Ralf’s Gin-Cured Salmon.

Salmon, gin, dill and a little patience — two days in the fridge and you have something rather special.

For me, salmon is the best fish for this, although you can also use trout or mackerel. I make it around Christmas and New Year, and it has become one of those recipes people actually ask me to make again. That is normally a good sign.

Ingredients

Serves about 6

  • 1 large side of salmon, skin on
  • Gin, enough to marinate the salmon
  • 30 g sugar
  • 50 g salt
  • 2–3 tbsp olive oil
  • 1 large bunch of fresh dill, or frozen dill
  • Extra dill for finishing, optional

Method

First, run your fingers carefully over the flesh of the salmon. You will feel if there are any pin bones left inside. Pull them out with fish tweezers. I actually have special fish tweezers for exactly this job.

Cut the side of salmon into two equal pieces and place them in a dish. Pour over enough gin to let the salmon sit in it and leave it for about two hours. The gin is there to give flavour to the fish.

Take the salmon out of the gin and pat it thoroughly dry.

Mix the salt and sugar together and spread the mixture over the flesh side of both pieces of salmon. Add plenty of dill.

Lay out a large piece of cling film. Put the two pieces of salmon together with the flesh sides facing each other, then wrap them really tightly. You want some pressure on the fish so the two pieces are held firmly together.

Put the wrapped salmon into a zip bag or, even better, vacuum-seal it.

Now it goes into the refrigerator for 48 hours. Turn the package approximately every 12 hours so the cure works evenly through the fish: left, right, left, right.

After two days, unwrap the salmon and remove the remaining salt, sugar and dill. The fish will now feel noticeably firmer.

Add a little fresh or dried dill on top if you want it to look especially nice, then slice the salmon very thinly with a sharp knife.

For me, this is very, very good — especially at Christmas.

The Mayor’s Noilly Prat Question

While I was explaining the gin, the Mayor immediately thought: could you use Noilly Prat instead?

I explained that the alcohol is there for the taste, not to clean or disinfect the fish. That made the idea even more interesting to him. Gin gives it its particular botanical flavour, but Noilly Prat would take it in another direction altogether.

The Mayor hasn’t tested my version yet, so this is not part of my original recipe.

But I think somebody needs to.

And the Mayor has a bottle of Noilly Prat.