There is something gratifyingly posh about food cooked en croute. The most complicated version is the French interpretation of Russian coulibiac, in which a large fillet of salmon is wrapped in crêpes with rice, hard-boiled eggs, mushroom duxelle and masses of dill, before it’s encased in choux pastry.
My salmon en croûte draws inspiration from this noble dish but is light and summery, easy to prepare yet equally impressive to serve. The salmon is layered up inside a puff pastry overcoat with a stuffing of diced tomato and thick and creamy salsa verde. This herby sauce is richly flavoured with anchovy, Dijon mustard, capers and garlic, ending up a vibrant green. It looks wonderfully dramatic against the salmon and tomato.
To ensure that the pastry is properly cooked, it’s important to roll it thinly but not so thinly that it breaks or cracks during cooking. I used leftover scraps to decorate the pastry log and glazed it with beaten egg.
It looked wonderful when it came out of the oven. I served it with just-dug pink fir apple potatoes and green beans, both from my allotment, but crisp salad leaves would be a good alternative.
On the subject of salad, here’s a tip. The tomatoes need to be peeled and seeded to avoid the dish becoming too wet. If you save the juices from the seed cavity, you will end up with about 150ml of tomato essence. Use it to make vinaigrette with honey, salt, a little mustard and olive oil. Alternatively, this intensely flavoured nectar makes a mean vodka cocktail.
Advertisement
How to make salmon en croute with salsa verde
Serves 6
Prep: 60 min
Cook: 30 min
Ingredients
Advertisement
450g vine tomatoes, preferably from the Isle of Wight
500g block puff pastry
Flour for dusting 500g, approx, salmon fillet
Knob of butter
1 egg
Advertisement
For the salsa verde:
2 garlic cloves
80g bunch flat-leaf parsley, leaves only
10 basil leaves
15 mint leaves
Advertisement
1 tbsp Dijon mustard
6 anchovy fillets
1 tbsp capers
150ml extra virgin olive oil
Method
Advertisement
Begin by preparing the tomatoes and making the salsa verde: both could be done up to 24 hours in advance. Place the tomatoes in a bowl and cover with boiling water. Count to 20, and pierce with a sharp, pointed knife. If the skin splits, they are ready; if not, leave for a further few seconds. Drain, immerse briefly in cold water and drain again.
Using a small, sharp knife, cut out the core in a pointed cone shape and peel away the skin. Place a sieve over a bowl. Quarter the tomatoes and scrape the seed cavity into the sieve. Continue thus until all the tomatoes are prepared and then chop into small dice. If making ahead, place in a bowl, cover and chill until required. Press the seed debris through the sieve with a wooden spoon or spatula, scraping underneath so nothing is wasted. Transfer the bright red juice to a jam jar and chill until required.
To prepare the salsa verde, peel and crush the garlic and place in the bowl of a food processor. Add herbs, mustard, anchovy, squeezed capers and 2 tbsp olive oil. Process for a couple of minutes, stopping occasionally to scrape down the insides of the bowl. With the machine running, add the rest of the oil in a thin stream, as if you were making mayonnaise. In fact, the finished sauce should look like coarse, green mayonnaise. Season with pepper. Cover and chill until required.
Heat the oven to 200C/gas mark 6. Place an oven sheet in the oven. Lay a sheet of baking parchment over a second baking sheet and smear the centre with butter. Whisk the egg. Dust a work surface and roll the pastry into a 28cm square about the thickness of a 10p coin.
Slice the (skinned) salmon down the fillet into 4 thick strips. Lay 2 strips of salmon 2cm apart down the middle of the pastry. Top with blobs of salsa verde, using just over a quarter. Sprinkle with tomatoes, more blobs of salsa verde and position the remaining salmon over the top.
Slice a 2cm strip off one side of the pastry and set aside. Paint the exposed pastry with egg wash. Fold one flap of pastry over the top of the fish, tucking it snugly, then fold the other side over the top. Trim the ends, leaving a 4cm border. Seal with the tines of a fork. Carefully lift the pastry log on to the buttered baking sheet and paint with beaten egg. Twist the strip of pastry and lay down the centre of the log, sealing the ends and painting it with egg wash.
Cook in the middle of the oven for 30 minutes until the pastry is puffed, crisp and golden. Serve thick slices, cut across the log, with the remaining salsa verde.