Salmone in crosta (Salmon en croûte)

Frank29 December 2018mains/secondi piatti49 Comments

Salmone in crosta, or Salmon en Croûte, is one of those dishes that every cook should have up their sleeve. Its combination of mildly sweet salmon, savory braised leeks and buttery puff pastry is perfectly delicious. And it makes an elegant presentation at the table.

But you needn’t tell your guests it’s also pretty quick and easy to make—at least if you buy the pastry, which I always do. You just lay down a bed of the leeks on a pastry sheet, lay over a salmon fillet, top that with more leeks, then wrap it all up in a pastry bundle, all of which you can prepare ahead. When you’re ready to eat, just pop the bundle in a hot oven for a few minutes et voilà! dinner is served. Your guests will be duly impressed and you’ll have plenty of time out of the kitchen to enjoy their company and conversation, too.

Salmone in crosta would serve as an ideal second course for a cenone di san Silvestro, or New Year’s dinner, perhaps following a risotto allo champagne as your first course. An Italian style shrimp cocktail as an antipasto and perhaps a slice of store-bought pandoro drizzled with melted chocolate for dessert would round out an elegant but easy menu, accompanied by—what else?—a nice bottle of Prosecco to bring in the New Year in style.

Ingredients

Serves 2-3

1 salmon fillet, about 250g (1/2 lb)
1 sheet of ready-to-bake puff pastry ( about 25cm/10 in square)

For braising the leeks:

2 leeks, trimmed of their roots and green tops
Olive oil
Butter
Salt and pepper

For the egg wash:

1 egg yolk
1 Tb milk

Instructions

To braise the leeks:

Trim the leeks of their root and green tops, then slice lengthwise. If you see any grit, wash the leeks and shake them dry. Cut them crosswise into very thin half-ring slices.

In a braiser or heavy saucepan, melt a good knob of butter in olive oil over gentle heat, then add the leeks, along with a generous pinch of salt and a good grind of black pepper. Give the leeks a good mix and let them sweat for a minute or two. Then add a drizzle of water and cover. Let the leeks stew for 10-15 minutes, until they are very soft, stirring from time to time and adding another drizzle of water if things get too dry. Take care not to brown the leeks at all.

When the leeks are soft, uncover and turn the heat up a bit to let any excess moisture cook off. When you just start hearing the pot sizzle, turn off the heat.

To assemble the puff pastry bundles:

Now lay out the sheet of puff pastry on a cutting board or other clean surface. In the center, lay over a thin ‘bed’ of the braised leeks about the size and shape of the salmon fillet. Lay the salmon on top of its bed, then cover the fillet, top and sides, with the rest of the leeks.

Now take the sides of the puff pastry and fold it over the salmon and leeks to make a neat bundle, trimming off any excess pastry. You can use the trimmings to cut out decorative shapes to lay on top of the package. Or if you like, you can make a decorative latticework as pictured (see Notes below for detailed instructions).

Transfer the bundle to a baking sheet. (If not using the latticework, prick the top here and there.) Beat the egg yolk and milk until smooth and brush the resulting egg wash all over the top of the pastry.

Baking and serving:

Bake the bundle in a hot (200C/400F) oven for about 20-25 minutes, until the pastry is puffed up and golden brown all over and the fish is cooked through.

Let the salmon rest to cool off a bit before serving. Salmone in crosta in best served only slightly warm. It is also perfectly lovely at room temperature.

Notes on Salmone in crosta

While to my mind leeks provide the ideal complement for the salmon, you can vary the vegetable pretty much as suits your mood and the season: shredded zucchini in the summer, thinly sliced asparagus in the spring, a duxelles of mushrooms in the fall, chopped spinach more or less any time of year. For these vegetables, I’d add a bit of minced shallot to sauté gently in the butter and oil for a minute before adding the main vegetable. A dollop of cream or mascarpone would enrich the spinach nicely. You could also purée the filling if you like, which might not be a bad idea for a relatively bulky vegetable like asparagus.

As mentioned, you can use any puff pastry trimmings to cut out decorative shapes—like little stars or Xmas trees this time of year—for topping your bundle. It’s not really needed on a lattice top but provides a nice touch if you’re opting for simply folded pastry.

Some recipes for salmone in crosta have you pan fry the salmon beforehand, but unless your fillet is particularly large, I don’t really see the need. 20-25 minutes in the oven should be plenty of time to cook a modestly sized salmon fillet through, and there’s nothing more disappointing than overcooked salmon.

And rather than trying to cook a larger salmon fillet this way, I would make life easier for yourself and prepare more than one bundle if you’re having more than 2-3 for dinner. Not only will this simplify the preparation, it provides the right balance between pastry and filling.

Preparing a latticework bundle

Your salmone in crosta will look particularly elegant with a latticework top. Start with a square sheet of pastry, laying the leeks and salmon in the middle. Cut the pastry from each corner of the fillet to the top and bottom edges of the pastry sheet to form flaps above and below the fillet. Then cut strips at a 45 degree angle to each side of the fillet. Here is what you will wind up with:

Remove the excess pastry in the corners. To form the lattice top, start by pulling the flaps over the top and bottom of the fillet, then, working from the top to the bottom, pull over the pastry strips over the salmon at a 45 degree angle, alternating left and right, like so:

Continue until you have created a lattice that fully covers the fillet like so, trimming off any excess pastry:

Although it may look fancy, it’s really just about as easy as tying a shoe. And believe me I’m not one for fussy culinary techniques, so if I can do, you can…

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