Daring Cooks: Salmon En Croute

This months Daring Cooks challenge was a choice of Beef Wellington or Salmon en Croute. So many people have been complaining that their have been a lot of fish recipes. Understandably so because there has. For us fish people that is NO problem. Besides I have already done Beef Wellington, which I am actually planning to make again on New Years Day. So for me it was an obvious choice.

My review. This is a really elegant, quick recipe that you can pull together in a short period of time to wow your dinner guests. I highly recommend this if you have company and you know they enjoy salmon. Wonderful taste.

Note:
The 2009 Daring Cooks challenge was hosted by Simone of Junglefrog Cooking. Simone chose Salmon en Croute (or alternative recipes for Beef Wellington or Vegetable en Croute) from Good Food Online.

Salmon en croute
Ingredients
creamcheese 6 ounces
spinach 16 ounces
Puff Pastry 1 sheet
Salmon fillet (skinless) 16 ounces
egg - 1 medium sized

I added:
the juice of half of a lemon
1 tablespoon of dill weed
2 cloves of garlic, finely minced

Directions:
1.Heat the oven to 400 F. Put the cream cheese in a food processor with the spinach and whizz the lot until you have a creamy green puree. Season well.
2. Roll the pastry out so you can wrap the salmon in it completely (approx. 2-3 mm thick) and lay it on a buttered or oiled baking sheet (it will hang over the edges). Put the salmon in the middle. If it has a thinner tail end, tuck it under. Spoon half of the spinach mixture onto the salmon. (I sliced my salmon in equal parts and put the mixture between teh two fillets, laying the thick end over the thin end and the thin end over the thick end, so the parcel ended up being a uniform thickness.) Now fold the pastry over into a neat parcel (the join will be at the top, so trim the edge neatly), making sure you don’t have any thick lumps of pastry as these won’t cook through properly. Trim off any excess as you need to. Make 3 neat cuts in the pastry to allow steam to escape and make some decorations with the off-cuts to disguise the join if you like. Brush with the egg glaze.

3. Bake for 30 minutes or until the pastry is crisp and browned. To test wether the salmon is cooked, push a sharp knife through one of the cuts into the flesh, wait for 3 seconds then test it against the inside of your wrist; if it is hot, the salmon is cooked. Serve with the rest of the watercress puree as a sauce.

Shortcrust pastry

Ingredients:
450 gr (15.8 ounces or 3.2 cups ) of plain all purpose flour
200 gr ( 7 ounce) cold butter
pinch of salt

Sift the flour into a large bowl, add the butter and rub in with your fingertips until the mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs. If you have a food processor you can use that.
Stir in the salt, then add 2-3 tbsp of water and mix to a firm dough. Knead the dough briefly and gently on a floured surface. Wrap in cling film and chill while preparing the filling.

For best results make sure the butter is very cold.