Gravad Laks med Hovmestersovs

There are dishes in the Danish kitchen that mark time. Gravad laks is one of them. It arrives at julefrokost in December, at the long Easter table in April, at midsummer when the evenings stretch past ten o'clock, and every time it appears the room slows down a little. This is food that asks for patience and rewards it.

The method is almost shockingly simple. Salt, sugar, white pepper, and a forest of fresh dill, pressed into a good side of salmon and left to cure for two days under a weight. The fish does most of the work. What you need to bring is a fishmonger you trust and the willingness to wait, which is the second-most Danish virtue after the willingness to share.

The sauce is the other half of the dish and it has no other life. Hovmestersovs, the head waiter's sauce, belongs to gravad laks the way butter belongs to rugbrod. Sweet, sharp, and thick as soft cream, made with two mustards and a generous handful of dill. You whisk it together in five minutes and you will use it for nothing else, which is exactly the point.

What I want you to pay attention to: the weight on top of the fish while it cures, and the slicing at the end. The weight is what turns salted salmon into gravad laks, so don't skip it. And the knife must be sharp and held at a shallow angle, long slices away from the skin, drape like silk. You'll know when it's right.