Salmon en croûte

So much of the time my dinner ideas are just inspired by what I have around. Trying to think of something to make from scratch, then having to go out and grab all the ingredients is a lot harder than it sounds!

We didn't manage to finish the side of salmon yesterday as sashimi (barely had any, really) and it was sitting in the fridge taking up a lot of room, so I decided we'd better finish it. There was no way we could eat up all of it raw (as good as it had been), so it was a matter of how to cook it.

My usual salmon dish is to flake it up with some pasta, or just to bake it in the oven. But with a whole slab, I could try something else! Also sitting in my fridge was a ready-rolled piece of puff pastry and a bag of spinach. A quick google search of these three items told me to make salmon en croûte - a beef wellington without the beef and with salmon instead!

I think I've only tried salmon en croûte once, and it was deliciously moist and succulent salmon wrapped with a light airy and crispy pastry. I was salivating already!

 Fresh baby spinach leaves (the whole 200g pack - washed and ready to go) went into the pan.

While I waited for the spinach to wilt, I tended to the bulk of salmon (minus the chunk we ate for sashimi the night before!) Now the salmon I bought still had skin and bones, so you'll need to take it off if that's the same as yours, then you can clean it off and wipe it dry.

After browsing various recipes,  I decided I liked the look of this one from Gordon Ramsay (when do I not like the look of GR recipes?) and this other one from Woman and Home. They both sandwich a layer of green things between two pieces of salmon, so I cut up my salmon so that I would have a bottom bit and a some top bits. It doesn't matter do you like to do it, as long as its fits together neatly like a puzzle.

Back to the spinach! When it was all wilting, I zested in the zest of a lemon, and seasoned it lightly with some salt and pepper. Then you can remove it from the heat, and set aside to drain.

Or better, put all the spinach into a sieve and squeeze all the life water out of it with the back of a spoon. This is why you need the zest, because if you used the juice, it would all be squeezed out. The more effort you spend on wringing dry your spinach, the better the pastry will turn out, because there won't be all that excess water creating problems.

There is supposed to be 200g of spinach there. What happened to all of it???

Once your happy with your spinach, you can roughly chop it up, although it's probably not necessary (it's just so that it's not one massive clump) and stir in a small knob of butter, enough to make it form a pastey consistency. Crème fraîche could also be used but I find it a little too rich.

Now we're ready to build our parcel. Start by seasoning the salmon. We're going to bone side to the face the middle of the parcel, so leave that side up and season it with some salt and pepper.

Now decide which bit(s) you want for the top and which you want to be on the bottom. I recommend that the thicker piece be for the bottom and the thinner pieces for the top (if there's a difference). Smear the top with some wholegrain mustard and the bottom with the spinach paste.

Then put the top salmon on the bottom salmon, so that the sides smeared with mustard and spinach meet! Time to wrap it up!

Place the salmon onto the rolled out pastry sheet. If yours isn't pre-rolled, aim for the thickness of a £1 coin.

I made a mistake here - I directly transferred mine parcel on, so the bottom piece is still on the bottom here, but this meant that once it was wrapped up, the bottom became the top (because you'll want the seam to be on the bottom!) if you get what I mean. SO in order for you not to make this mistake, please flip your salmon sandwich upside down (i.e. salmon with mustard on the bottom and salmon with spinach on the top) so its the right way up. Although it's only really important if you've got a thick and thin bit of salmon like me, because as you'll see later, the thin side doesn't support the filling as well.

Brush the pastry around the salmon with some egg wash (beaten egg) and season with salt and peppers lightly. Then wrap it like a pressie. A very yummy pressie. The egg wash will help stick the pastry down.

When you've wrapped it, place it in a baking tray (lined if you want) with the seams tucked underneath. Score the top with the back of a knife in a criss cross pattern, taking care not the cut through it (just drag it along lightly - you don't need to use any strength at all!) and score portions if you wish as well. Brush some more egg wash over the top so it bakes with a beautiful golden colour.

Cover and chill for 15-30 minutes or so while you preheat your oven. Yep you gotta wait! I know you're looking forward to tucking in, but chilling it helps it hold its shape that bit better, so it's worth it in the end.

Then when you've baked it for 20-25 minutes at 180˚C in a fan oven (200˚C normal oven), it should look like this.

Beautifully golden!

Leave it to rest 5 minutes (more waiting I know, sorry!) before you cut into it, so set your table, tidy up your kitchen, pour some drinks, stare and drool, and then you can dig in!

The salmon was just perfect (it probably finished cooking while I rested it), so flavoursome and succulent. It was just flaking away and complemented so well by the crispy pastry, and lemony spinach.

The only thing about this was that it had a soggy bottom. This could've been due to various things, which I'll have to change for next time to see if it makes a difference:

• not dehydrating the spinach well enough
• too much spinach? or butter?
• the salmon on the bottom not thick enough (see above about flipping the salmon over)
• not patting dry the salmon well enough

But it was delicious all the same. Try it for yourself! This side of salmon had a chunk missing and still easily fed 4 grown starving students, so it's a great for families and friends!

Dinner Date Night In

Sometimes its just nice to stay in and cook for a date. Together, so you don't have to slave away in the kitchen alone can enjoy the fun of cooking (and washing up later!) with your other half. There are just days when you're not up for fighting the crowds for a table somewhere.

I like cooking dates because that usually means I can try something new that I haven't done before. Two minds (and four hands) are better than one when making recipes that you're not familiar with.

Of course, too (or two?) many cooks can spoil the broth, but Ant and I are very compatible. We have designated roles: He tells me what he wants to eat, I find recipes. I choose ingredients, he pays for them ;) He chops, slices and dices, I wash.  I preheat the ovens and pans, he handles the sizzling oil and hot steam. He seasons, I taste test. I stir, he dishes up. It works very well.

Ant took care of the meat for this Beef Carpaccio Salad, although there wasn't much really to do! We used a thick cut steak of beef fillet for this, because it is such a beautifully tender texture (though the flavour may not be as good as cuts like sirloin), and kept the handling to a minimum.

We just brought it to room temperature about 30 minutes before seasoning it lightly with salt and pepper and searing the outside surfaces on a very high heat to a charred brown (1-2 minutes). In order to be a safe as possible with the raw meat, we didn't cut it until we were ready to eat.

Ant managed to cut it really very thin (considering the soft raw texture), and then we flattened the slices out some more on a chopping board with a rolling pin covered in glad wrap. Then I did the important job of tossing it with some baby spinach leaves, roasted peppers (from a jar!) and balsamic vinaigrette. Ta da! Easy-peasy Beef Carpaccio Salad.

I don't know why we thought it was a good idea to have so much raw food in one night. We just couldn't resist when we saw an entire side of salmon on sale at Tesco for £13! It looked so fresh, we had to try some of it for salmon sashimi!

While the sushi master (educated at the YouTube academy of sushi knife skills) carefully deskinned and deboned the slab of omega-3 goodness, I halved, cored and sliced the creamy butteriness that is an avocado. With similar textures, and rich, creamy, oily-but-in-a-good-way tastes, I think it's weird that salmon and avocado go well together (it seems like it would result in overload!) but they do. It's the ultimate match. I also sliced some cucumber to freshen it all up.

Somehow we survived all the raw meat and raw fish, and made it onto our main course.

This is inspired by some Spanish paella-type recipes that are made with pasta rather than rice. I believe it is something called fideuà. Having never actually tried this dish, we didn't really know what we to expect and what would be a good recipe. So we improvised.

There are various fideuà and pasta/noodle-paella recipes online, and I used a combination of a few, including this one from America's Test Kitchen, and this one. The key concepts to point out are:

• toast the spaghetti in some olive oil to start (break the spaghetti in half or smaller to fit easily into your pan
• cook up a tomato based sauce (I used canned tomatoes, tomato paste, shallots, garlic and fish stock - I don't know where to get hold of bottle clam juice?) and then cook the toasted spaghetti in it
• when the pasta is just done, nestle in your seafood (clams, mussels, prawns, cockles, fish, calamari, whatever you can get your hands on!) and bake in the oven until the seafood is done and the pasta begins to crisp up
• serve with lemon wedges

It definitely tasted delicious, but whether it was authentic or even close to what the dish is supposed to be, I would not know. I think this calls for a trip to Spain (or a Spanish restaurant, but preferably in Spain) to do some research !

The beauty of seafood (if it's fresh) is that it's actually incredibly easy to make. There's very little you need to do with it, because its the seafood itself that you want to appreciate. I love this dish also because it's quick, quite hassle free, and if you're fortunate enough to have a ovenable pan, a one-pan dish that means even washing up is easy.

So it was supposed to be a date night in, but my sister was in as well, so it became a dinner for three instead. That 's how we managed all that food! ;)

She contributed a beautiful red velvet cake, decorated with marshmallows and buttercream. It was the perfect size, and the perfect way to end our meal.

All accompanied with some champagne of course!

Date nights in like these make me less inclined to go out for a fancy (and probably expensive) meal as often. It can be just as perfect at home, don't you think?

Although, I can't give you many tips on improving the next part - washing up. It's probably easiest to pile it all to the side and thinking about it the next day ;)