How to make Pickled salmon

Irian Bjørnø, www.belbooks.dk

Here's my favorite recipe called the "Pickeled Admiral Salmon".

1.Buy - or catch - a fresh salmon. You need half or a whole salmon side to make your pickeled Admiral salmon. Cut half site into 2 pieces of equal width. We usually use pieces of approx. 12 cm in width. So it fits goot with the knife blade length when you cut your pickeled salmon afterwords. The rest of the salmon, you can freeze down for later use.

Before you fill your salmond with spices, wash it good and dry carefully by papertowels for excess of fluid / water.

Meat side of the pieces are ready to be sprinkled with the following spices:

1. First seasalt: rubbe it into the meat side of the slices (3 - 5 grams per liter. Laksekød 300 grams)

2. Second: white pepper - do not overdo your job her!
Third: Sugar: approx. 50 to 100 grams per 300 gramms of salmond.

A little cardamom (grounded) and a little coriander- assuming you are fond of these spices. Is not necessary - use your favirite spises.

Lots of dills. Alot of dills. And again - alot of dills. Either fresh - can be difficult to get at this time of year when the price of fresh dill probably also is quite high - or dried dill.

Now lay dill layers on both salmon pieces and press both pieces against each other, placing your salmond "sandwitch" in the deep enough bodown in a bowl deep enough to contain the exess of juice from your salmond during the ripening process. Seale your bowl with kitchen film.

Bowl with salmon pieces should be placed in refrigerator under pressure (put something havy on top of the bowl covered with film - anything havy can be used. now our pickled salmond is placed in the refrigerator, where it is under pressure for 2 days.

You shoud turn the salmond "sandwitch" after first 24 hours upside down, so that what was upper piece before, now becomes the bottom piece. But the pieces must still be laid against each other skin up.

After two days (48 hours) job is done!!!! Take your pickled salmond out of the refrigerator, remove spises from the flesh side of salmon clean of dill. And your final job is to cut the salmon into slices. There is no reason to cut the slices too thin, unless you have a lot of guests to share your culinaric experience.

Arrange your pickled salmond in the nice plate - and - your are ready to amaze your quests with the best recepey from skandinavia - Admiral Pickled Salmond. I use whole grain toasted bred together with salmond and some fresh asparagus as side dish. You can enjoy your salmond with dill sovs (a mixture of fresh mayonnaise, a little mustard, sugar, a little olive oil and chopped fresh dill: up toyou to make the experiment - to me Scandinavian dill sauce is too sweet and too sticky). I preffere test of pure salmond - without any other indigrients wich will only create a test disturbance!

Danish rye bread goes well with salmon - and the pickled salmond can be enjoyed with a glass of white wine. I can recommend a Gewürztraminer from Alsace to wash the goodies down with.

I love to eat (and serve my guests) Admiral salmon with fresh asparagus, which I steamed in a steampan for 3-4 minutes.

My several thousand friends and houseguests over the past twenty years who tested my "Admiral pickled salmon" - called this dish "Admiral Salmon a la Irina" and reported that they always remember the delicious, unique taste of this simple, but winnig all of the hearts and stomaches best meal in my house!

A good appetite!