First up, check your fish for any pin bones. Those are the tiny bones along the thick side of the fish (not every filet will have them). Simply remove with tweezers or your hands, or have your fish guy do it if you are lazy.

Generously brush bourbon all over fish. (This helps with curing, in addition to tasting real good) Place a large piece of plastic wrap in a large glass pan.

In a large bowl, combine salt, sugar, beets, dill, fennel, lemon zest and crushed red pepper flakes.

Place some of the mixture down on the plastic wrap, then the salmon, and then more mixture and wrapped her up tight.

Now we have to refrigerate the lox for curing! Cover the lox with a heavy object to weigh it down and prop up one side slightly so the fish juices will drain out and cure faster.

After 24 hours check on your salmon. It should start looking like lox and some of the fish juices should be piling up. Drain the fish juices and put the lox back for another 24 hours.

After 48 total hours unwrap the lox and wash it off well. The skin should peel off easily at this point. If it doesn’t, you can always filet it off with a sharp knife.

Slice off small pieces against the grain on an angle and you’ve got lox!

Serve with the above accoutrements.

P.S. Gomemade lox freezes really well. Tightly rap pieces in plastic wrap or vacuum seal them.