Watch how it’s made
Every step in 0:58 — from the ingredients to the finished dish.
Smoked salmon is the rare snack food that is almost entirely protein and omega-3 fat, with no carbohydrate at all. Three ounces carries around 16 grams of protein and a meaningful amount of EPA and DHA, the long-chain omega-3 fats associated with cardiovascular benefit.
Served on cucumber rather than a blini or a bagel, this whole snack comes to 5 grams of carbohydrate.
Being straight about the sodium
This is the honest caveat and it should come first. Smoked salmon is cured with salt, and three ounces can carry 600 to 1,200 milligrams of sodium depending on the producer. That is a substantial share of a daily limit in one small snack.
If blood pressure is part of your picture, and for many people with diabetes it is, this is an occasional snack rather than a daily one. Hot-smoked salmon is generally lower in sodium than cold-smoked, and reading the label is worth the ten seconds.
Cold-smoked or hot-smoked
Cold-smoked is the silky, translucent kind sold in thin slices, cured but not cooked. Hot-smoked is opaque and flakes apart, closer to cooked fish.
Cold-smoked drapes over the cucumber and looks better. Hot-smoked flakes and holds a topping more securely. Both work; the choice is aesthetic.
Cream cheese, and the alternative
Two tablespoons of full-fat cream cheese carry about 10 grams of fat and 2 grams of protein. Greek yogurt whipped with lemon and dill carries under a gram of fat and 5 grams of protein.
The honest answer is that cream cheese tastes better here, and this is a small enough portion that either is reasonable. A half-and-half mixture gets you most of the flavour with half the fat, which is what the recipe below uses.
Dry the cucumber
Cut the rounds and pat them with paper towel before anything goes on. Cucumber weeps, and a wet round means the topping slides off and the whole thing sits in a small puddle within twenty minutes.
Three quarters of an inch thick is right. Thinner and they bend under the weight.
Capers and dill are not garnish
They are the acid and the aroma that cut through an oily fish. Without them this is rich and slightly flat.
Rinse the capers if they came in salt rather than brine, and add a squeeze of lemon at the last moment rather than in advance, since it dulls quickly.