Easy Gravlax Recipe

Gravlax is one of Nordic cooking's greatest gifts to the world. You take a salmon fillet, cure it in salt, sugar and fresh dill, and in a few days you have a a terrific stand-alone appetizer, a topping for your Sunday bagel, or an inventive new twist on a sandwich meat.

The providence of gravlax makes it even cooler. The dish's history can be traced back to Swedish fisherman, who would salt their catch and bury it near the shore to ferment it. "Grav" means is a grave or a hole in the ground in the Scandinavian languages, and "lax" is salmon. Any way you translate it, gravlax is delicious.