Cooking with Gin - Gravlax

What could be better than serving your own Gin Cured Gravlax?

Curing, as a culinary method has been used for a very long time.  It is one of the fastest and easiest ways to preserve fresh meat and fish and it results in amazingly intense flavours. 

The botanicals used in Nonesuch Dry Gin add a subtle richness to this dish.

You Will Need:

One x 1 kg salmon fillet (Tasmanian of course), skin on, trimmed and pin-boned

300 g rock salt

100 g white course sugar

2 bunches of dill, finely chopped

1 lemon, zested

1 tablespoon juniper berries

¼ cup Nonesuch Dry Gin (For the recipe that is. A further nip or two for a refreshing Gin and Tonic as you work)

The Way To Do It:

Combine salt, sugar, dill, lemon zest, juniper berries and gin in a bowl. You want this to be the consistency of wet sand. 

Lay two pieces of plastic wrap out on your bench.  These need to be long enough to wrap your salmon and you need them slightly overlapping.

Put the salmon, skin side down on top of half the salt mixture (that you have of course spread out). Use the remaining salt mixture to cover the non-skin side of the salmon.  You want to get a salt crust on the salmon.  Wrap your salmon tightly in the plastic wrap and then place in a deep-sided tray. (Be aware that a lot of moisture will seep out of the salmon and will look oily.) 

Cover a deep-sided tray with another layer of plastic wrap. Place some weights on top of the salmon.  You can use pretty much anything clean and heavy such as bricks wrapped in foil, tins of food or even a foil-wrapped 2L milk bottle. 
Refrigerate for 24 hours and then remove weights, turn salmon over, replace the weights and refrigerate for another 24 hours.

Unwrap your salmon and wipe all the salt mixture off. Pat dry with a kitchen towel.  Slice the salmon thinly and serve with pickled onions or dill cucumbers, sour cream and crusty bread.

Compliment the food with a classic Dry Martini.