Saturday, October 29, 2005

Gravlax with lemon-dill mayonaise mousse

I made my own gravlax for the first time in my life yesterday and ate it today. I followed really loosely a few recipes (salt, sugar, dill and pepper) and it worked alright. I made a simple press using a cutting board and a few cans and placed the salmon and its very heavy seasoning in the fridge for 24 hours. The texture was perfect but I found it very hard to reduce the saltiness of the fish: I soaked it in water for a few minutes, changed the water many times... it was still way too salty.

A friend of mine suggested making a non salted lemon sauce to reduce the saltiness. At that p0int, especially since we were all hungry, I thought it was a wonderful idea so I started by making a simple mayo with one egg yolk and some lemon juice. My girlfriend, the two of my close friends who were with us tonight and I took the relay at beating the egg and oil as the emulsion was slowly forming. When we were all satisfied with our mayonnaise, we added chopped dill, lemon zest and some black pepper (no salt) to the mixture. At that point, I had the idea of beating the egg white that was left to stiff peaks and to incorporate it to the mayonnaise to make a nice fluffy sauce instead of the usual thick mayo. It worked wonderfully... and this time, the success was truly due to a collective effort from all of us.



This trick to make this simple but very elegant sauce is one to remember!

3 comments:

MagicTofu said...

I've been thinking about this sauce and I am wondering if I could cook its top layer as we do with meringue on a lime pie... I was thinking that one could spoon a similar sauce over asparagus for example and then use a blow torch to create a nice golden brown crust on top. I'll surely work on this idea in the near future!

Anonymous said...

The texture of the salmon is very good, but it is way too salty. If you can reduce the salt level, it would be perfect.
Can I have that again?

MagicTofu said...

I'll try to improve on the recipe soon.