Gravadlax

Last year, just before Christmas, we bought a whole salmon, turned some of it into gravadlax and poached the rest.  The cold poached salmon makes a great standby, excellent with a little mayonnaise: in sandwiches, with salad and hot potatoes and many other veg.  It worked so well that we did the same again this year.

The gravadlax takes 5 days maturing in the fridge, under weights, turning daily.  This is an easy dish to make, but this latest version was good and worthy of noting the method.  Unfortunately I didn't make a note of the exact quantities but: 2 packets of fresh dill, twice as much sugar as salt, (around 100g sugar and 50g salt) and lots of ground black pepper.  I chopped the dill very finely in the food processor and gave a final whizz with the other ingredients, just to mix them.  Cut the tail into two fillets, leaving the skin on.  Press half the dill mixture onto one fillet and the rest onto the other half.  Put the two fillets together to make a sandwich with the dill in the middle.  Wrap well in clingfilm and place in a dish at least as deep as the salmon parcel, as it gives off a lot of liquid while it is maturing.  Weigh the salmon down and refrigerate.  Turn daily, do not discard the expressed liquor until the 5 days are up.  This recipe gives a higher proportion of sugar to salt than I have previously used and I liked the less salty, sweeter flavour of this gravadlax.

We like to serve this with a mixed leaf salad that has been lightly dressed with a dill and mustard dressing and more dressing either served separately or drizzled over the gravadlax.  The dressing is simply made.  Put a large dollop of Dijon mustard into a bowl, add a teaspoon of sugar and a tablespoon of chopped dill.  Whisk in olive oil until a good consistency/quantity is achieved.  Whisk in lemon juice or white wine vinegar to taste.  The sauce should be slightly sweet and very mustardy.