3 fish En Crouté

Everyone has heard of salmon en crouté but we thought up this one ( well, Monica did.... ).

You can really use any fish you like – we chose Brill and Cod as it was the two that were the right size fillets for two people at the time.

The centre piece really brings this dish to life – our own hot smoked salmon with sweated off leeks in butter.

The surprise for us when we first made this was that we had plenty of the hot smoked salmon mix left after making the en crouté so simply added some single cream to it to make a beautiful creamy sauce. 

Serves: 4

Prep time: 20 mins ( leeks need to be done first and allowed to cool before using in the en crouté

Cook time: approx 40mins

Ingredients:

• 1 large leek sliced
• tbsp butter
• 2 of our hot smoked salmon fillets
• black pepper to season
• 1 pack of puff pastry
• 2 fillets of different fish approx 250g each, skinned and pin boned - Brill and Cod
• salt to brine the fish fillets
• single cream

Method:

Remove the fish fillets from the fridge and sprinkle generously with salt, leave on a plate for 15mins to allow to firm up.

Meanwhile, sweat off the sliced leeks in the butter on a gentle heat for 5 mins.

Flake the hot smoked salmon in to the leeks with a few turns of black pepper and gently combine. Take off the heat and spread out on a cold plate – this mix needs to cool before making the en crouté.

Rinse the fish fillets in cold water to remove the salt then dry well on kitchen towel.

Divide the puff pastry 2/3rds to 1/3^rd – you need a bigger piece for the top.

Rollout the smaller piece – the base – about 2cm bigger than the fish fillets and place on a baking sheet line oven tray.

Place the cod fillet in the middle of the pastry, then spread a 1 inch layer of the hot smoked salmon and leek mix on top of the fish fillet. Finally place the brill fillet on top of the salmon mix. Brush the outside of the bottom pastry with milk.

Roll out the second piece of puff pastry large enough the cover the fish and overlap to match the bottom pastry. Press the 2 sides of pastry together and make a nice basic crimp be pressing down with a fork for example.

If you like you can very gently score the top of the en crouté with a blunt knife in the shape of fish scales. Chill for ½ hr in the fridge. Set the oven to 180'C fan and place a rack in the middle.

Brush the whole of en crouté with milk and place on the middle shelf for approx 40mins.

Just before the en crouté is ready gently reheat the left over salmon mix and once hot pour in enough single cream to make a nice consistency sauce and keep warm.

Test the en crouté to make sure the centre is piping hot. Slice with a serrated knife ( bread knife ) and serve with a few veggies and potatoes of choice with a large dollop of the creamy sauce.