Beet-Cured Gravlax

Today I spent the morning touring a nursery school for my little kid. It is an obnoxious process spared those who live in the ‘burbs, but I have an allergy to leaving Manhattan, and thus am forced to suffer the inconvenience.

The admissions lady directed the parent crew through bright classrooms with teeny chairs and an open yard strewn with giant green blocks and brilliantly tinged fall leaves. It was a stunning day. I was surrounded by nice well-dressed couples; happy kids; art projects and terrariums.

As she answered earnest queries about separation anxiety and student-teacher ratio, I found my mind wandering to the salmon fillet I had in the refrigerator. I was making gravlax, a lightly cured salmon. The fish is supposed to cure for a few days, but I couldn’t remember when I put it in the fridge.

As it happens, the fish was fine, thank God. If this were a heavily cured fish such as nova, or a smoked fish, which last far longer, I wouldn’t have such worries nagging at me, and I could have focused on the school and the future of our lovely child.

Gravlax, however, tends to be a more subtly cured fish, which is heavily coated in a mixture of salt, sugar and any other flavorings such as dill or lemon zest, coriander and so forth. The salt leaches out the moisture in the exterior of the salmon, which becomes firm, but the flesh inside is beautifully orange and silky, tasting faintly of both salt and sugar. If you have brown bread and sour cream lying around, spoon a bit on the bread and top it with a thin slice of fish. Or just have it on its own. It’s hard to beat.

Though equally delicious, gravlax, to me, is lox’s snooty relative. A Swedish tourist strolling past the pickle and knish vendors on the Lower East Side. With its delicate green crown of snipped dill, it seems dainty especially resting in the deli case beside a slab of nova or thick hunks of smoked whitefish.

So we decided to create a gravlax able to hold its own and maybe even outmuscle its cured and smoked relations. To that end we looked at other items in the classic Jewish deli and hit on borscht, the deeply red beet soup familiar to anyone possessing a Jewish grandmother. After the few days’ cure, we dunked the fish in beet juice for a while, and the result was truly dramatic. The fillet was the color of dark red wine, and the interior retained that lovely salmon hue. The whole thing brought to mind rainbow sherbet. And the fish took on an earthy beet flavor, which was also nice.

Maybe I should have been a nursery school teacher. Forget the blocks, kids, today we play with salmon.

Beet-Cured Gravlax
Serves 4

1 ½ cups sugar
¾ cup kosher salt
1 ½ pounds salmon fillet, skin on
2 beets, juiced
Pumpernickel bread, thinly sliced, quartered, and toasted
Chive cream cheese

1. In a small bowl combine the sugar and salt. Transfer half the mixture to a small pan just large enough to hold the salmon. Lay the fish on top, skin down, Pack the top side with the remaining mixture. Wrap the pan in plastic and refrigerate for 48 hours.
2. Remove, rinse and dry the pan and rinse the cure off the fish. Roll the salmon in the beet juice and refrigerate overnight.
3. To serve, slice the fish as thinly as possible. Spread the toast with the cream cheese and drape a slice on top.