Friday Feast - Salmon en Croute

Ha! Today's recipe was meant to be a cake. I baked it and then the two-legged mouse went in for the kill - big time! Ooops, cake almost demolished before I had a chance to take a photo :( A swift re-bake hasn't happened yet, but should be done ready for next week.

Meanwhile, today's recipe is fish, despite not being top of my list of favourite foods. The two-legged mouse loves fish though so I have to find recipes that I'd like and experiment a bit - this one was a hit earlier this week, even with me!

Salmon en Croute

Serves 4

150g mascarpone or cream cheese
1 bag watercress , spinach and rocket, about 120g
500g shortcrust pastry
500g piece salmon fillets , skinless
1 egg , beaten 

1. Heat the oven to 200C/fan 180C/gas 6. 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 purée. Season well.
2. Roll the pastry out so you can wrap the salmon in it completely (just a bit thinner than a £1 coin) 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 whether 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 purée as a sauce.

 Things I do:

For speed I used Jusrol frozen pastry - you could make your own of course, if so it's better to use butter for added richness.

The mascarpone cheese and green leaves purée is a lovely counterfoil to the sweetness of the salmon and pastry, but do be aware that rocket, watercress and spinach are all quite bitter leaves so you might want to reduce the proportion of leaves to cheese.

I served this with new potatoes and asparagus - and managed to fight the two legged mouse off long enough to take the above photo :)

Enjoy!

Di
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