Recipe: Country Toast with Cured Salmon with Roe and Crème Fraîche
Making this for every picnic moving forward.
Though I’ve never visited Scott Clarke’s restaurant Dad’s Luncheonette in Half Moon Bay, California, I instantly fell in love with this style of cooking through his recent cookbook, Coastal: 130 Recipes from a California Road Trip.
It is packed with recipes, like those included below, that highlight individual ingredients, teach new-to-me methods (like making crème fraîche and curing salmon from scratch—both easier than you might think!), and where the end result is far greater than the sum of its parts. You can cut certain corners—like purchasing cured salmon and crème fraîche already made—and it will yield a similarly delicious outcome. I’ll let Scott take it from here…
If you catch the salmon yourself, like I try to do when they’re running, awesome. If not, buy it wild and fresh, and remove the pin bones with kitchen tweezers. If you can’t get it fresh, get the highest quality frozen salmon available, and thaw it in the fridge. A center- cut fillet from the middle of the body gives you the biggest, most uniform slices.
Time: 1 hour active; 1 day total
Yield: 8 servings
You will need:
1 cup [160 g] kosher salt
½ cup [20 g] chopped shiso
6 Tbsp [75 g] granulated sugar
¼ cup [50 g] packed dark brown sugar
¾ tsp freshly ground white pepper
1 lb [455 g] skin-on, center-cut, pin-boned salmon fillet
How to make it:
To cure the salmon: In a medium bowl, mix the salt, shiso, granulated sugar, brown sugar, and pepper. Coat the skin side of the salmon with the cure, then place the salmon, skin-side down, in a glass container or on a quarter sheet pan lined with aluminum foil. Liberally coat the top and sides of the salmon with the cure. Wrap plastic wrap around a second glass container that fits into the first, then place it on top of the salmon, weighting it down with soup cans or other heavy objects. Stow the fish in the fridge to cure for 12 hours, then flip it over, put the weights back on top, and leave it to cure for 12 hours more. It will deepen in color and firm up considerably.
Rinse the salmon in ice-cold water, rubbing off the cure. Pat it dry. It keeps, in the fridge in an airtight container, for up to 6 days.
When you’re ready, grab your sharpest knife and cut the salmon, on the bias, into ¼ in [6 mm] thick pieces, slicing off the skin at the end of each cut.
Spend the extra coin and start with high-quality, organic buttermilk and cream. If you’re afraid to leave dairy out at room temperature, a pH meter can come in handy. This little gadget measures the acidity of a substance, and with crème fraîche, which doesn’t thicken like yogurt, the pH reading can help you know as soon as it’s ready.
Time: 10 minutes active; 3 days total
Yield: about 2 ½ cups [600 ml]
Special Gear: pH meter
You will need:
2 cups [475 ml] heavy cream
½ cup [120 ml] cultured buttermilk
How to make it:
In a wide-mouth mason jar, whisk the heavy cream and buttermilk together. Cover the mouth of the jar with cheesecloth and screw on the lid rim only or wrap a rubber band around the neck to keep the cheesecloth in place. Leave the jar in a cool, dark place until its pH hits 6.3, which should take about 3 days. Remove the cheesecloth and screw on the full lid. Crème fraîche keeps, in the fridge in an airtight container, for up to 10 days.
From April to October during salmon season in Central California, I sometimes get lucky and nab a fish full of roe. Then I make this deliciousness. If you can’t get wild salmon fresh, buy it frozen, and thaw it in your fridge before curing it. Remember that curing the salmon takes 24 hours. As for the roe, if you fish the roe yourself or buy it fresh, the brining process tightens up the eggs, removes the membranes around them, and cleans any residue. Then the roe is ready for a flavorful cure. But in all likelihood, you’ll buy jarred, brined roe, i.e., salmon caviar or what is called ikura in Japanese, and then you can skip the brining step. Just make sure the roe is not pasteurized because the taste isn’t the same.
Time: 30 minutes active; 2 hours total
Yield: 6 to 8 servings
You will need:
½ cup [120 g] fresh or brined salmon roe
¾ tsp kosher salt, if brining
¼ cup [60 ml] Junmai or Junmai Daiginjo sake
2 Tbsp mirin
¾ tsp tamari
Cured Salmon (below), for serving
Crème fraîche, preferably homemade (below) for serving
How to make it:
If you’re using brined roe, skip the brining. If you’re using fresh roe, place it in a medium bowl. Dissolve the salt in ¼ cup [60 ml] of ice-cold water and pour it over the roe. Chill it for 30 minutes, then gently roll the eggs around with your hands, removing and skimming any loose membranes from the water.
Drain the roe in a fine-mesh strainer, rinse it, and remove any remaining membranes. Put the roe in a medium bowl, add the sake and ¼ cup [60 ml] of ice-cold water, and cure the roe for 5 minutes. Drain the roe in a fine-mesh strainer and rinse it gently, as it’s now quite delicate. Put the roe in a mason jar, add the mirin and tamari, and cure it for at least 1 hour. It keeps, in the fridge in an airtight container, for up to 4 days.
To serve, grab your sharpest knife and cut the salmon, on the bias, into ¼ in [6 mm] thick pieces, slicing off the skin at the end of each cut. Serve the salmon on country toast with a schmear of crème fraîche and a mound of roe, scooping it out of the jar with a slotted spoon.
Time: 15 minutes
Yield: 4 to 6 servings
You will need:
2 loaves sourdough bread, cut into 1 in [2.5 cm] thick slices
¼ cup [60 ml] extra-virgin olive oil
How to make it:
Really, you want to do this step last on the day of the picnic when all the good stuff that you’ll pile on top of the bread is already prepped. But it’s the heart and soul of the Country Toast Bar. To make the toast, place the bread slices on a sheet pan and drizzle them with the olive oil. Heat a 9 in [23 cm] grill pan or cast-iron pan over medium-high heat.
Working in batches, toast one side of the bread slices until they’re golden and crusty, 3 to 4 minutes. Remove the toasts to a sheet pan and cut them in half, if you want, to serve.
Excerpted from Coastal: 130 Recipes from a California Road Trip by Scott Clark with Betsy Andrews, © 2025. Published by Chronicle Books. Photographs © Cheyenne Ellis
