Gravlax is a salt and sugar cured salmon that looks and tastes lovely and posh but is super easy to make. All you need to do is cover the salmon with the salt cure and leave it for a few days to cure in the fridge, then you cut it up.

I prefer the taste of Gravlax to smoked salmon and when I make a batch, I do a bit more than planned and we eat it for brunch with scrambled eggs. I find it less rich than smoked salmon, which means I can eat more of it! We had this as a starter on Christmas Day with some fresh baguette.

Gravlax

First, make the salt cure by stirring together the salt, sugar, pepper and chopped dill.

Put a piece of plastic wrap in a dish that your piece of salmon will fit into nicely. Put half the salt cure onto the plastic wrap and place the salmon on top, skin down. Sprinkle the rest of the cure on top and press it into the salmon.

Place the salmon in the fridge and leave to cure for 2 – 3 days, turning the salmon over every 12 hours (if you forget don’t worry too much). I like it better after 3 days of curing, rather than 2. A lot of liquid will end up in the dish as the salt cure pulls the moisture out of the salmon.

Once cured, remove from the plastic wrap and brush off as much of the cure that you can with paper towel. Don’t wash the salmon. The skin will be hard. Put the salmon on a chopping board and cut wafer thin slices on the diagonal, towards the tail, leaving the skin in tact. The first few pieces from the tail end tend to be a lot saltier than the rest.

I know that this keeps for at least a week, but any longer I’m not sure…ours is always gone by then.

*I like to buy a tail piece, so that when I’m slicing it, I know which direction to slice.