My neighbor prepares this and it is so delicious. I really need to try preparing it myself.
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I’ve gone the beet route but usually just brine the fish in a salt brine and try not to over salt the brine
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Did you also use the horseradish? My neighbor serves slices on toasted nori sheets. Really tasty.
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Not in the brine
I did the first time but not subsequently
Can ask what the difference was? Like, was the result different or was it just easier?
The video link didn’t work for me anymore.
Here are two more – I like the first one for the bite-size slices, and much easier than cutting across the whole piece too.
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Oh, dang. I just made 2 lbs. of gravlax for a potluck, mostly following the SE recipe (leaving out caraway bc no thx, and I didn’t find the coriander to add a lot, but it was old).
I’ll have to bookmark this thread for the future. Love gravlax - so easy to make & so delicious and impressive to serve 
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Drooling!!!
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I’ve made dill-juniper gravlax several times, but unfortunately although I love it, most in my family do not, so I’ve kind of given up on it. I probably should try again with a recipe not including juniper as that seems the most objectionable thing to them, but then, I don’t think it’d really be gravlax.
Salts/sugar cured and warm-smoked salmon everyone likes, though. I just use an old U-Haul garment shipping box that I fitted with some rods to hold a wire rack, basically copying what Alton Brown said to do and it works very nicely.
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I like that the “Average Rating” goes out to 14 decimal places! Woot!
I have made the Micahel Ruhlman recipe for years and adore it. My fav thing is to use all orange zest (not the mix of citrus) and it is so fresh with a hint of sweet.
You can also just use his sugar/salt mix and then press fresh dill over the salmon before sealing and weighting. Lovely!
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Back at it, only a few short years later 
Had to refer to my notes on wet vs dry cures. Apparently I preferred the dry cure with farmed Atlantic and the wet with wild Pacific. So, dry it is.
I’ve got 2 x 1lb pieces started for two thanksgiving meals.
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Cointreau, orange zest, garlic and citrus salt, pepper, sugar, liquid smoke.
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All that plus Sichuan peppercorns.
Forgot to get beets, so will add them halfway and hope for a little pretty color.
(Thinking about buying a slicing knife just for this, and debating whether that’s ridiculous.)
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Very interesting to read about the diferent salmon responding better to diffferent cures. It make sense!
For your dry cure, do you use the 2 to 1 proportion of kosher salt to sugar? Or? And haivng never used liquid smoke for gravlox, do you mix it in the Cointreau and then sprinkle over and then salt?
Just a wondering…
Last time the 2:1 salt:sugar became too salty, so I’ve gone with 1:1 so far. May add some salt.
I rubbed the Cointreau and liquid smoke over the fish first, read that for vodka and gin in some other recipes.
This evening I’ll open it up to check and add grated beets for color and maybe some more salt. May add a bit of onion (which was the wet cure method) for a bit of flavor too.
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If you have a sharp knife that will produce paper-thin slices I don’t see the need for that.
Just make sure the knife you use is sharpened well, otherwise it will be a rather frustrating endeavor.
PS: As for the salt content, it will also get saltier the longer you cure it. I don’t think I’ve ever gone longer than 3 days.
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Yes, I’ve sliced before (see upthread) and removed salt as well (also upthread).
The special slicers exist for a reason. Just trying to figure out if I’m going to do this enough to make it worth storing another knife. Twice in a week may be enough justification to give in.
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Yeah, I didn’t re-read the entire thread. I did just fine with my Global, but YMMV.
Okay, some process and midway result pics
The cure went a day before I added the beet for color (along with some onion for flavor / a tiny bit of moisture).
I was surprised by how fast the fish formed up this time. Probably had something to do with placing one piece over the other adding weight and exuding liquid faster. So I flipped the block every day so both pieces got weighted some of the time.
Today was Day 3, so I’ve rinsed and dried the chunks before double bagging and freezing them for travel.
The texture is good, a nice tint from the beet (but not an overwhelming amount for the skittish).
Flavor is probably spot-on inside, though the surface bits I tasted were just on the other side of salty, so I’m debating a quick cold soak before serving.
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Have to thank @Scubadoo97 again for this delicious rabbithole (and @Presunto for the aesthetic inspiration)
Batch 3 & 4 of the beet-cured salmon was sliced up today.
I slightly increased sugar (1.25/1.5:1) in the curing mix, used a citrus-garlic salt blend to lightly cover the salmon, then the curing mix, and finished with the beet that I minced with the gran marnier to get it finer.
I was away for a day and a half longer and a bit worried that it had cured too long (3.5 days instead of 2-3), but after scraping off everything and rinsing it off, apparently no harm done.
Flavor is the best yet, maybe just a tad sweeter than I expected, but definitely better than the saltier end of the spectrum. The citrus came through nicely from both the salt and the alcohol.
I’m slicing a bit thicker now, looks nicer and a more generous bite!
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