Russian Cured Salted Salmon Gravlax

Cured salted salmon is very famous and widely eaten in Russia, especially as a festive and party food. Traditionally gravlax is made with the whole salmon fillet and takes several days but our recipes are for quick and easy methods of making salted cured salmon at home. By slicing the fish before the curing salting process you cut off the preparation time by days! See our 6 hour salmon salting/curing recipe and 1 hour salmon salting/brining recipe.

This recipes makes very tasty home-made salmon gravlax in just 6 hours. Salmon keeps its bright colour and it looks and tastes great. This recipe is from my mother and it is my favourite. Try it!

Prep time: 15 min

Cook time: 6 hours

Total time: 6 hours 15 min

Yield: 5 helpings as a starter

ingredients

Freshest (pre-smoked) salmon fillets 350 g (0.8 pounds or 2 fillet pieces)

Rock salt 1 Tbsp

Sugar 1/2 tsp

method

1. Mix salt and sugar in a small bowl.

2. Slice the salmon thinly into 0.5 cm (0.2 in) thick slices.

3. Put the salmon into a glass container (like Pyrex) or a ceramic bowl and dust every slice with the mixture of salt and sugar evenly on both sides.

4. Let the salmon sit for 6 hours or overnight at room temperature. Turn the fish over a couple times during the curing process.

5. Put the home-made salmon gravlax into the refrigerator.

How to store home-made salmon gravlax

The home-made salmon gravlax is a fresh natural product which does not have any preservatives (unlike the commercially made ones). So it can only be stored in the refrigerator for not longer than 2 or 3 days. If you are planning to store the the home-made salmon gravlax for that long, place it into a glass or porcelain bowl, add a tea spoon of olive oil and mix the gravlax so that the oil coats the fish evenly.

How to serve salmon gravlax

You can arrange the slices of home-made salmon gravlax on a platter or on a antipasti serving wood board beautifully and serve with some rye crisp-bread and cream cheese. Decorate the platter with sliced lemon and some fresh greens (parsley or dill). Mill some fresh black pepper on top of the gravlax slices. In Scandinavia gravlax is traditionally eaten with mustard and dill sauce.

Salmon gravlax is also a fabulous sandwich filler, it combines perfectly with some butter and thinly sliced fresh cucumber and will make a great lunch.

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