En Croute

Anything covered in pastry sounds like a delicious dinner to me and when someone starts using fancy words to describe their food, en croute or compote, I get really excited. I am not sure exactly what it is about fancy foodie words that excites me, but I think it might be that I feel like someone has gone to a lot of work and I really appreciate that. 

Today's recipe sounds fancy, but when you use frozen puff pastry and realize that the list of ingredients isn't very long, you'll figure out that some fancy sounding foods aren't as complicated as you might have though. 

Read on for today's recipe, Saumon en Croute (or Salmon in a Puff Pastry Crust)...

Saumon en Croute - serves 4

2 tablespoons olive oil 

1 small bulb of fennel, very finely diced

3 shallots or 1 small onion, finely diced

1 tablespoon fresh dill, chopped

2 tablespoons sun-dried tomatoes, finely chopped

1 lb of salmon, either in four fillets of in 1 nice centre cut piece)

2 sheets of puff pastry, defrosted and rolled out 

1 egg yolk

Salt and pepper to taste

1. Heat the olive oil in a pan at medium heat and add the fennel and shallots. Saute for about 10 minutes, add the dill, sun-dried tomatoes, and season to taste with salt and pepper. 

2. Preheat oven to 350 degrees and line a cookie sheet with parchment paper. 

3. Place one of the sheets of puff pastry on the parchment lined cookie sheet. Place the salmon in the middle of the pastry and brush a little of the egg yolk around the edges of salmon. 

4. Top the salmon with your fennel compote.

5. Place the second piece of puff pastry on top of the salmon and fennel compote. Pinch the two pieces of pastry together and brush the whole thing with the egg yolk.

6. Bake the salmon for about 40 minutes or until the pastry is puffed and golden.

7. Serve in slices and enjoy!