Simple Salmon Crudo Recipe

This recipe is incredibly easy yet sophisticated and only requires a few very fresh ingredients to pull it off.

Crudo is essentially the Italian form of ceviche and is made with high-quality raw fish, an olive oil and an acid, and of course, herbs. This is one of those dishes that you can whip up quickly and feel incredibly accomplished when you’ve pulled it all together in 15 minutes.

Plus, this dish takes zero cooking at all. The fish does all the work for you, while the olive oil and the lemon carry the flavors to your pallet.

Prep Time: 5 minutes

Cooking Time: 0 minutes

Ingredients:

• 6 ounces of frozen wild-caught salmon
• A small bunch of fresh dill
• A half a cucumber
• 3 raw radishes
• Half a lemon cut into wedges
• A drizzle of Dill Olive Oil from Estero Bay

Allow your fish to thaw in the fridge overnight. When preparing to consume raw fish at home, it is always best to freeze raw fish beforehand. Freezing kills any possible parasites.

Directions:

Creating this dish is as simple as thinly slicing everything, except the dill, of course, and then thinly layering the raw ingredients in a beautiful pattern.

1. Using your sharpest knife, thinly slice your three radishes and your half cucumber into thin slices. I like to pre organize them by size so I can just grab and go once I’ve sliced my fish.
2. Next, it is time to delicately slice the fish as thin as you can on a bias so you can get some of that beautiful grain showing. Now, if you aren’t the best with a knife, you can do this while your fish is still partly frozen, but you must make sure your knife is nice and sharp, or else you might get jagged edges. However, unlike sushi, crudo is meant to be a little rustic and merely an avenue for you to enjoy all the flavors of the fresh fish.
3. Now it’s time to layer out your ingredients. Choose a plate that is a single solid color or simply not a busy pattern. This will help the fish stand out on its own.
4. This is where you can get really creative, especially if you chose a fun shaped dish. Grabbing a slice of radish and a slice of a cucumber, and laying them at the edge of the plate, then layer your piece of fish on top, add another slice of radish, cucumber, and fish, and begin to make your pattern. You can create an S shape, a horseshoe, an X. The possibilities are endless! Simply keep going until you run out of slices of fish.
5. Here enters the star of our dish, the Dill Olive Oil. The oil will make this dish sparkle, but it will soften out the acid we will be adding and dress this fish perfectly, tying all the flavors together.
6. Finally, it’s time to garnish and add in the acid. We don’t want to cook the salmon like ceviche, so you’ll want to add the acid right before you serve it. We like to grate a little of the lemon zest and add a generous amount of fresh dill. Squeeze your lemon wedge over the top and add in another piece in case you’d like more while enjoying the dish.

Five Stars in Five Minutes

This dish is simple. It takes no time or real effort and just takes good ingredients. After your five minutes of prep, all that is left is to sit down and enjoy each bite.

Salmon crudo is a grace-filled dish that is refreshing, subtle, and simply about the flavors and textures of the dish without all of the fuss of cooking. Enjoy as an appetizer or as a simple summer salad as your main course.