Le Cordon Bleu - Gravalax Anyone?

Also knows as Gradvalax, Gravlax, Graflax, etc.   Salmon cured in salt, sugar, white pepper corns and dill, wrapped up and let to extract liquid, for a few days, then served thinly sliced.
This curing process extracts water from the fish, intensifying to the taste.  One of my personal favourites and just scrumptious with pouched eggs, or served on blinis or crackers.

Chef John Daly demonstrated preparing a Gravalax in Thursday's class and Chef Elke finished off the final product in Saturday's class.

As you can see from the top collage, Chef John filleted and cured a whole Salmon, but sadly we did not get a whole salmon each in class to test our filleting skills on.

That, together with the fact that my instantly marinated salmon mysteriously disappeared from the fridge at the end of Saturday's class inspired me to visit Sydney Fish market on Sunday morning to get a Salmon of my very own.

So, 4.5 kg's and $58 later, I put myself to the challenge of filleting my own Salmon.   Stupidly I left my Wursthof knives in my locker, at Le Cordon Bleu and my globals, although good, just don't really compare.  Together with stonking hot day of 43 degrees and me jumping around the kitchen in my underwear, with a cut open finger covered in paper towel, plasters and gloves, working quickly against the heat, repetively returning the fish to the fridge to prevent it from heating up too much, I managed to fillet my salmon.  wow!  Admittedly my job didn't compare to the likes of Chef John, Werner and Elke, or the willing staff at the Fish market, but it was fun.  Next time, I might just get the Fish market to do it for me ;)

I now have 1/2 the salmon being cured in my fridge and the other half in my freezer, cut into beautiful fillets.

I feel a few salmon salads coming on for lunch in the coming day :)