For Swedes, Christmas Eve is the big holiday, and Swedes love cured, raw and picked fish. Every year our smörgåsbord table, we had a jar of picked herring. It was the single worst thing I’ve eaten.  So, when I grew up and hosted my first Swedish Christmas smörgåsbord, I swapped out picked herring for gravlax; still traditional, very Swedish, and a thousand times better.

Ingredients
1 cup salt
2 cups sugar
1 bunch dill, stems and all, chopped
2 tablespoons dried  juniper berries, roughly crushed (optional)
2 tablespoons coarse ground pepper
1 2- to 3-pound fillet of salmon, pin bones removed.

Instructions
Mix together the salt, pepper, sugar, dill and juniper berries
Pour half into the bottom of a glass or ceramic pan that easily fits the salmon fillet
Place the salmon, skin side down, into the mixture
Cover the flesh side of the salmon with the rest salt mixture, making sure to coat it completely (there will be lots of salt mix; just pile it on)
Cover fish and dish entirely with plastic wrap
Find a couple of cans of tomatoes from the pantry
Place a large plate on top of the fish and weigh it down with the cans
Refrigerate for about 36 hours
Unwrap the salmon, and rinse off the cure
Dry, then slice into thin slices
Serve plain or with mustard sauce

Mustard Sauce
1 jar honey mustard
1/2 cup chopped fresh dill
1/3 cup extra virgin olive oil
2 tablespoons white wine vinegar
Fresh pepper

Advanced tip: Buy tiny loaves of rye bread at the deli section of the grocery store ( 2” X 2”) and use them as a base to hold the gravlax and mustard.