Salmon en croute (Midweek)

This can be made mid week as it's easy to put together, but if you want to take more time and care over it and make individual portions, I'd keep it for the weekends.

I don't normally go for cutting up food in to faces or interesting shapes to make it more appealing to little ones, but the fish on the top of these ones was more necessity than design, as it helped the pastry come together on the top. Although, now I look at it, it's not a very good fish!

Serves 4




Ingredients
500g Skinless and Boneless Salmon Fillet. If you are making individual portions like mine, just buy 4 small salmon fillets.
3-4 tbsp Creme Fraiche
1/2 Bunch of Fresh Basil
1 tsp of Dill
1 tbsp Lemon Juice
Black Pepper
Ready made Pastry. Traditionally Short Crust Pastry but if you don't have any, Puff Pastry is fine (that's what I used this time).
1 Egg, beaten

Method

Heat the oven to 200C.

Check the salmon for pin bones, removing any that you find with tweezers.

Line a baking tray with slightly oiled baking parchment.

Mix the creme fraiche, lemon, basil, dill and some pepper (and salt if you want to) in a bowl, to make the filling.

Spread the mixture over the top of the salmon.

Roll out the pastry on a lightly floured surface to a rectangle about 5mm thick and large enough to wrap the salmon in.

Put the salmon in the centre of the pastry and brush the surrounding pastry with the beaten egg.

Fold the pastry over in to a parcel, encasing the salmon and trim off any excess. Tuck in the ends before folding the rest of the pastry over to form a neat parcel.

Lightly score the pastry and then brush with beaten egg. With the left over pastry you could cut out a shape to disguise the join.

Bake for 25-30 minutes, until the pastry is golden brown and crisp.

Rest the salmon for a few minutes, then cut into portions.

The children really loved this meal but, even though Rufus likes salmon and pastry, he has an aversion to green bit (i.e herbs). I ended up having to take his meal apart! To avoid this you could fry some leeks in butter and use them instead of the herbs. If they don't like leeks, at least they are easier to remove!