I learned how to make this wonderful appetizer from Swedish friends of ours Borje and Carrol Ekberg.  I remember having this at their house for dinner, paired with boiled potatoes and of coure the dill mustard sauce.  I have seen a guest at a Julia Child cooking show make this with tequila. Some add vodka. Even Borje told me he adds acquavit sometimes. I have tried them all and depending on what alcohol you add, the fish will get either too cooked or just a little off on the taste scale.  At the end of the day, my husband loves the simple recipe, slathered with home made gravlaxsas–homemade dill mustard sauce.

Ingredients:

• 1 salmon fillet (with or without skin) approximately 500 grams
• 4 tbs sugar
• 2 tbs salt
• 2 tsp ground white pepper
• a bunch of fresh dill weed
• plastic or saran wrap for wrapping

Directions:

1. Clean salmon fillet and wipe dry with paper towel. Set aside.
2. In a separate bowl, mix sugar, salt and pepper.
3. Cover salmon with mixture.
4. Place bunch of dill weed (no need to cut or break) on top then fold salmon in half, covering the dill weed.
5. Wrap in saran wrap or plastic and place in plastic bag (just to make sure it does not drip on your refrigerator shelf.
6. Leave in refrigerator for at least 3 days to cure.

To slice:

After 3 or so days, take cured salmon out and wash off remaining mixture and dill weed.  Slice and serve.

Notes: The above curing mix is perfect for a 500-gram salmon fillet. It can easily be doubled if you want to cure several huge pieces of fillet. Once cured, they freeze very well whole or sliced.  I have seen some recipes with equal amounts of salt and sugar. I find that they tend to be very salty so I adjusted this one to have more sugar than salt.  It works fine for us. So you can do a 1:1 ratio if you want it a little salty.

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