Salmon en Croute.

In my family, we love salmon en croute. A few months ago, for some reason, every super market stopped selling it. Only frozen versions were available- and that would be a bad choice; salmon cooked from frozen is usually tough and horrible- nothing like the soft flaky, moist salmon you get when cooking from fresh.

Fortunately, as it turns out, salmon en croute is super easy to make (although I cheated a bit and used ready made pastry) and you get a super tasty, personalised result.

I ran out of pastry when making these so only managed to make two full on 'en croutes' but I still had a fair amount of the white sauce left over, so it was easy (and tasty) to pan fry the rest of the salmon and serve it with the sauce along side the real things.

Ingredients:

• A roll of ready made filo pastry.
• Juice of half a big lemon
• Two garlic cloves, minced
• 6 or 7 tbsp Greek yogurt 
• 1/4 tub mascarpone cheese
• A small handful of fresh tarragon 
• Handful of fresh parsley
• One bay leaf
• Pinch of salt
• Freshly Ground black pepper
• As many fresh salmon fillets as there are people to feed.

Special Equipment:

Nonstick foil, pastry brush

Method:

• In a pan on a very low heat, empty the yogurt, mascarpone, lemon juice, herbs, mince garlic and salt and pepper. Stir over the heat for only a few minutes, so that the garlic still keeps it's sharpness, but the herbs get time to infuse and the yogurt and mascarpone loosen together. Set aside for later.
• Unroll the filo pastry over a stretch of non-stick foil on a clean work surface. Make sure there is still space for half of the folded pastry on the work surface.
• In a glass, place 50ml or so of olive oil.
• Grab the pastry brush and dunk it in the oil. Then carefully peal back a single layer of the filo pastry and lightly brush the sheet with the olive oil, paying special attention to the corners and edges.
• Repeat this for each layer of filo pastry, laying each successive layer securely on top of the earlier layer, until you run out.
• Make sure that your final layer of filo is suitably oiled on the topside, then take one of your salmon fillets and place it in the centre of a piece of filo big enough to wrap up the salmon- you may need to cut it to size.
• On top of the salmon fillet, spoon the white sauce- just enough to cover the top of the salmon.

• Now, take the side of the filo furthest from you, and the side closest to you and wrap it over the salmon, oiling the seems/overlap so that they stick together. Don't wrap the other sides up, instead, smooth the top layer that covers the salmon down on the two unwrapped sides, so that it nicely fits the shape of the salmon. Make sure you press the edges of these sides down firmly.  
• Next, cut the excess off the two unwrapped sides, leaving about a half a centimetre of pastry that you can fold upwards slightly and crimp in to place.
• Brush some oil over the pastry containing the salmon so that it can become golden in the oven.
• Repeat for the remaining salmon fillets.
• In a preheated oven at 200C, bake the salmon en croute for 20 mins.

N.B. It's a good idea to save some of the white sauce to eat with the salmon on the side, once baked.