Lakerda

Instructions

1. Wipe the 250 g of bonito clean and cut it straight across the loin into steaks 3 cm thick, two or three pieces. Working from the cut face, slide a small knife along the backbone and ease the bone out whole so each steak becomes a ring of flesh, then scrape out every trace of the dark red blood line with the back of a spoon; it is what turns lakerda bitter.
2. Sit the steaks in a bowl and cover generously with the cold water. Refrigerate for 12 hours, changing the water 4 times, until it runs clear and the flesh has gone from red-brown to pale rose. Drain and pat completely dry with kitchen paper, surface water will slime the cure.
3. Scatter a 1 cm bed of the 150 g of coarse salt in the base of a clean 500 ml glass or ceramic jar. Stand the steaks upright in it, packing salt into the hollow left by the bone and into every gap, then bury the top under a good 1 cm blanket of the remaining salt so no flesh shows.