Salmon En Croute

Our lovely Monkey Queen of Don’t Make Me Call My Flying Monkeys, was our May Daring Cooks’ hostess and she challenged us to dive into the world of en Croute! We were encouraged to make Beef Wellington, Stuffed Mushroom en Croute and to bring our kids into the challenge by encouraging them to create their own en Croute recipes!

I decided to go with the flow of the season and do a salmon covered in pastry since it's currently on sale! Even my stuffing is more spring-like: blended combination of spinach, watercress, and rocket (arugula). I used a combination of cream cheese and ricotta (left-over from another recipe). They were quite nice although I must say I was right in seasoning it well. Otherwise it comes across as too bland.

The BBC Good Food magazine provided me with the recipe to adapt to. This is so easy to make what with the ready-made puff pastry you can get from almost any supermarket. The only thing a bit hard is when moving the whole encased salmon from the assembly area to the baking pan. Otherwise, it was all a breeze frankly.

Salmon En Croute

500 g  salmon fillet - skinned and deboned
500 g  puff pastry
150 g  mascarpone or cream cheese
100 g  combined spinach, watercress and rocket
1 medium egg - beaten with 2 tsp milk

1. Combine the cream cheese and the watercress, spinach and rocket in a food processor and whizz until well mixed. Season well with sea salt. Set aside.
2. Heat the oven to 200°C/fan 180°C/375°F. Butter or oil a baking sheet.
3. Roll the pastry out to a size that will enclose the salmon completely, with a thickness of around 1/8 of an inch. Lay it on the prepared baking sheet (it will hang over the edges) and put the salmon in the middle. If it has a thinner tail end, tuck it under.
4. Put half of the cream cheese mixture on the salmon. Fold the pastry over to make a neat parcel. Trim the edges and seal with a fork or by crimping.
5. Make three slashes in the pastry to allow the steam to escape. Brush the pastry with the egg glaze.
6. Bake for about 30-35 minutes or until the pastry is crisp and browned. Dish up and serve with the rest of the watercress puree.