A **_Second_Call_** to all the Gravlaxians ...............

[Stinky The Clown]

So ...... tonight I had the second batch of gravlax I ever made for supper. Last time (which was the first time for me) I made it I used farm raised Scottish salmon, a nice, fatty Atlantic salmon. This time I used much leaner wild caught Copper River salmon.

I liked the fattier salmon better. Everything I've read bears this out. For gravlax, the fattier fish is better.

But here's my question ......... is there any way to cut down the saltiness of the finished product? Less time processing? Seems to me that reducing the salt will not be much help as it is the salt itself that cures the fish. Or is it the sugar and I'm misinterpreting the roles and values of the primary ingredients?

Any help is great appreciated. I love any sort of smoked/cured salmon. Given that I can do this waaaaaaay cheaper than buying any type of cured salmon, I want to learn the finer points of making it.

[Warpy]

1. There is no way to get around the salt, sorry

unless you want rotten fish. Salt is the preservative. Sugar and herbs contribute more to the flavor, although sugar is also antibacterial.

You're just going to have to resign yourself to gravlax for special occasions like big buffet parties where your consumption will be minimal and the other guests will wolf it all down to the skin.

There are just some things that take a ton of salt. This is one of them.

[Tab]

2. I haven't tried making this myself, but

would not the majority of the saltiness be on the exposed surface? What about the meat underneath that?

[Stinky The Clown]

3. Nope ...... its pretty salty all the way through

The fish is obviously thin. The salt stays on it at least 48 hours ..... up to 72 hours. The salt draws the liquid out of the fish, creating a brine where none existed. That brine then equalizes the moisture content (and thereby, the salt content) inside - exactly like any other brine. The difference it seems to me, is that fish is naturally salty to start with so we're actually netting out by upping the salt content even more.

All the above is speculation as I don't know the process well enough to do more than guess.

[hippywife]

4. How much of this

are you making at a time. I've never made it, nor eaten it, before but I think based on your threads that this is something that probably should be eaten in small portions and not very often, maybe? Does it store well? Sounds like it should. :shrug:

[Stinky The Clown]

5. It is sliced very thin and served a variety of ways ......

..... we like it on a bagel with cream cheese (pretty unimaginative). But you're right. It is consumed in small quantities. For example, on a bagel, I put the cream cheese and then enough fish to cover the bagel just one layer deep. The fish itself is cut no more than 1/8" thick .... and far thinner mostly. I try to cut it so thin as to see through it and I often get at least half the slice like that. When eaten like this, the saltiness is reduced in the overall product, although the fish hasn't changed. Just that everything else sorta 'dilutes' the salt.

edit to add:

Yes, it keeps well. Two or three weeks in the refrigerator.

[hippywife]

6. Can you extend it's life

by using your vacuum sealer? (I think you're one of the folks that's mentioned owning one, aren't you?)

My thinking is that if you go to all the trouble to make this, vacuum sealing it in small portions to make it last longer would mean you could put some away and not feel the need to eat it all in that two weeks it's in the fridge. You could eat it a little less often and reduce your exposure to all that salt by spreading it out longer. Does that make sense?

[Stinky The Clown]

8. I'm not sure if you can extend its life

That said, I can't imagine why freezing it would be so bad.

I have made a whole side of salmon both times I made it. It seems a waste of effort to make less than that. But the fact is, its easy, so maybe making less *is* the answer.

[hippywife]

9. I was thinking that since it is in essence

cured when the processed is finished, it may keep well for longer if vacuum sealed, sort of like smoked salmon. Maybe not. Probably best to both seal and freeze it for best results. Or, as you said, make it in smaller portions. But then you're still probably getting more salt in your diet in a shorter period of time than normal if you say make it with a quarter of the fish.

[The empressof all]

7. I only like it when it's ground into the cream cheese

I know it sort of defeats the beauty of the fish but I prefer it ground in the processor with the cream cheese and green onion. It seems to cut the saltiness that way.

[Tab]

10. There was a very good article on this, UNFORTUNATELY

I can't find it.

(no, I'm not teasing you - I have more information than that)

I'm pretty darn sure it was in Cook's Illustrated, which you are likely familiar with. If you search your back issues, I recall a very good article on Gravlax somewhere in the last year (maybe two, but I think it was one). Unfortunately I only seem to have a half-dozen issues on the shelf - funny how they tend to disappear. Actually a half-dozen represents a year's worth (published bi-monthly) but somewhere in the last three years it was published.

It's slightly possible I read it somewhere else, but I'm hard-pressed to think where else it might have been.

Don't know if that helps, but that's what I can offer.

If you want to sign up for a free 2-week online trial membership you can search the archives. Even if I remember wrong, they must have done an article on it sometime. They do good research there.

[Stinky The Clown]

11. I probably have the issue

I don't recall the article, however. But I'll try to gather my back issues (they're laying around here someplace).

Thanks for the lead.

[Tab]

12. Actually, I may have been mistaken

There's one other source, which I suspect is what I remember.

I tend to be attracted to the incredibly anal research sites, rather than the touchy-feely sites. That's why I like Cook's Illustrated, Harold McGee, and so forth. As a software engineer I like to know the Why in addition to the How.

Anyway, I came across a site, Cooking for Engineers, and they had a thing on gravlax. I'm pretty sure now that this is what I was reading....

http://www.cookingforengineers.com/recipe/132/Gravlax

[Warpy]

14. The comment section is also enlightening

and the Swede who weighed in described the way I did it, with two sides of fish, meat sides and curing mixture together, wrapped and weighted.

The weight just encouraged more of the water to leave the final product and collect in the tray. Only the thickest parts of the fish were actually weighted.

[Tab]

19. I bet you could do something with interesting spices

I'd have to think what might be best. I also saw the comment about adding alcohol, but I'm at a loss as to what you would add. Just for flavoring? What kind? Certainly you're not going to add enough to give a kick to any thin slice.

Yet I bet you can make stuff with interesting spices. If you mix the spices in properly you hopefully will get them transferred. I know that when I was doing my brine experiments they transferred well, but you're not really making a solution here, so it's hard to say. Obviously something must get transferred if they're adding dill, unless people just think it makes a diff.

On edit: I hear the phrase "rub" in my head, over and over and over again.... maybe the gods are sending me a message.

[Stinky The Clown]

20. The Saveur article points out that there is a near endless variety of spices that ......

.... people put into their gravlax.

As for alcohol, the most popular is aquavit followed by vodka.

[Tab]

22. Now, how would vodka help?

Unless it's a flavored vodka, vodka itself is ostensibly flavorless. Is it supposed to ferment or something? Or is it just an excuse for cooks to keep vodka around?

[Warpy]

23. I can't see that it would, particularly, unless you were

trying to dissolve spices that didn't dissolve well in the water in the fish.

I don't think I'd like that variation at all, but the juniper berries sound very nice.

[Stinky The Clown]

24. I can't answer that, either

The Saveur recipe said it was optional. I opted not to use it, seeing no reason to bother.

[sandnsea]

13. When we smoke salmon

We put enough salt in the mixture to float an egg. Did you use more than that? My husband is the salmon smoker and he's napping, recovering from surgery. I'll ask him later because we rarely have salty salmon. Then again, we refrigerate it and sometimes freeze it and don't rely on the cure to preserve it long term.

[Stinky The Clown]

15. Making gravlax doesn't require the actual making of a brine.

2 parts salt, 1 part sugar and spices are applied directly to the fish. The salt draws moisture out of the fish, thereby creating the brine from the fish's own juices.

[sandnsea]

16. Is that the bright orange salmon, served cold?

I think I had that at someone's house for Christmas one year. It was really good. I think the guy said he saw a butcher throwing away salmon scraps and said "whoa", and then turned them into some kind of cured, "raw" salmon bits. Anyways, here's some recipes that don't call for so much salt. My husband said he probably uses 2 parts sugar to one part salt, although he does it more by taste.

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C0CE5DB1E3EF932A25752C1A96E958260&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=all

[Stinky The Clown]

17. Thanks for that link!

I can't imagine how they call one of those 'low salt'. It uses more salt than some of the others. But .... and this is the hopeful part ..... they all cure the fish for half the time or less than I was doing. That may well cut down the saltiness.

Gravlax looks like any cured salmon, which is to say it is thin sliced, nicely pink, and .... well ..... pretty.



Lox, smoked salmon, gravlax ..... each is a different product/process, but the end result is very, very similar.

[Tab]

18. This is sort of a self-induced brine

I went through a period for a while where I was doing a lot of brine experimentation. I'd also add spices.

One thing I've noticed is that if you have a strong brine, as you might with a lot of salt even on self-brining stuff, is that duration makes a big difference. For some meats it doesn't seem to matter, but certain delicate ones, it does. I know with chicken, my brine time would be relatively short (90 mins, maybe, for boneless breast, at least the way I prepared it) - overbrine, maybe 3 hours, and it starts to taste like ham. Basically you have to pull it from the solution before it goes to far. I'd venture to say the same theory applies here - salmon is very delicate, and I would guess it would be easy to overdo the process. More is not necessarily better. Your observation that you may be doing it twice as long as necessary dovetails nicely with my experiences in other situations.

[Stinky The Clown]

21. Yeah, I'm going to cut the time down drastically on my next try .....

.... but that won't be for a while. I still have a half a side of fish left and then I want to give it some time before I make it again. Maybe in August.

[sazemisery]

25. Here's a suggestion

My son has a restaurant in Tulsa, Oklahoma (shameless plug:SoChey - between 2nd and 3rd on Cheyenne). They do a tequila cured salmon using tequila, salt and sugar. They have also used gin. Very nice.

I have never cured salmon but I do cure a lot of bacon. I recently purchased a Berkshire pig and had 2 sides of fresh bacon. Since the pig had been pastured and not grain fed, it was much leaner than most factory farm oinkers. In addition to the fact that they peel the skin off instead of removing the hair and leaving the skin intact. Anyway, I cured it like I normally do except that I cut my cure time down to 4 days instead of 7 to 10. It was still too salty.