Salmon en Croute

The 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.

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.

This was my first Daring Cooks challenge so I also made the short-crust pastry. I have never enjoyed making pie crust, but I got out the kitchen scale and gave it a try.
It was so so hard! I hated rolling it out. Next time I will just buy the short-crust ready made.
Wrapping the salmon was very simple and fun. I change the filling. I mix 1 cup cooked spinach, feta, dried dill and cumin.

So tasty!

Smoked Mackerel Pâté

This delicious Smoked Mackerel Pâté was made by our friend for Thanksgiving. Everyone loved it. I think its a great recipe for any holiday. Rich, creamy goes well with pita bread, chips or even raw veg!

Recipe by Shawn McCourt and adapted from a recipe in

Small Food: snack sized bites to share with friends. Murdoch Books Ltd. Sydney.

Smoked Mackerel Pâté

Makes 1 ½-2cups

Ingredients:

1 whole smoked mackerel, or 4 boneless smoked fillets [can also use whitefish, eel salmon, trout or other hot smoked fish*] or around 800 grams

2-3 tablespoons freshly squeezed lemon juice

3/4 to 1 whole package (200-250g) of Philadelphia cream cheese

Approx. 200g or ¼ cup of melted butter

Black pepper

Spring of fresh parsley and lemon slices, to garnish

Preparation:

Remove all skin, head and bones from the smoked fish and put in a food processor with the cream cheese, butter and lemon juice. Blend until mixture is quite smooth. Season to taste with cracked black pepper. Add more lemon juice if necessary. Can either serve immediately (as we did) or refrigerate overnight until firm. Garnish with parsley sprig and thinly sliced lemon. Serve with toasted bread, pita or crackers.

* Use only hot smoked fish, not cold smoked, as the cold smoked kinds have a ‘raw’ consistency and will not produce a desirable pâté.. I like the mackerel, but any other oily fish such as kippers, eel or whitefish would work. If you use salmon or trout, you may need to add more cream cheese and/or butter to produce the desired effect as there is less oil in these.

More Mussels

Inspired by the mussels we had earlier in the week another house mate made some more. He cooked onions and garlic in oil before adding tomato sauce, Tabasco and mussels. Really nice.

Fresh Irish Mussels

We had a lovely fish dinner to say good-bye to lovely friend who was going back to Japan. Our housemate went to Howth (a fishing village) and got fresh mussels, shrimp, and squid, cod and john dory.
I was always picking mussels out of my soups when I was in Korea, but these smelled so good. My friend had cooked them in white wine, onions and garlic. There was no fish taste or smell. I said I would try one and ended up eating a dozen or so. Thank you Thank you Sam I Am!!!

Saffron Salmon

I like to bake fish in foil bags. It could just be because I like to gifts. Saffron and fish is not a new idea, Iranians enjoy this dish for New Year. But way wait till New Year? This is a gift I can give myself any day of the week.
Saffron expensive but if you grind first then you only have to use a tiny tiny tiny bit.

Grind a pinch of saffron with a pinch of sugar and salt. (My mother-in-law just uses sugar, but I like to mix it up).
Chop 1/2 of fresh herbs (coriander, parsley and mint).
Zest a lemon, slice half and juice half.
Rub the salmon with saffron, lemon zest and pepper. Fill the foil bag with the fish, herbs and sliced lemon. Add a drop of olive oil and the lemon juice. Fold up the bag. Bake for 15 min at 200c.

Open the foil bag and enjoy with dill rice.

KimBop and Sushi

I grow up eating KimBop. My family would sit around the kitchen table making thick rolls, my little brothers stealing whole rolls before my mom could cut them. Kimbop is Korean for rice and seaweed. It is like a sushi roll, but made with cooked meat(like Spam)and fish cake not raw fish.
Rice:
Use a short grain rice. Wash 2 cups of rice. Bring to boil with 3 cups of water, lower the heat and cover or put the whole lot into a rice maker. Cook for 25-30 min. Add sesame seeds and oil once cool.
Fillings:
Cut cucumber into long thin strips.
Cut green onions into long thin strips.
Cut Dakuan (pickled radish) into long thin strips.
Cut carrots into long strips, boil for 1 min and then fry in some sesame seed oil.
Cook some spinach in sesame oil.
Beat an egg with 1tsp water, fry in oil, making a thin omelet. Cut into Strips.
Fry fish cake in sesame seed oil, cut into long thing strips.
Roll:
Spread 1/2 cup of rice on half of a sheet of seaweed. Lay filling across the rice. Roll.
I don't have any Dakuan or fish cake but it was still yummy.
My housemate made Makizushi (rolled sushi). I made the rice, adding sweet vinegar not sesame oil. She filled them with smoked Salmon, cream cheese, green onion, cucumber and avocado, each roll was different. I rolled a few inside out, and covered them in sesame seeds.The very best thing was this rainbow trout I cured. I used Derry Clarke's recipe for Irish Whiskey Cured Organic Salmon. I changed it a bit, the fish, no dill or white pepper. Lemon not orange. It was so so good. I could eat it everyday.