En Croute

The December 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.

I used goat cheese with my watercress, arugula, and spinach. I’m not sure if that was a good choice or not, as I’ve never had salmon en croute before.

I also tried to make little fishy shapes to put on top, since my initial plan of making the entire thing a fish didn’t work.

As you can see, I was pretty sloppy with folding my pastry. I don’t know what my problem was that day.

To tell the truth, we didn’t like this very much. I know I rolled the shortcrust too thick. I probably also didn’t season enough, because it was very bland except for the sauce bits. I had planned on making a beurre blanc sauce to go with it, but I couldn’t be bothered when it came down to it.

I hope to try this again, because I know it CAN be good. I’m particularly interested in trying the beef Wellington recipe, so maybe I’ll have a post again in 2010 detailing my success!

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.

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