Homemade lox!

[Guest guest]

Hey folks-

Sorry for my relative absence lately. I'm neck-deep in preproduction on a

few movies (just shorts, nothing to get excited about, but yes, ,

you ought to email me) so I haven't even had time to breathe, let alone to

participate actively on the list. I am maintaining at least a slightly

watchful eye, though.

Anyway, for those of you who like cured salmon but can't afford it often

enough or can't find good lox in your neighborhood, I found the ultimate

kitchen gadget, if it's even complicated enough to warrant being called a

gadget. Basically it's just a container, a slab of granite, and a set of

disposable pouches. You take a fillet of salmon, slide it into the pouch

and stick it in the container along with salt and sugar (and dill and

pepper and even some other things if you want) then put the granite on top

to weigh down the fish and stick the container in the fridge for a couple

days. I've made lox several times using raw honey (YS Organic, as it

happens, which has worked perfectly) instead of sugar (you just use half

the amount) and it never takes more than ten or twenty minutes at most to

get going. Compared to making pickled salmon, one of my favorite NT

recipes but a real pain in the neck, it's so easy you won't even notice

making it.

And the lox... wow. I guess I probably sound like a commercial at this

point (I will get to the drawbacks momentarily) but it tastes even better

than the lox from Russ & Daughters, which was the best place I knew of on

this earth to get lox until I got the lox box. (I should clarify: R & D,

like any other place, is rather variable, and on one occasion I did get

smoked Baltic salmon there that equaled or perhaps even exceeded the

quality of the lox I've made so far, though if I could find a place to get

fresh Baltic salmon in season, who knows how good homemade would be.) Lox

made from wild salmon is fairly hard to come by -- R & D is one of the few

places even here in NYC that makes it -- so this way, if you can get wild

salmon, you can have lox, and for much less money too. It'll work with

frozen salmon, so if you're inland, this is probably the only way you can

get it even remotely fresh.

One drawback is that the container is plastic (polycarbonate, to be

exact). I'm not very happy about that, and I'm on the lookout for a glass

vessel that's the right size and shape.

The other is the use of disposable pouches. They appear to be made of

paper, but it's possible it's something else or there's a blend of

materials, and since they're snow-white and undoubtedly not organic, it

wouldn't surprise me if there are some undesirable chemicals present. I

have no idea at this point whether the pouches can be replaced by something

a bit more innocuous, but it might be difficult, as the pouches supposedly

regulate osmotic pressure and therefore control the curing process, as the

fish is on the inside and the salt and sugar are on the outside.

On the bright side, you can also cure other meats and fishes in the lox

box, and though I haven't tried any yet, I will soon, because I have every

expectation the results will be outstanding.

If you're a lox fan, I can't recommend this thing highly enough. I don't

know whether it's available anywhere except direct from the company

<www.theloxbox.com> but wherever you get it, I can pretty much guarantee

that you'll be extremely happy.

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