pumpernickel

I think of making my own gravlax — the Nordic sugar-salt cured salmon — as the gentle, blue-square cooking analog of an intermediate ski trail: It’s mostly easy, but requires some experience. While butchering a whole salmon and cold smoking what you’ve butchered are also exhilarating milestones in the life of an advancing home cook (both a little farther up the mountain and a little steeper on the run down), buying a nice fillet and burying it in salt, sugar and a carpet of chopped fresh dill for a few days is a great confidence-building day on the slopes, so to speak. The cured gravlax will last a solid five days once sliced, in the refrigerator. If a whole side of salmon is more than you need at once, the rest freezes very satisfactorily.

Gravlax

salt

sugar

black pepper

dill

unsalted butter

shallot,

Dijon mustard

Soft dark pumpernickel sandwich bread

Cure the salmon: Lay salmon skin-side down, flesh-side up in a glass or stainless-steel baking dish. (A large lasagna dish works well.) In a small bowl, toss together the salt, sugar and pepper until blended. Sprinkle the mixture over the salmon evenly, with abandon, until fully covered, as if under a blanket of snow. Use all of it.

Spread all the chopped dill on top of the cure-covered salmon to make a thick, grassy carpet.

Lay plastic wrap or parchment paper over the salmon to cover and press down, then place a heavy weight — such as a 2-gallon zip-top bag filled with water — on top, to weigh heavily on the curing fish. Refrigerate just like this, without disturbing, for 5 days, turning the salmon over midway through the cure — on Day 3 — then covering and weighting it again.

To serve, mix together the softened butter, dill, shallot and mustard until well blended.

Remove salmon from the cure, which has now become liquid, brushing off the dill with a paper towel, then set fillet on a cutting board.

With a long, thin, beveled slicing knife tilted toward the horizon, slice salmon thinly, stopping short of cutting through the skin. Generally, you begin slicing a few inches from the tail end and you slice in the direction of the tail, moving your knife back, slice by slice, toward the fatter, wider belly portion of the fillet. The last slices are always hard to get. Once you have shingled the fillet, run your knife between skin and flesh, releasing all the slices, then transfer them to parchment until ready to serve.

Spread the compound butter on bread, then drape sliced gravlax on top, and eat as open-faced sandwiches.

Authentic pumpernickel is a pure rye bread, originally from Westphalia in Germany, made of at least 90% coarsely ground rye flour or wholemeal rye grain.

Pumpernickel Bread

organic rye berries

organic dark rye flour

water

sourdough starter

organic dark rye pumpernickel meal

organic cracked rye

golden syrup

dry-roasted unsalted sunflower seeds

Put the berries in a small saucepan and pour boiling water over them to cover by at least 1 inch (2,5cm). Cover and set aside to soak overnight.

For the levain, mix the rye flour, water and sourdough starter in a small bowl until well combined. Cover and let it rest overnight in a warm place.

(Evening of Day 1)

Add enough water to the soaked rye berries so that there is about three times as much water a berries. Bring to a boil, then reduce the heat and simmer, covered, for about 1 hour, or until the berries are soft. Check for water once in a while to make sure the berries are always covered with plenty of water, and add more water if necessary. Drain the cooked berries and set aside to cool.

In a large bowl mix the dark rye pumpernickel meal, cracked rye and salt. Add the levain and 1⅓ cup (300ml) water. Mix until well combined and no traces of flour remain. Add the cooked berries, syrup and sunflower seeds. Knead the dough using the dough hook of an electric mixer or your hands and add the rest of the water during kneading, as needed, until the dough starts to come off the sides of the bowl. The dough should be moist and slightly sticky so it might not come off the sides of the bowl like in other bread doughs, which is fine. Dust with rye flour and cover. Let rest in a warm place for 30 minutes.

Grease 5 (16 oz/450ml) straight-sided canning jars or 2 loaf tins.

Knead the dough on a lightly floured surface to remove any excess air. The dough should be slightly sticky. Divide the dough into equal portions and place it into your baking pans or jars. Leaving about 1 inch (2,5cm) headspace in the jars to allow for the bread to rise (depending on the liveliness of your starter, the dough may or may not rise, mine always does). Only fill the pans to two-thirds to make smaller loaves. Grease small pieces of aluminum foil and cover the jars/baking pans, greased side down. Let rest in a warm place for 2 to 3 hours.

Preheat the oven to 300F/150C. Remove the aluminum foil from the jars/baking pans and lightly spray the surface of the dough with water. Place the aluminum foil back on the jars/baking pans, greased side down. Make sure that the jars/baking pans are tightly covered.

Adjust the oven rack to the lowest setting. Place the jars/baking pans in the casserole and and place it on the oven rack. Pour about 1 inch (2,5cm) hot water into the casserole. Place the lid on the casserole.

Bake for 1 hour at 300F/150C. Reduce the heat to 212F/100C, and bake for 13 more hours. Add hot water to the casserole every few hours to maintain the water level. If you bake the bread overnight, pour more water into the casserole before you go to bed. A higher water level of 1½ to 2 inches (3-5cm) does not harm but an empty dry casserole may cause the jars to crack and should be avoided by all means.

(Day 2)

At the end of the baking time, turn off the oven and leave the casserole in the oven for 1 hour. Then take the casserole with the jars/baking pans out of the oven and let everything cool on the counter for another 30 minutes, or until cool enough to handle. Meanwhile keep the oven door closed to trap the residual heat. Gently unmold the breads (promptly removing them is important, otherwise you will have trouble removing them later) and place them in the warm oven for a couple of hours to dry.

Remove the breads from the oven. Let them cool completely, then wrap them in wax paper or parchment paper and either place them in freezer bags right away, or let the bread sit in a cool place for another two days before cutting it on Day 5. Store the pumpernickel in an airtight container in the refrigerator.

(Day 3)

The curative powers of raw meat are often cited and frequently lampooned — I’m thinking of the guy slumped back in his chair, after the brawl, with a fat raw steak on his mangled black eye. I can’t speak to that, but a hand-chopped mound of cold raw beef, seasoned perfectly, at around 3 o’clock in the afternoon on New Year’s Day, with a cold glass of the hair of the Champagne dog that bit you the night before, will make a new man out of you. The strong-flavored pumpernickel bread is a family nostalgia that has become a beloved preference. The butter and the Vegemite are personal eccentricities I happen to find exceptionally delicious.

Steak Tartare

beef red beef

dense, unleavened black pumpernickel bread

unsalted Irish butter, tempered to cool and spreadable

Vegemite, per your taste

small, firm, shiny red onion,

Coarse kosher salt

capers,

Watercress leaves

Celery leaves from one bunch

Worcestershire sauce

egg yolks, raw,

Place the trimmed beef in the freezer for 20 minutes while you prep the rest of the ingredients. Meanwhile, butter the bread, wall to wall, then slather the mustard evenly among the two buttered slices. Finish each slice with a healthy schmear of the Vegemite.

In a bowl, toss the red onion slices with a healthy pinch of salt, allowing the rings to separate, and soften a bit from the salting. Add the capers with a bit of their brine and the cress, celery leaves and parsley, and toss well, making a little salad.

Working quickly, remove the meat from freezer. It will now be firm and easy to cut. Slice into 1/8-inch-thin slices. (We often wear doubled-up latex gloves to help keep the heat from our hands from transferring to the beef. The warmer the meat, the more difficult to cut beautifully. Also, this is the occasion for your sharpest knife.) Shingle the meat slices ever so slightly, and slice into 1/8-inch matchsticks.

Turn your cutting board 180 degrees, and cut the matchsticks into 1/8-inch tiny dice, resembling the cut called brunoise.

Transfer your elegantly hand-chopped meat to a glass, stainless or ceramic bowl, and season with the Worcestershire sauce, a couple pinches of coarse kosher salt and a few good grinds of black pepper, and toss together distributing the seasoning, using a fork.

Distribute the seasoned beef evenly between the two slices of buttered, seasoned bread, and form into a patty, more or less, still using the fork. Arrange the salad over the beef artfully, distributing evenly between the two portions. Give the whole enterprise a healthy finishing grind of black pepper.

Nestle each yolk, still in its half shell if using raw, into the mound, and let each guest turn the yolk out onto the tartare before eating. If using cooked yolk, microplane the yolk over the tartare to finish.

Melissa Clark came up with this recipe in 2011, a sandwich for her daughter, against the one she made for herself with Branston pickle in place of the marmalade. (Branston pickle is a British pickled chutney, made with vegetables, that dates back to the early 20th century.) You can certainly make the grown-up version. But this sweet, salty, cool variety is close to perfect for lunch or a light dinner.

Cheddar, Cucumber and Marmalade Sandwiches

pumpernickel bread

butter, softened

orange marmalade

Cheddar or Gruyère or Swiss cheese

cucumber

Spread the bread slices with butter and then a very thin layer of marmalade. Top 4 slices with cheese and cucumber and then with the remaining bread.

Curtis Stone's delectable little open sandwiches are perfect for any occasion, especially for Christmas canapes.

Top 6 pumpernickel recipes from across the web

The most viewed pumpernickel recipes by Recipe Cart users, saved from over 6,000 sites. Or, go to our Recipe Search Engine

Top Tags

Gravlax

Pumpernickel Bread

Steak Tartare

Cheddar, Cucumber and Marmalade San...

Pumpernickel Bread

Smoked salmon tartines with red oni...

Top 6 pumpernickel recipes from across the web

The most viewed pumpernickel recipes by Recipe Cart users, saved from over 6,000 sites. Or, go to our Recipe Search Engineic_arrow_forward_48px

Top Tags

Gravlax

Pumpernickel Bread

Steak Tartare

Cheddar, Cucumber and Marmalade San...

Pumpernickel Bread

Smoked salmon tartines with red oni...

The most viewed pumpernickel recipes by Recipe Cart users, saved from over 6,000 sites. Or, go to our Recipe Search Engine