DC: Salmon en Croute

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.

This month's Daring Cook's challenge was to make the gourmet creation "Salmon en Croute" which loosely translates to fish wrapped in a dough package. I'll keep this short and sweet- this recipe was amazing! I cheated and used Pillsbury refrigerated pie crust (in a long skinny red box in the biscuit section) and it was a 3 step meal! You can jazz it up to look fancy for a dinner party, or just treat yourself to a fabulous meal any day of the week!

As a side note: my apologies for the late post, I actually made this recipe before the deadline, then had a bunch of drama and got very distracted. Luckily, drama's over, and I'm liberated.

Salmon en Croute:

Preparation time: Total prep time incl. cooking for the Salmon is 50 minutes

Total prep time for the Beef Wellington is 3 hours

Shortcrust pastry : 50 minutes (optional)

Equipment required:

For the Salmon en croute

oven

foodprocessor

rolling pin

For the Beef Wellington

Blender or food processor

Frying pan

15 cm crepe pan or small frying pan or griddle

cling film

oven

Salmon en croute:

Ingredients

Mascarpone or creamcheese 5.2 ounces/150 gr

Watercress, rocket (arugula) and spinach - 0.6 cup/4.2 ounces/120 gr

Shortcrust pastry - 17.6 ounces, 500 gr. Use a butterversion such as Jus-rol which is frozen or dorset pastry. or... make your own!

Salmon fillet (skinless)- 17.6 ounce/500 gr

egg - 1 medium sized

Directions:

1.Heat the oven to 200°C/390 F. Put the mascarpone or cream cheese in a food processor with the watercress, spinach and rocket 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 watercress mixture onto the salmon. 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.