Sweet, salty and sublime

For me, the definitive dish at the contemporary Swedish restaurant Gustaf Anders in Santa Ana is Ulf Strandberg’s sublime sugar-and-salt-cured salmon. Strandberg cuts the beautifully marbled North Atlantic salmon into slices so fine you could practically read the newspaper through them, and drops them on the plate like a lost handkerchief. The combination of cold salmon, intriguingly sweet and salty, and steamed dill potatoes from a lidded porcelain dish is truly wonderful, especially if you eat it with Strandberg’s handmade flat bread or his Swedish limpa scented with orange peel.

Gustaf Anders, 3851 S. Bear St., Santa Ana, (714) 668-1737

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Cured salmon

Total time: 15 minutes, plus 48 hours chilling

Servings: 6 to 8

1/4 cup coarse salt

1 tablespoon sugar

1 (3-pound) salmon filet with skin

1 quart water mixed with 3 tablespoons salt

Lemon wedges, for serving

1. Combine the salt and sugar. Lay the salmon in a flat shallow container skin-side down and rub with the salt-sugar mixture. Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate 24 hours.

2. Bring the salted water to a boil; stir to make sure the salt is dissolved. Cool. Pour over the salmon (the liquid should cover the fish), cover and refrigerate for 24 hours.

3. Remove the salmon from the liquid and pat dry. Use a very thin, sharp knife to slice the salmon thinly on the diagonal. Serve with lemon wedges.

Each of 8 servings: 198 calories; 650 mg. sodium; 76 mg. cholesterol; 9 grams fat; 1 gram saturated fat; 1 gram carbohydrate; 27 grams protein; 0 fiber.