Norwegian Salmon.
This morning I went to the supermarket and I saw, among the ugly and very expensive fish, a nice salmon, medium sized, excellent looking and reasonably priced. I modestly have some experience with salmon, which I have fished both in Alaska and Norway, of which I have seen the artificial insemination, the breeding, the preparation of fresh fish for export and the various smoking systems. Later on, maybe I will show you some photos I took in Norway…
Well, coming to us and looking at the salmon I bought one of about a kilo and a half and I thought of suggesting to Marietto a wonderful system of preparation of this extraordinary fish, rich in delicious fats, light and tasty: raw Norwegian salmon.
To make this preparation you need a medium/large fresh salmon: if you are not convinced of the freshness of the fish you see on display, you can find out about the next arrival and you can rest assured because the salmon arrives by plane daily from Norway, very fresh and already gutted. If you are not able to do this, ask the shop assistant to scale it, remove the head and fillet it by removing the central bone. Once home, with tweezers, patiently remove the bones that are near the head, even the soft ones, which are under a white skin, remove this too and wash the fish well under running water. Then take a few tablespoons of fine salt and sprinkle generously but not too much on one of the two fillets (which are called whiskers) and then, with other tablespoons of sugar (the sugar must be a little less than the salt) and sprinkle the same fillet again. Then, carefully place the second fillet exactly on top of the one sprinkled with salt and sugar. Now wrap the fish in a cloth or towel, place it on a plate that can contain the water that the fish will lose and put it in the refrigerator. Every day, for three days, remove the plate from the refrigerator and throw away the water that has come out but without opening the cloth. The third time, after having let out the last water, open the package, and you will see that the salmon will have a nice color and there will be no more salt or sugar that will have been absorbed by it. Now, if you want and according to your tastes, put on one half plenty of wild fennel or pink and green peppercorns, put the two sides back together and put the fish back in the fridge for another couple of days, after which the marinated salmon will be ready to be eaten, without adding anything, neither oil nor lemon.
Marietto, who is alone, freezes one side and starts eating the other half, slicing it flat starting from the tail as if it were smoked. The raw Norwegian salmon, in fact, will be compact and of a splendid pink color as if it were smoked but it will be less salty and very tasty, especially if sliced and eaten together with the wild fennel and peppercorns. This excellent fish can be served with vegetables, can be part of an excellent salad, can be used for canapés or, more simply, put in a sandwich, which perhaps you have first spread with Philadelphia cheese and with the addition of some onion rings. Marietto is satisfied and, if he can resist without eating it, he thinks of using the other half that he has frozen to surprise his friends for Christmas lunch... and what a saving compared to smoked salmon!!!
Ingredients: a fresh salmon of about one and a half kilos; about 80 grams of salt, about 60 grams of sugar, a bunch of wild fennel, pink pepper and green pepper according to taste.
The featured image was taken from Pixabay.com