Gravlax With Cucumber Slaw On Black Bread Recipes

JUNIPER-FLAVORED GRAVLAX

Steps:

• In a bowl, combine the salt, sugar, peppercorns and juniper. Using your hands, rub 1 cup of the mixture all over the salmon. Transfer to a glass baking dish and cover with the remaining mixture. Scatter dill over the salmon and set aside at room temperature for 2 1/2 hours. Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate for 3 to 5 days.
• When ready to serve, remove plastic and discard dill. Transfer the salmon to a cutting board and drizzle with the gin. Slice thinly on the diagonal. Serve with bread and garnishes of choice.

GRAVLAX

Steps:

• Cure the salmon: Lay salmon skin-side down, flesh-side up in a glass or stainless-steel baking dish. (A large lasagna dish works well.) In a small bowl, toss together the salt, sugar and pepper until blended. Sprinkle the mixture over the salmon evenly, with abandon, until fully covered, as if under a blanket of snow. Use all of it.
• Spread all the chopped dill on top of the cure-covered salmon to make a thick, grassy carpet.
• Lay plastic wrap or parchment paper over the salmon to cover and press down, then place a heavy weight - such as a 2-gallon zip-top bag filled with water - on top, to weigh heavily on the curing fish. Refrigerate just like this, without disturbing, for 5 days, turning the salmon over midway through the cure - on Day 3 - then covering and weighting it again.
• To serve, mix together the softened butter, dill, shallot and mustard until well blended.
• Remove salmon from the cure, which has now become liquid, brushing off the dill with a paper towel, then set fillet on a cutting board.
• With a long, thin, beveled slicing knife tilted toward the horizon, slice salmon thinly, stopping short of cutting through the skin. Generally, you begin slicing a few inches from the tail end and you slice in the direction of the tail, moving your knife back, slice by slice, toward the fatter, wider belly portion of the fillet. The last slices are always hard to get. Once you have shingled the fillet, run your knife between skin and flesh, releasing all the slices, then transfer them to parchment until ready to serve.
• Spread the compound butter on bread, then drape sliced gravlax on top, and eat as open-faced sandwiches.

MARK BITTMAN'S GRAVLAX

Steps:

• Fillet the salmon or have the fishmonger do it; the fish need not be scaled. Lay both halves, skin side down, on a plate.
• Toss together the salt, brown sugar and pepper and rub this mixture all over the salmon (the skin too); splash on the spirits. Put most of the dill on the flesh side of one of the fillets, sandwich them together, tail to tail, and rub any remaining salt-sugar mixture on the outside; cover with any remaining dill, then wrap tightly in plastic wrap. Cover the sandwich with another plate and top with something that weighs a couple of pounds -- some unopened cans, for example. Refrigerate.
• Open the package every 12 to 24 hours and baste, inside and out, with the accumulated juices. When the flesh is opaque, on the second or third day (you will see it changing when you baste it), slice thinly as you would smoked salmon -- on the bias and without the skin -- and serve with rye bread or pumpernickel and lemon wedges.

GRAVLAX AND CUCUMBER CROSTINI

Steps:

• Peel cucumbers, and cut lengthwise around seeds; discard seeds. Cut cucumbers into 1-inch squares.
• Mix together mustard, mayonnaise, and chopped dill. Spread 1/2 teaspoon on each crostini. Arrange a piece of gravlax on top of each, then top with a piece of cucumber. Garnish with dill sprigs, and serve immediately.

GRAVLAX ON CUCUMBERS WITH CHIVE YOGURT

Steps:

• Stir together yogurt, 1 tablespoon chives, and 1/8 teaspoon salt. Season with pepper.
• Cut away peel and pith from grapefruit, keeping segments intact. Cut between membranes using a sharp paring knife to release segments. Slice each grapefruit segment into 3 long, thin slices. (Alternatively, cut grapefruit into small chunks.)
• Arrange cucumber slices on a platter and dollop yogurt mixture onto the center of each (about 1/2 teaspoon per slice). Top each with 1 gravlax square and 1 grapefruit slice (twisting together if desired; you may have extra grapefruit slices). Sprinkle with remaining tablespoon chives.