December Daring Cooks - Salmon en Croute

After a rather long break I'm back in the Daring Cooks 'fold'.  Fall was nuts but life seems to have returned to some calm normalcy (he says with the Christmas craziness upon us).

This month’s Daring Cooks challenge was chosen by Simone at JungleFrog Cooking. The challenge was to make salmon en croute – following a recipe from Good Food Online. Essentially Simone gave us two choices - a salmon en croute or a beef en croute. We went with the salmon because we need ot eat more fish. It seems that with the passing of BBQ season we've been eating far less fish than we should.

Simone provided a recipe for the short crust pastry. When I tried to make it the resulting pastry was impossible to use . . . this is why I ALWAYS buy pre-made pastry from the Mennonite ladies at the farmers market. I am sure that one day the pastry gods will forgive me but until then I shall continue to buy the stuff.

Simone's recipe was easy to follow and the result was delicious. Many of the Daring cooks have commented on how this dish was high on the 'wow' factor - making it a great choice for holiday entertaining!

Salmon en Croute

Mascarpone or cream cheese 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. 
Salmon fillet (skinless)- 17.6 ounce/500 gr
egg – 1 medium sized

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 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 puree as a sauce.

Comments

[Baked Alaska]

Welcome back to Daring Cooks! I read so many people having trouble with the shortcrust recipe that was given, and I didn't have time to make something that didn't turn out, so I used Puff Pastry. But it was homemade puff pastry I made for a previous Daring Bakers challenge, so I thought that was okay.

[Candi]

This looks and sounds really good, I shall give it a try, and I too will be using bought pastry.

[JDeQ]

I've googled about Cindya nd the ratio of water to flour was all wrong!

It was great Candi. I'm going to try the beed en croute next!