[23 May, 2026]
My friend Brad regularly goes fishing for freshwater salmon on Lake Erie and never comes home without a healthy catch. This time, he gave me both fillet sides of an entire salmon, around 4 and 1/2 lbs, cleaned. I cut the tail ends for a regular salmon dinner bake, and the rest I cured in the fridge over 4 days in a melange of Kosher salt, sugar, ground multi-colored peppercorns, chili pepper flakes, fine-chopped dill and juniper berries, and just for extra flavor, a good helping of Hendrick’s gin. Unlike most color-enhanced salt water salmon you can buy in the store, the freshwater variety is quite lighter in color, which is characteristic of non-salt water fish.
Of course, it was delicious! But Brad will never find out just how much. He is allergic to seafood!
