Cured Salmon

This isn't smoked salmon nor lox, but it's in the same family! This is more like Gravalax because it's cured in salt, sugar and dill. This cured salmon is really easy to make at home and doesn't require anything special like a smoker or dehydrator. Get some good sockeye salmon for this application. I got two pieces because I couldn't find a whole side of sockeye. To start you'll want to peel the skin off the salmon if it has any, rinse it and press all the water out of the flesh that you can. I used this recipe from Chow, but decreased the salt and sugar to two cups of each (which was still a little much) and decreasing the white pepper to two tablespoons. I have a little grinder and got tired after two! I skipped the parsley but used all the lemon zest from one lemon and a whole bunch of dill.

My salmon is almost 15oz. 

Sugar, pepper and salt mixed.

Chopped dill and lemon zest.

Layer out some of the salt/sugar mixture on the bottom of a platter.

Make sure your salmon is skinned and set it on top of the salt/sugar layer.

Sprinkle the lemon zest and dill on top of the salmon and cover that with the the salt/sugar mix. Some of my dill and lemon got stirred up to the top while I was distributing. No matter!

I wrapped the whole thing in plastic wrap since moisture will be leaking off the salmon. Make sure your dish can accommodate some liquid.

Weight it down with something (I filled this dish with limes to weight it further since I had a giant Costco sized bag on hand). Put this in the fridge and let it do it's thing for 24 hours.

24 hours later you can see how wet the salt/sugar mix has become!

Wipe and rinse the mixture off the salmon.

Nice and cured! 

Mine is somewhat like salmon jerky more than the softer raw looking salmon seen in the pictures. A little chewy and very salty. But what else would you expect from something that had been coated in salt for 24 hours!