Laphroaig whisky-cured salmon gravadlax, cucumber, tonka bean

Ingredients

• 500 g of salmon, fresh, preferably Scottish
• 100 g of sugar
• 100 g of salt
• 30 g of dill
• 75 g of whisky, Laphroaig
• 1 cucumber
• agar agar
• salt
• 1 cucumber, peeled and halved
• 1 tonka bean, finely grated
• 25 g of egg
• 15 g of Dijon mustard
• 150 g of vegetable oil
• 5 g of sherry vinegar
• 5 g of red wine vinegar
• salt
• dill
• chive flowers

Instructions

1. 1

   To make the cure for the salmon, place the sugar, salt, dill and whisky in a food processor and blitz together. Place the salmon in a tray skin-side down and cover with mixture

2. 2

   Cover the tray with cling film and leave to cure for 60 hours, turning the salmon after 24 hours. Once cured, wash under cold running water

3. 3

   For the cucumber gel, juice the cucumber in a juicer and pass through a fine strainer. Weigh the juice and then add 1g of agar agar for every 100g of juice

4. 4

   Place in a pan, bring to the boil then place in a container and leave to cool. Once cooled, blitz to a smooth gel with a hand blender, season with salt and transfer to a squeezy bottle

5. 5

   For the compressed cucumber, slice half of the cucumber with a mandoline, place in a vacuum bag and seal

6. 6

   Use a blowtorch to blacken the outside of the other half of cucumber then cut in half and deseed. Cut into half rounds, place in a vacuum bag and compress in a chamber sealer

7. 7

   For the mayonnaise, place the eggs and Dijon mustard in a mixing bowl then slowly whisk in the vegetable oil until you reach a mayonnaise consistency. Whisk in the vinegars and the tonka bean and season with salt

8. 8

   To serve, slice the salmon and divide between plates. Add the blowtorched cucumber and cucumber ribbons. Pipe dots of the mayonnaise and cucumber gel around the plate and garnish with dill sprigs and chive flowers