[Sca-cooks] Happy Passover!

[Phil Troy / G. Tacitus Adamantius]

Also sprach Phlip:
>Awright, salmon tease. give us your variant of the recipe, please ;-)

1 salmon, scaled, filleted and boneless, or at least a three-pound fillet
1 cup Kosher or sea salt
1 cup sugar
2 Tbs cracked black or white peppercorns
Fresh dill with stems, coarsely chopped -- some... a lot... three or 
four bunches for a whole fish
splash of booze such as aquavit, vodka, or gin, optional
4 or 5 shallots, thinly sliced (this is apparently the secret 
ingredient not used traditionally)

If you're using a pair of fillets, build a sandwich.

On a large, wide sheet of plastic wrap, spread out a quarter, or if 
you're only doing one piece, half of your dill. Sprinkle a generous 
layer of mixed salt, sugar, and pepper on the skin side, enough so 
that it sticks in a visible layer, like snowfall, more or less 
obscuring the skin. Rub it in gently, but try to avoid knocking it 
off the fish. Lay it skin-side down on top of the dill. If you're 
using two fillets, lay out the second fillet, head-end to tail-end so 
you get a vaguely rectangular package.

Top the flesh side with a similarly thick dusting of 
salt-sugar-pepper. Again, use plenty. It forms a brine with the fish 
juices, and anything the fish can't absorb drains away, so there's 
basically no such thing as too much. Spread out your shallot slices 
to completely cover the fish, then top with the rest of the dill. 
Most recipes don't call for the shallots. Some prefer the dill whole, 
so it's easy to remove; I prefer it chopped coarsely. If you're using 
two fillets, close it up like a book and roll it up in the plastic 
wrap to seal tightly. This is a juicy, leaky sort of project. If 
you're using one fillet, just wrap it up with the skin side down to 
start.

Place in a pan under a board with a light weight such as some heavy 
tomato cans or some such. A perforated hotel pan liner inside a hotel 
pan (some people call these steamer trays, but hotel pan is the more 
proper term) is perfect, but a roasting pan, or any deepish pan that 
will hold the fish laid out flat is fine. Refrigerate.

Turn it over about every twelve hours, for at least 24-36 hours. A 
few hours before serving it, unwrap it and allow the surface to dry 
out a bit. Ideally, it will have lost about 30% of its mass, and be 
slightly waxy in texture, but more or less it will have a texture 
similar to raw salmon. This brief drying makes it a little easier to 
slice. Between the salting and the dill, it doesn't have an 
especially fishy aroma.

Slice thinly, serve with lemon, chopped onion, capers, and riced 
hard-boiled eggs, or the traditional honey-mustard/olive-oil/dill 
emulsified sauce... this is like an eggless mayo made with honey 
mustard, or Dijon with added sugar, with olive oil beaten in until 
thick, with added chopped dill. No, do not use the dill you 
previously used to pickle your fish...

Adamantius
-- 




"S'ils n'ont pas de pain, vous fait-on dire, qu'ils  mangent de la 
brioche!" / "If there's no bread to be had, one has to say, let them 
eat cake!"
	-- attributed to an unnamed noblewoman by Jean-Jacques 
Rousseau, "Confessions", 1782

"Why don't they get new jobs if they're unhappy -- or go on Prozac?"
	-- Susan Sheybani, assistant to Bush campaign spokesman Terry 
Holt, 07/29/04