Smoked Salmon and Cucumber with a Sweet Mustard Dill Sauce

From Oonagh Williams of Royal Temptations Catering

This is an easy, elegant looking appetizer that can be made in advance and is often very popular. The sauce is a variation on the sweet mustard dill sauce that is served with gravlax cured salmon.  Gravlax is delicious, not easily available to buy, and normally expensive, so I make the sauce and serve it with regular imported smoked salmon or Ducktrap smoked salmon from Maine. Not lox salmon. 

1 English cucumber

• (note: remove from plastic wrapping immediately when you get home and keep refrigerated. I find cucumber quickly goes moldy if left in a tight plastic wrap.)
• Wash the cucumber, leave skin on and cut diagonal into 1/4-1/2 inch slices. I like to use a fluted cutter for the cucumber.  Experiment and see what thickness you like best. Too thin and the cucumber won’t be able to hold the weight of salmon and sauce.

Smoked Salmon 4-8 oz

• Use as much as you’d like. Open the vacuum packed bag and use a sharp knife to cut salmon in a tic-tac-toe pattern as chopped salmon is easier to place on cucumber slices and easier to eat.
• Top with a small spoonful of sauce, and finely chopped chives or fresh dill.
• This recipe uses the proportions of ingredients that I prefer for the sauce, everyone’s taste is different.  Remember that every brand of mustard can taste different. You might like more or less honey than I do. Dill can be overpowering and bitter.  It is always possible to add more of any ingredient but not so easy to remove. Check that the mustard is labeled gluten free, many are NOT.
• You can grill/cook a piece of fresh salmon and serve with small cubes of cucumber and mustard dill sauce mixed into cucumber for a meal. Add some chopped smoked salmon to cucumber and sauce mix.

Sauce

• 1/3 c mayonnaise 
• 2 tsp honey Dijon mustard
• plus 2 tsps honey
• 1 tbsp chopped fresh dill 

mix together and refrigerate for a few hours to allow flavors to blend.  Add a bit of water to thin if necessary. If you only have regular Dijon, then you will need to add more honey to taste. Honey mellows the mustard so the flavor doesn’t overpower the cucumber and smoked salmon. 

Alternate Sauce: Sour cream or crème frâiche sauce with herbs mixed in.

• 1/3 c sour cream (lite is fine) or crème frâiche
• salt and pepper to taste 
• 1 tbsp chopped fresh parsley 
• 2 tbsps finely scissored chives or thin stalks of green onions 
• 1 tbsp fresh celery leaves if you have them. (some fresh dill if you want, lemon thyme. I wouldn’t advise fresh rosemary or sage).

Chef Oonagh has a Culinary Arts degree and prior to the gluten-free diet and her son’s diagnosis with celiac disease, she always cooked from scratch with real ingredients. “Like” Chef Oonagh on Facebook at Gluten Free Cooking with Oonagh. Connect, watch and learn from Chef Oonagh’s gluten-free cooking classes on Curious.com.