The next day I returned, bagging a side of salmon from the eerie-eyed proprietor. But when I got home a problem occurred to me: sure, my enormous hunk of salmon was fresh now, but what was I going to do as it rapidly started becoming, well, less than fresh? But then I remembered running across a mysterious way of preserving fish in Quebec: by turning it into gravlax.* Gravlax, as I discovered, originally hailed from Norway and is considered a far finer delicacy than smoked salmon in its native land. So, since as we all know the Norwegians are never wrong about fish, with trust in my heart, I put my side of pristine salmon on the line and began the gravlax cure. In fact, there are two stages of cure, both simple. The first calls for lots of course salt, dill, vodka, pepper and citrus zest. The second cure asks only brown sugar and vanilla. For gravlax, it's the wait that's difficult: 24 hours for the first cure, followed by a week for the next. The picture is of the salmon before rinsing off the first brine.
Was it worth the wait? Without a doubt. Gravlax has a subtle complexity: the salty brine plays off the sweet against the soft background of the salmon. So far, we've used it as a relish on bagels and cream cheese and as part of a lemon cream sauce over tagliatelle and asparagus. Sandwiches and crêpes shouldn't be far behind -- that is, if Cecco doesn't eat it all while I'm not looking!
