Salmon en croute
Some consider this food to be a variation of beef wellington, only made using fish, some consider it just a salmon pie, but in any case, it is delicious food. I was lucky to taste it for the first time many years ago at the closing banquet of a conference in France. I don’t think I remember this food very precisely and I don’t claim to follow it exactly. When preparing it, you don’t have to put two salmon filets together, it can be done successfully with a single layer of salmon, and then you don’t have to wait that long to get ready with the food. I made this food as an appetizer for Christmas lunch, but I think that it is too much to be an appetizer, it is more like a main dish.
Preparation time: about 1h
Level: Average
Quantity: 5-6 thick, about 4 cm slices
Ingredients:
Two 20-25 cm long salmon fillets, skin and all bones removed
150 g of cream cheese
a large handful of raw baby spinach or about 200g of frozen spinach
2 garlic cloves finely chopped
salt and black pepper for seasoning
frying oil for spinach and garlic
50 g of room temperature butter
400 g of butter from the puff pastry, it is difficult to do it myself, I used an Estonian bakery product
1 egg to spread the dough
lemon sectors for serving
Preparation:
1. Remove the skin from the salmon fillet. To do this, slide a sharp knife sideways under the edge of the fillet, the fish must be skin below on the work surface. Hold firmly from the edge of the skin, hold the blade downwards and push the knife along the skin and remove it cleanly.
2. Finely chop the garlic, place in a pan with cooking oil and spinach, heat gently for a few minutes, season with warm pepper, and leave to cool. If using frozen spinach, thaw it before frying or thaw directly in a pan.
3. When the spinach has cooled completely, add the cream cheese and mix
4. Sprinkle a little flour to the working surface and roll the dough into a wider and flatter rectangle.
5. Place the dough on a baking sheet covered with parchment paper. Place one salmon fillet in the middle of the puff pastry, grease it with 25 g of butter, and season with salt and pepper
6. Spread the mixture of spinach and cream cheese on the salmon fillet.
7. Also grease the other half of the fillet with 25 g of butter, season with salt and pepper, and place on top of the salmon fillets covered with the spinach-cream cheese mixture.
8. Grease the edges of the puff pastry with the beaten egg and lift the edges of the puff pastry over the salmon fillet on both sides and press tightly together.
9. Press the ends of the dough firmly with the back of the knife and turn it up against the dough. If there is too much dough at the ends, cut them shorter. The ends would be 4-5 cm ideal.
10. Turn the assembled pie upside down so that the edges of the dough are down.
11. Grease the pie with the egg, pull the stripes across the dough with a knife, do not cut through the dough
12. Shake pepper and sea salt over the pie
13. Bake at 180 degrees for about 45 minutes, depending on the oven. The salmon must be completely cooked.
14. Cut the pie with a very sharp knife or bread knife into slices about 4 cm thick. Serve with a lemon slice, from which you can squeeze the juice while eating the pie.
Ready !!
