Salmon and troutOnline Catalogue | Salmon and trout Wild and farmed salmon, wild and farmed troutSalmon is one of our most popular fish, always the finest from Shetland or wild from Scotland or Alaska. The wild salmon season starts in the spring.
Trout is more delicate, both in texture and taste.
|  | | | | | | | GravadlaxThis will serve 8 as a starter or 6 as a light meal. Start making the gravlax three or four days before you want it, three days for a softer gravadlax, four days for a firmer gravlax as it dries out with time. Don't stretch it to five days. It looks complicated but this is an easy recipe.
You'll need
A middle portion of salmon, 1kg, cut into two 500g fillets (order our gravadlax salmon - scroll up).
2 tablespoons sea salt, use flakes, not the salt for grinders
2 tablespoons granulated sugar
1 tablespoon vodka, gin or brandy
A large bunch of roughly chopped fresh dill. Most of the supermarkets seem to sell dill in 25 or 30g packs, you will probably need three of these.
Keep one of the dill packs back to garnish and for the sauce (unchopped)
You'll need a shallow dish or deepish plate - glass or crockery
Nice with a mustard sauce
This sauce is also good for any salmon, hot or cold, fresh or smoked, and is the easiest sauce to make.
2 tablespoons smooth Dijon mustard
1 tablespoon caster sugar
2 tablespoons white wine vinegar
125ml olive oil
2 tablespoons crème fraiche
2 tablespoons chopped dill
(for you lazy cooks you can buy dill and mustard sauce in some supermarkets, just add some crème fraiche and the chopped dill)
Mix the salt, sugar and black pepper together and rub into the flesh side of both fillets and then sprinkle on the vodka, gin or brandy. Spread a quarter of the dill onto each fillet, and another quarter onto the plate. Put one salmon fillet on the plate skin side down, put the other side on top of the first, then sprinkle the remaining quarter of the dill on top of the salmon, which should by now look like a reassembled whole salmon portion.
Cover the fish with cling film and put a flat plate on top of it. Weight the plate down (cans will do), and put in the fridge. Three or four days is a good time to leave it, as it starts to dry out after 3 days and the texture gets firmer, so chose whether you'd like a softer gravadlax (3 days) or a firmer gravadlax (4 days).
Discard most of the dill and put the fillets one by one onto a board. Cut the gravlax into thin slices, cut down diagonally into the fish so that the slices are small, rather than along the length of the fillet.
For the sauce, whisk the first three ingredients together in the order given above, then add the olive oil until it makes a thick sauce. You don't have to add all the olive oil. Then whisk in the crème fraiche and the remaining chopped dill.
Serve the gravlax heaped on a plate with the sauce in a dish, it goes well with toast or crusty wholemeal bread. Good with a warm potato salad for a light meal.
What's in a name?
Gravlax or gravad lax is Swedish
Gravet laks is Danish
Gravlaks is Norwegian and Danish
Graavilohi is Finnish
Graavilõhe is Estonian and
Graflax is Icelandic
| | | | | | | | | | | | | |  Gary Mann otterThis otter is eating rainbow trout supplied by The Smelly Alley Fish Company!
Photo © Gary Mann. | | | | | |
Copyright 2007-2012 The Smelly Alley Fish Company, including photographs unless indicated. |
