This recipe from Terry Clark at Monty’s on Montpelier will give you and your friends a whole new flavour experience. The combination of brining, baking and the salty rub will leave you all wanting more and with it’s dark and moody colours provide a great centrepiece for the dinner table.

Prep Time

    •    Prep time: 24 minutes
    •    Cook time: 25 minutes
    •    Yield: Serves 10

Ingredients

    •   1 trimmed Huon Atlantic Salmon fillet, skin on, pin-bones removed
    •   For the brine
    •   3lt water
    •   70g salt
    •   70g raw sugar
    •   25ml white wine vinegar
    •   3 cloves garlic, peeled and crushed
    •   4 bay leaves
    •   4 sprigs thyme
    •   4 sprigs rosemary
    •   20 black peppercorns, crushed
    •   10 juniper berries, crushed
    •   1 orange, juiced
    •   For the pastrami rub
    •   10g sea salt flakes
    •   10g raw sugar
    •   2g ground ginger
    •   3g black peppercorns
    •   2g allspice
    •   6g coriander seeds
    •   3g chilli flakes
    •   2g garlic paste

Method

1. Bring the water with all the ingredients to the boil.
2. Remove the brine from the heat and chill it in a refrigerator to below 4°C.
3. Submerge the fillet of salmon in the cold brine for 24 hours in the refrigerator.
4. Preheat your oven to 170 °C. Place an oven proof bowl half filled with water in the oven on the bottom rack, to moisten the air.
5. Remove your salmon from the brine and pat dry with kitchen towel.
6. Grind all the dry spice ingredients together to a coarse powder using a pestle & mortar or a spice grinder, then mix in your garlic paste.
7. Brush the exposed flesh side of the salmon with Dijon mustard.
8. Rub the pastrami spice mix in a fine even layer over the mustard coating the entire fillet.
9. Cook the salmon on a baking tray, skin side down on a layer of greased parchment paper for 15 minutes.
10. Remove the salmon from the oven and allow about 10 minutes to rest before serving.
11. Transfer the salmon to a platter and shred the salmon into large chunks with a fork and serve with sliced rye bread or toasted sour dough, fermented red cabbage, pickled onions & watercress mayonnaise.
    
    
12. Fermented Red Cabbage:
    1 Red cabbage, dark outer leaves removed
    1 Tablespoon sea salt (crushed)
    5g Juniper berries (crushed)
    1 Tablespoon caraway seeds (crushed)
    
    Cut the cabbage into quarters, remove the centre core and slice the inner leaves horizontally as fine as possible. In a large bowl, toss the shredded cabbage with the salt, cover the bowl with cling film and let it sit for about two hours.
    
    Mix in the juniper berries and caraway seeds, then place everything including any liquid at the bottom of the bowl into a fermenting vessel (a sterilized jar or bucket).
    
    Use your fist to press down on the cabbage hard, squeezing as much liquid out of the leaves as possible. Repeat the process a few more times over the next hour or so in order to get the liquid level up high enough to cover the cabbage completely. This provides an anaerobic environment where the fermentation can take place.
    
    If you can’t get the liquid level up high enough, add some filtered mineral water to cover the cabbage by at least 1cm and mix the water through the cabbage.
    
    Place a weight on top by using a clear plastic bag filled halfway with water and tied near the top, allowing the bag to remain loose.
    
    You can place that loose bag of water into your fermenting vessel, as it settles it’ll take the shape of the jar or bucket. This way a seal is made around the edge to keep oxygen and other potential contaminants out. Now let it sit at room temperature for about two weeks.
    
    Once it gets a nice tangy flavour, store the fermented cabbage in the refrigerator in sealed jars.
    
    
13. Watercress Mayonnaise:
    150g home made mayonnaise or good quality whole egg mayonnaise
    75g picked watercress leaves
    15g freshly grated horseradish or good quality creamed horseradish
    ½ lemon, juiced
    Salt to taste
    
    Blend the mayonnaise, watercress, horseradish, lemon juice together.
    
    Season to taste.
    
    
14. Pickled Onions:
    CURING
    1kg x pickling onions, peeled
    1lt x water
    200g x salt
    
    Boil the water and salt, whilst hot, pour the salted water over the peeled onions, place a weight on the onions to submerge them and leave them covered with cling film at room temperature for two days.
    
    PICKLING BRING
    500ml white wine vinegar
    500ml water
    300g sugar
    1 cinnamon stick
    5 bay leaves
    4 star anise
    10 crushed peppercorns
    10 crushed coriander seeds
    10 crushed juniper berries
    
    Drain onions and wash of salt.
    
    Boil all ingredients together, then pour hot liquid over onions, allow pickling for a minimum of three weeks.
    

This great family recipe is thanks to Huon Aqua Recipes at https://www.huonaqua.com.au/recipes/baked-fillet-huon-atlantic-salmon-pastrami-rub/