very, very good with a sweet-tart tang and a good bite from the dill, pepper and other seasonings. my only regret is that i had no fresh dill to chop up and use - the dry "dill weed" that i did use is quite adequate, but it is ground pretty fine and therefore ended up coloring the mustard a bit. no big deal, it tastes great - just looks a little different:

this is going to make a very nice accompaniment for the gravlax, and i may also try it on the anchovy fillets and latvian sprats - this seems to be a great mustard sauce for any fish and possibly for some poultries as well - one thing is for sure, i think it would make an outstanding fish baste for the grill or smoker, and will try it in that capacity some time this year.

 

[TasunkaWitko]

alright, this is the moment i've been waiting for. my ancestors ate this, and i am honored to be joining them in this tradition.

some instructions say to rinse the finished gravlax off in cold water and pat dry, but i chose simply to scrape off the dill and then pat dry. becuase of the thin-ness of the fillet, it cured pretty quickly and the outer edges and surfaces were starting to get "pasty," which is just fine. the salmon below was firm and sliced easily:

here's how it looked on a club cracker.

and here's a topping of the hovmästarsåsgravlaxsås:

in reality, it's probably a little too much of the hovmästarsåsgravlaxsås, but i wanted to get a good snort of it for evaluation purposes.

results are very good. i tried a it with and without the hovmästarsåsgravlaxsås and found both versions to be very good. with the traditional sauce, you get a definite and vivid explosion of flavors, all of which work well together and bring each other out. alone, you get a full mouthfull of great salmon flavor fighlighted by the salt, sugar, pepper and dill. a success all-around and an outstanding traditional experience.

this gravlax made a great addition to our superbowl smorgasbord!

 

[Beer-B-Q]

Looks Really Good... *p1*

I Really Like The Look of The Sauce...

 

[BBQ Engineer]

Hey Taz...Man that looks great! Awesome post...Kudos to both you and Rivet for taking a culinary expedition and demonstrating all of these great dishes. I'd definitely be bellied up to that SuperBowl smorgasbord too!

Yup, you get applause for this go round!