I make - Smoker-less Smoked Salmon

I would have never thought that it's possible to make my own smoked salmon at home. Yes, I did it and it's not complicated at all. My friend, Stephanie, showed me some pictures of her recent kitchen discovery, home smoked salmon without smoke. What? Now I am listening. Stephanie uses smoky tea leaves to make the smoked salmon. I googled around and found that smoked salt or liquid smoke (which I happened to have one bottle at home) can be used to create the same effect. I am intrigued.

The basic curing mix is salt and sugar but the ratio varies wildly based on what I can find. Some uses equal amount of each. Others have more sugar than salt or vice versa. Traditional gravlax (gravad lax) seems to be heavy on the sugar side (and without the smoky ingredient) but that just sounds too weird to me (sweet raw salmon, anyone?). I opted for Daniel Gritzer's method and adapted from there. He tested three salt:sugar ratios and commented that 2:1 by weight is his and tasters' favorite. That sounds all right to me. I also quantified the salt in relation to the salmon weight so that I can adapt the following recipe to any amount of salmon I may have in the future. For each piece of salmon, start with amount of salt which is 5% of the salmon weight. My salmon was 750g so I used 37.5g of salt (you can round up to 40g) and half the amount of the sugar (19g). This will give you a mild tasting salmon after two days. Play with the curing mix and curing time to suit your taste of salmon.

Easy smoked salmon
adapted from recipes by Daniel Gritzer and Raquel Pelzel

To prepare the salmon before curing:

Plenty of cool salted water

1 (750-1000g) skin-on, sushi-grade salmon fillet, pin bones removed

1/2 cup vodka (optional)

Soak the fish in the salted water for 10 minutes. Strain the water and rinse the salmon with vodka (if using). Pat the fish dry with paper towels.

To cure the salmon:
40 grams kosher salt (4-5% of salmon weight)
20 grams brown sugar (half of the salt amount)
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground white pepper or black pepper

2 large bunches dill (optional)

2 tbsps liquid smoke (alternatively you can use smoked salt or ground up smoky tea leaves such as Lapsang souchong)

Optional flavoring for the fish:

1 teaspoon caraway seeds, toasted and ground
1 teaspoon coriander seeds, toasted and ground

1 teaspoon onion powder

In a bowl, mix the salt, sugar and ground white/black pepper. If using other dry flavoring such as caraway, coriander or onion powder, add to the salt mix now.

On the worktop, overlapping several layers of cling film covering three times the size of the salmon. Sprinkle 1/3 of the salt mix on the cling film. Put half of the dill (if using) on top of the salt mix and the layer the salmon on top of the dill (skin down, flesh up). 

Sprinkle the liquid smoke on top of the salmon flesh. Use your finger to rub the liquid smoke into the salmon so that the liquid smoke is absorbed in. Scatter the rest of the salt mix on top of the salmon. Rub the mixture into the salmon flesh with fingers (cling filmed fingers work well). Finally cover the fish with the remaining dill.

Wrap the salmon up by gathering the cling film from all sides. Rest the salmon parcel in a container. Put some weight on top of the salmon parcel (I use cling film wrapped cans) and cover the whole container completely (I wrap the whole thing in layers of cling film). Refrigerate the salmon for 2-3 days. If you want and remember, turn the salmon parcel once or twice a day. I didn't and it still tastes great.

Note to self: I cured my first salmon for two days. It's pretty nice but I prefer the flesh a bit firmer and saltier. Next time will try 3:1 ratio for two days or the same 2:1 ratio with 3-day curing.

When the curing is finished, rinse the salmon under cold tap water to remove all the brine mixture. Pat the salmon dry and enjoy with rye bread or bagel with cream cheese.