Cured Salmon Recipe
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“This is one of those dishes that are impressive yet easy to make,” says San Francisco chef Traci Des Jardins. A big hunk of salmon on a platter (with some dill fronds around the sides as garnish) is a beautiful sight. Serve it on toast as canapés, by itself as an appetizer, or in a salad. It takes 24 hours to prepare, but for most of that time the fish is just sitting in the refrigerator.
What to buy: Try to avoid farm-raised salmon from the Atlantic; instead go for Alaskan wild salmon.
Game plan: The salmon will hold up for 4 or 5 days once it’s cured.
We’re Cured
You can use our home-cured salmon in any recipe that calls for smoked salmon.
Here are a few of our favorites:
Heirloom Pea Pancakes with Smoked Salmon and Crème Fraîche
Smoked Salmon and Mozzarella Calzone
The salmon is also great served simply: over a salad, scrambled into eggs with a little sour cream and chives, or topping your favorite... read more
- 3 cups kosher salt
- 3 cups granulated sugar
- 4 tablespoons lightly crushed white peppercorns
- 1 (1- to 2-pound) salmon fillet, skin on (scales removed) and pin bones removed
- 1 bunch dill (including stems), coarsely chopped
- 1 bunch Italian parsley (including stems), coarsely chopped
- Zest of 1 medium lemon
- Place salt, sugar, and peppercorns in a medium bowl and mix until evenly combined. Rub about 1/4 cup of the mixture onto both sides of the salmon.
- Mix together dill, parsley, and lemon zest in a separate bowl until evenly combined. Place half the herb mixture in the bottom of a 13-by-9-inch glass baking dish or other wide, shallow, nonreactive container, then spread 1/2 of the remaining sugar-salt mixture over the herbs. Place the salmon on this, and top with the remainder of the sugar-salt mixture and the herbs.
- Weight the salmon by nesting another glass dish or heavy pan in the first baking dish or container. Place 3 to 4 pounds of weight on top of that (large cans work well) and put the dish in the refrigerator.
- After 10 to 12 hours, remove the dish from the refrigerator and drain off any liquid. Scrape the layer of salt and herbs off the top of the salmon and flip the fish over. Repack the salt and herbs over the top, replace the weights, and store in the fridge for an additional 12 hours.
- When the salmon is finished curing, remove it from the pan, rinse under cold water, and pat dry. Serve thinly sliced with Marinated Potatoes and Fennel or use in your favorite recipe calling for cured or smoked salmon.
This is a wonderful way to serve good salmon - and cured is a standard at our holiday parties. If we have any leftover, a very easy way to use it (as a casual appetizer or lunch) is using regular plain Boboli crust from the grocery:
Leftover cured salmon sliced thin (any amount)
Boboli crust, lightly baked - still warm
spread Boboli thinly with some Cream cheese
top with:
your leftover cured salmon (small or irregular pieces are fine)
Chives or fresh dill, Diced red onions, arugula, whole paper thin sliced lemon, and capers.
A delicious way to use up a small amount that you may have leftover.
Could this work with other kinds of fish?
I do a cured salmon by I first rub it with a liqued smoke, then bury it in sea salt for about 24hrs. then put in cold fresh water and rinse and
replace with more fresh water until you get the salty taste you like.
You may have to leave in water for a few hrs. at a time.
tasts like smoked salmon you pay $4 an ounce for
V/LoPrinzi
I make this all the time. I have used dry cure like the recipe above, wet brines and a combination of both. The wet brine will yield a softer silky texture. I have no fear of farm raised salmon or steelheads. They have more fat which is a good thing for this application. Wild or farmed, they both taste great and CHounds shoud give it a try. I cold smoke mine to add more dimension to it. It's wonderful.
I hadn't considered frying the skin. I have always broiled it. But bacon browns more uniformly if fried in about a half an inch of vegetable oil and I suspect the salmon skin might also a brown more uniformly if it were fried. Thanks I'm going to try it. According to my wife we have a whole freezer full of salmon skins that have to be used. Maybe this is the answer.
I leave the skin on. Then, when the cure is done I slice it off and fry it as I would bacon. Doesn't yield a lot but oh, the flavor. From time to time I also love to quickly pan fry a portion of the cured salmon itself (not thinly sliced). Soooooo good!
I have to admit that I feel like an alien among all you gourmets. I use the same basic ingredients, but process it differently. I start with one half salmon I catch at the local supermarket. I rub the fish (with the skin still on it) with olive oil. I then dredge it in the salt, brown sugar and spice mixture. I sometimes slice a raw onion and layer the fish between two layers of onions. I consider that optional. I let the fish cure for four or five days! I turn it daily doing that period. By that time much of the moisture is removed from the fish and it takes on a chewy, jerky like texture. i rinse off the curing brine and sliced the fish down into thin slivers. I then submerge the sliced fish in olive oil and store it in the refrigerator. I don't know how long it will keep. I processed ten pounds three or four months ago and have seen no signs of deterioration. But what do I know? This morning, I will have that cured Salmon on a mini bagel with cream cheese for breakfast. Although I occasionally have pancakes or bacon and eggs. I stick with the cured Salmon at least five days a week.
About the dung thing, living things in there natural environment have immunities to the things they encounter. So they probabaly will not be catching anything that will really harm them. I think they have a better texture and color also, but when I'm on a limited budget (most of the time) farmraised will do.
My choice here would be 'Wild Coho' as well.
We prepared Gravlax in School and used Brown Sugar. Yes I think Organic Brown Sugar would be best. It lends a more rich,earthy cure to the Fish.
I agree, Zendrive's serving suggestion sounds great.
As for Farmed vs. Wild I recently stopped buying farmed. But I understand that salmon is widely consumed and most folks cant afford the exhorbitant prices of Wild.
FARMING SALMON
genetics is a legit issue,negative diet goes both directions
good and bad. geographical location/crowding and other CHOSEN practices go both ways.Not all beef comes from feedlot factories,ergo not all salmon is raised in factory pens.
There are several sites around,Atlantic and Pacific,that are, or almost ORGANIC,managed in a rational manner.
Canada-Ireland-Chile-3 in Maine are close to organic.
I suppose all of us need to stay very aware of origin,wild and
domestic.Your store MUST have paperwork to certify source.
In response to zendive: you seem concerned with the dung a wild fish may encounter. Ok, fine. Now try to imagine a tank filled with hundreds of farm raised salmon, all swimming in a pool of their own filth. Maybe this is where the bad rep comes.
By the way, another idea in case anyone is still reading these: I sometimes make up a batch with either smoked paprika or ground chipotles mixed into the salt/sugar mixture. This simulates the flavor of smoked salmon. The paprika will give you just smoke flavor, whereas the chipotles will also contribute a bit of heat--which I find to be quite nice!
I've been curing salmon for quite some time and I find that adding a bit of vodka, aquavit, etc, makes for a better final product. I think it helps pull some additional moisture from the meat. Either way, homemade gravlax is an awesome, easy way to impress guests (although I usually end up eating the whole thing myself <g>)
Farm or Wild debate:
Growing up on the coast of British Columbia, I have forever heard both sides of this debate...depending on which side your on, yes it may be more 'safe'/un-safe being farm raised, and regulated but in all honestly I have to stand firm with my choice for Wild salmon.
Learning to fish with my father at an extremely young age (probably not long after my birth i was on our boat) I grew up with the mind-set that salmon were these wonderous intelligent creatures that swim in the depths of beautiful coast lines of vast blue ocean. So wise they are able find their way back to their birth place, hundreds of miles up treacherous rivers and streams.
Quite frankly the thought of a fish farm sickens me. It seems like they should be filmed as one of those pro-vegan advertisements played by PETA, displaying the horrors of badly treated animals. To me they seem strangely unnatural, and sad in a way, that this animal that we could let live free in the wild and still be able to enjoy easily by regulated fishing, is being held captive in order for stocks to be exploited.
Like anything, the choice between wild and farmed salmon becomes a personal one. Having the childhood I did is a major factor in my choice to eat and serve wild salmon, however making a grocery store choice an ethics debate is not my intention. To be extremely frank, the taste and texture of wild salmon is better, and if swimming and eating freely in the ocean is the cause, why mess with it?
There are a lot of dangers associated with farmed salmon, including the high levels of contaminents like PCBs and dioxin found in farm-raised salmon and the dyes used to make their flesh look pink (farmed salmon is naturally a rather unhealthy-looking gray color). Since they're raised in very close quarters -- like many factory-farmed animals -- the waters around the cages become polluted and the fish are much more susceptible to disease, so they get pumped full of antibiotics. Also, farmed salmon has been known to escape their cages and interbreed with wild salmon.
Perhaps not all farmed salmon is bad: there are some fisheries that have got certification from the Marine Stewardship Council.
http://eng.msc.org/
I think one of the many reasons to avoid farm raised salmon (and other farmed raised fish) is very similar to the recent pet food recall, it has to do with the chemicals added to the pellet meal. So I guess it is a matter of choosing the lesser of two evils, parasites or chemicals...
Funny, just after reading this, I saw a couple chefs at work prepare some cured salmon and tuna. What appalled me is that they'll call the tuna "tartare" after it's lost all its soft, beautiful texture and flavor. To boot, they'll toss it with more seasoning...
zendrive: your serving suggestion sounds great!
We used to avoid farm raised because of it's color, taste and texture. But when we used it out of need, it held up ok.
My favorite way to serve citrus cured salmon (basically the above recipe with loads of lime, orange and lemon zest in the cure) is to shave fennel, toss with mixed greens and extra virgin, blood orange olive oil. Serve with a few candied grapefruit supremes (just dredge the sections in sugar and saute for a min or two)
Truthfully, I dont know why most chefs avoid fresh, farm raised salmon. Farm raised salmon is fed with a pellet meal that is not prone to the parasites wild salmon may encounter (bear dung, deer dung, etc)
When I cure salmon I mostly use wild Coho salmon due to its higher fat content and rich color, but I dont know why farm raised salmon gets the bad rap?
Could someone elaborate? Wouldnt farm raised be safer?
Bagels? Creamed Cheese? Nu?
Broil the Salmon skin in at 550 degrees for two minutes with the inside facing the heating element. Cut it up into bit size pieces. That is not a new idea. Most Sushi bars will serve salmon skin rolls and other items using the skin of the salmon. You might want to leave a thin layer of meat on the skin when you slice it off. But, that is a matter of taste.
A flexible filleting knife makes it really easy to slice cured salmon very thinly when you sliced down on an angle. And you needn't worry about the skin, it's harder to cut than you'd imagine, so it's easy to just leave it behind and intact. Just turn your knife blade outwards in the direction you're cutting when you get to the bottom of the slice, between the flesh and the skin.
Adam: How you remove the skin depends on how you slice the fish.
The most common way to cut cured salmon is to slice down and on an angle (as we did in the photo above). This, however, means you remove the skin each time you slice.
Chef Des Jardins recommends slicing the salmon horizontally--meaning paralell to the tabletop. This method ensures that you steer clear of the bloodline (the gray part of the fish that some people don't like) and the skin. Either way, the correct tool-a slicing knife- is key as it will make for nice slices without tearing through the fish.
what do i do with the skin - just remove before slicing?
anyone have any pointers for slicing nice and thin?
Freezing the salmon before curing it should kill any parasites (most consumer freezers aren't cold enough, however; you're probably better off buying commercially frozen 'sushi quality' salmon)
Yummy
This is very easy to make and elegant to serve. I had it in a friends house served with Russian creamed potatoes. Delicious.
Shouldn't this have a step for killing the parasites commonly found in salmon?