Roman-style salmon

The Romans were fond of cooking fish with dates, honey and spices - the idea works surprisingly well and makes for a richly-flavoured and special dish.

You can use this recipe to make either two individual parcels or put the fillets together and make one larger one.  Double the recipe to make a dinner-party sized en croute for four people!

Ingredients

• 2

  BigFish salmon fillets, defrosted

• 1x 320g pack

  ready made shortcrust pastry, can use fresh or frozen (defrosted as per pack instructions).

• 40g

  dried dates, stoned and chopped

• 4

  whole cloves, ground in a pestle and mortar

• 25g

  butter

• 1 tbsp

  raisins

• 1/4 tsp

  ground ginger

• 1/2 tsp

  ground cumin

• 1/2 tsp

  Dijon mustard

• 1/2 tbsp

  chopped fresh mint

• 1 dessertspoon

  clear honey

• a little milk

  for glazing

Method

• 1.

  Preheat the oven to 220°C/Gas Mark 7.

• 2.

  Melt the butter and mix in dates, ground cloves, raisins, ginger, cumin, mint and Dijon mustard to make a paste. Stir in the honey at the end.

• 3.

  Roll out the ready-made shortcrust pastry into a rectangular shape.  You can either split the pastry into 2 sheets (about 16x20cm each) or make one sheet if you want to make a single large en croute.

• 4.

  Put the defrosted salmon fillets on to one end of the pastry sheet(s). Leave enough room to fold the pastry over the fish to make parcels (or one parcel).

• 5.

  Spoon the spicy fruit paste on top of the salmon fillets and spread to cover evenly.

• 6.

  Now use a pastry brush to brush milk around the edges and fold the pastry over to make your parcel.Make sure all the edges are completely sealed – use a fork to crimp the edges if you wish.

• 7.

  Brush a little more milk over the pastry to glaze and put the parcel(s) on a lightly greased baking tray.

• 8.

  Cook in the oven for 30 minutes until pastry is golden brown.  Serve with some fresh steamed vegetables.