Beetroot and Orange Gravadlax
By Rachel Davies
My husband gave me a day course at Billingsgate Seafood Training School as a present recently, so after an early start, I arrived at Billingsgate bleary eyed, before the sun had risen at 6.15am.
The market was in full swing; fishmongers pushing carts of fish, seafood of varying shapes and colours sitting up on beds of ice, and plenty of surprisingly animated vendors, about to finish their days a few hours before sunrise.
We were given a tour of the market by one of the quality inspectors from the Guild of Fishmongers. He started by lifting a few lobsters, claws tied with elastic bands, out of tanks, describing the difference between the Scottish and Canadian lobsters while they wiggled around and hoped it wasn’t their time to end up on a plate.
We were shown crate after crate of beautiful, shiny fresh fish, live coral pink langoustines, muddy dredged scallops and pristine hand-dived ones, an oyster the size of a melon, bags of mussels, enormous cod and silver mackerel, and all the time the fishmongers were shouting at each other, and at us, making us all laugh with their banter.
I left for the class unable to forget about the enormous side of salmon I’d seen, so I went back down to the market and managed to catch the fishmonger as he packed up at 7am. For £16 the two kilo pin-boned side of salmon was mine.
After a wonderful fish class at the school, I didn’t make any friends as I sat on the tube, bags stuffed full of fish, and an unsurprising odour emanating…
Back home I knew what I would make; a beautiful, ruby red beetroot cured salmon. You don’t need to go to Billingsgate to get your salmon, but I would recommend getting very fresh fish from a fishmonger for this recipe. After that it’s super easy and an impressive dish to serve to friends.
Beetroot and Orange Marinated Gravadlax
Serves 8-10
Ingredients
A side of salmon, skin on, scaled and pin-boned (ask your fishmonger to do this for you), about 800g
100g demerara sugar
175g coarse sea salt
10g pink peppercorns
4 tablespoons vodka
Zest of 2 lemons
Zest of 1 orange
600g raw beetroot
Method
- Check the salmon for any remaining bones, and remove any with (kitchen!) tweezers.
- Lay the salmon skin-side down in a large dish.
- Put the demerara sugar, salt, vodka, lemon and orange zest in a mixing bowl. Grind the peppercorns and add to the mixture.
- Peel and grate the beetroots, then stir into the other ingredients. You can use a magimix if you have one, and you might want to wear gloves for this.
- Spread the mixture over the fish and rub in well with your hands. Place a piece of clingfilm over the fish and place a chopping board or tray on top, weighed down with cans. Refrigerate for between 48 hours and four days.
- Pour off the liquid from the marinade. Remove the cling film and rinse off the marinade.
- Pat the fish dry, and at this point you can freeze the gravadlax or it will keep wrapped in the fridge for two weeks.
- Slice the fish thinly across the grain to serve, and serve with rye bread and capers, or a gravadlax sauce.
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