Spruce Cured Salmon
Click here for details on correctly identifying spruce
I used to think curing fish was something almost mystical, I believed it would take an age to learn, would be incredibly difficult to get right and at the end of it all I would probably give myself some sort of serious disease after completing it.
I couldn’t be more wrong, all it took was one go at it and I’m completely shocked at the simplicity and speed in which it can be achieved with fantastic results.
It’s a bit like finding out you can make wine from almost any wild ingredient – you go crazy trying everything – well now is definitely time for me to try out as many curing recipes as possible.
This spruce cured salmon is genuinely one of my favourites from the curing tests and the spruce inparts a floral citrus flavour to the salmon.
Ingredients:
- 2 pieces/fillets of raw & fresh salmon – 100-150g per fillet
- 50g fine sea salt
- 50g fine white sugar
- 10g spruce tips – the young green ones growing around May-July
Method:
- blend the salt, sugar and spruce tips in a blender until the spruce is chopped up and mixed nicely with the salt and sugar
- In a bowl or bag pour in half the spruce/salt/sugar mix
- Pop in your salmon fillets and pour the rest of the spruce mix on top
- Shake well, if in a bag – or turn the salmon to cover well
- Cover and place in the fridge for 3-24 hours. The longer you leave it the more firm the salmon will become
- remove from the fridge, shake to remove the salt/spruce/sugar mix and pat dry with a piece of kitchen roll
Enjoy however you would smoked or cured salmon usually.
