Trying Something New: Cured Salmon

[TAFKAP]

Costco had some wild-caught sockeye on sale today, so I bought some. It's 3.1 lbs of a left & right filet. I didn't use nearly half of the cure, but here's how I did it.

2C of Kosher Salt
1C of light brown sugar
ground out a lot of fresh pepper on either fillet
torn up "branches" of fresh dill

Evenly mix up the salt & sugar. Rinse off & pat dry each piece of fish. Crank out as much pepper as you want on either fillet. Just start piling on the salt/sugar mix. Before I put both halves together, I covered up one of the fillets with the dill. Wrap tightly with plastic wrap & weight down with bricks. I'll flip this once a day for a couple days. Usually, it's ready to go from there��just slice thin, and you've got cured salmon. I think I'll actually cold smoke this. I'll just put a piece of charcoal on a chunk of maple wood & let it go for a few hours. Updates to come.

 

[BamaProud]

Awaiting updates. Tell me more about the bricks. How much weight? Sounds like you could do a lot of damage to the meat.

 

[Vermin93]

Gravlax (aka lox). It's a Nordic dish. If you cold smoke it afterwards you've got Nova lox. I love it and make it frequently since I'm fortunate to have a lot of salmon in the freezer from my fishing trip. I've got a silver salmon filet going right now in the fridge. There's lots of recipe variations available online to try. I have a Swedish coworker who makes it all the time. He adds juniper berries to the spice mix. I love dill, so I use LOTS of fresh dill when I make it.

Finished product is great on a bagel or crackers with cream cheese, diced red onion and capers. It's also great served with a traditional dill mustard sauce.

http://www.tndeer.com/tndeertalk/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Board=30&Number=3274011&Searchpage=1&Main=248687&Words=gravlax&topic=0&Search=true#Post3274011

Recipe for the traditional mustard sauce: Gravlax with Mustard Sauce

I have cured it anywhere from 48 hrs to as long as 5 days. The longer it cures, the saltier and more dill flavored it gets. My Swedish friend insists that 3 days is ideal.

I have never cold smoked it. Whenever I've made gravlax it's been way too hot in Dallas to do any cold smoking. I'm not sure you'll be able to pull it off in this weather, but I'm interested to hear about your results.

 

[TAFKAP]

The bricks don't damage it, just squash it down a bit to help the moisture come out. Tonight is the second time I've turned it, and I think I'll give it one more to get both sides evenly exposed to the salty brine that's pulled out. I think my smoke process will be about an hour�long enough for flavor. I'll rinse this stuff off and set it on a rack to dry overnight in the fridge. I think Thursday night might be the smoke night. I'll just smolder some chips in a can or something�.not really put any heat to it.

 

[Vermin93]

Careful, or you will have hot smoked gravlax and will lose the greatness of the uncooked texture.

Good luck with the cold smoking. I'm looking forward to the final report on this one.

 

[TAFKAP]

I figured that by air drying the fish in the fridge, it'll stay cool enough to accept some smoldering smoke from a can at the opposite end of my barrel smoker. Temp shouldn't rise above outdoor ambient

 

[TAFKAP]

Rinsed off the cure tonight, and set them on the rack to dry overnight in the fridge. The water was running very lightly, just enough to take off the remaining granular salt/sugar, and to rinse off the "juice". I sliced a little piece to taste, and it was OK. I think I'll like it a lot better with some smoke put to it. After I ruined myself on crappy farm-raised salmon in college, it's taken me a long time to work my way back into eating even the good stuff. This will get there. I'll sample it again tomorrow to see how the consistency changes once it's good and dry. Plus, the moisture will redistribute more evenly. By the way, these lost about half their thickness with the juice coming out. They're not firm, really, just more compact.

 

[TAFKAP]

All done. I cut a thin slice yesterday after the wrapped curing process was complete, and I wasn't blown away. It was too squishy, too salty, and too fishy. After spending the night open, on the rack in the fridge, I tasted another slice. It was firmer, but still pretty salty, and still had a tinge of fishiness. So I threw it in the smoker, with the fat sides aimed towards the flame. I run a Char Broil barrel rig, with the offset smoker box. I filled an aluminum pan with ice (sprinkled with salt to keep it from melting), and loaded it in front of the opening between the chambers of the grill. I started a handful of lump charcoal, and surrounded it in existing ash, then laid a few pieces of apple and pecan chips around the coals. The temperature never raised above 110 degrees, and most of that was bottomed out at 100 degrees on my crappy thermometer (chances are pretty decent that they were closer to ambient temp of 90 throughout the process). The smolder ended up dying, so I had to recharge another handful of charcoal to keep the smoke rolling. After an hour, I pulled it out.

It sliced nicely, and was still salty, but the smoke had dulled the fishiness quite a bit. It's still salmon, so there's no doubt you're eating fish. But I sliced the skin off, chunked it out, and froze some slabs. The skin side is incredibly oily still, and for a first try, I think I've done a decent job of curing salmon.

1) Use the wild caught stuff. I can't imagine this tasting good with the pink farm-raised Atlantic variety
2) Stop the cure at 3 days, max. Someone mentioned it above, but I think had I stopped the salt cure earlier (and rinsed more vigorously), it'd be "nice and salty", rather than "a little on the salty side".
3) I think the smoke process made it taste great. Definitely worth doing.
4) See the white edges where the skin & meat come together (and curl a bit)? Trim that off. It's a wee bit funky.
5) Chunk it out & vacuum seal it. Leave a couple chunks in Ziploc bags in the fridge.
6) This might be fun to try with a wild-caught TN fish�.catfish or bass, even. I think it'd taste pretty decent.

After drying in the fridge, but before smoking

After smoking & removing the skin. START AT THE TAIL, and peel backwards. Hold the meat down close to where the skin pulls off. If you don't, the meat will start to pull apart.