Spiced Salmon en Croute

VIDEO Did you know the Romans were fond of cooking fish with dates, honey and spices? It works surprisingly well with salmon, creating a richly-flavoured and special dish that is ideal for a dinner party or a special lunch. Guaranteed to impress friends and family alike!

Watch Lou making this recipe here:

NB.  If you wish to make the bigger version of this recipe to serve 8 (as shown in our video), use 1.5kg of fresh salmon (in two large fillets) and double the quantities of all the other ingredients.

Ingredients

• 4 BigFish™ Salmon Fillets

  defrosted    

• 1x 320g pack puff pastry

  (ready-made)

• 55g dates

  stoned and chopped

• 5 whole cloves

  ground in a pestle and mortar

• 35g butter

  softened

• 1 tbsp raisins
• 1/4 tsp ground ginger
• 1/4 tsp ground cumin
• 1/2 tsp Dijon mustard
• A handful fresh mint

  finely chopped

• 1 tbsp honey
• a little milk

  for glazing

• Hollandaise sauce

  to serve (ready made is fine!).

Method

• 1.

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

• 2.

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

• 3.

  Roll out the ready-made puff pastry into a long rectangle.  Put two of the salmon fillets on the pastry at one end, leaving room to fold the pastry over.

• 4.

  Now spoon the spicy fruit paste on top of the salmon fillets and spread to cover evenly.  Season with some pepper and then pop the remaining fillets on top, making a ‘sandwich’ with the filling in the middle.

• 5.

  Use a pastry brush to brush the milk around the edges, fold the pastry over and seal well around the edges to make your parcel.

• 6.

  Cut shapes from any spare pastry to decorate as you wish, then brush a little more milk over the pastry to glaze.

• 7.

  Put the salmon parcel on a baking tray and cover lightly with foil.   Cook in the oven for 30 minutes until pastry is golden brown.

• 8.

  Serve with fresh steamed vegetables and hollandaise.