Salmon Wellington

Something smells fishy....

“Bwoy me nah tell nuh lie “This is the ultimate way to have salmon, I kid you not if you know a salmon whore, they may need to add this to their repertoire. In Jamaica we eat a lot of seafood on a weekly if not daily basis. My father in particular will have salt fish or mackerel and boiled dumplings with a side of brown stew fish every day. However we always stick to the usual, stew fish, steam fish, roast, escovitch ect. (I was actually going to make brown stew fish for this post :/ ) It was really nice to try something new and for everyone to actually love it.

I have to admit I have been longing to make beef wellington. I think the seared beef with duxelles wrapped in pastry dough and baked is such a perfect dish. However I have shied away from making it. Why? For fear of culinary ridicule and judgment; you see there aint no way I making a rare filet. Raw meat? I just can’t do it, I’ve just started using rosemary and dill, I’m still building the strength to conquer a runny egg, but raw meat is where I draw the line. They call it juicy “eww” no carpaccio’s or tartare’s for me. So as a consolation I decided to use seared salmon.  As usual I live under a rock and think these ideas are novel…google yet again proved me wrong.

Never the less I had a trick up my sleeve. I purchased a lattice pastry cutter from amazon few months ago and was waiting for the perfect way to decorate a buttery crust. I also decided to make a honey mustard sauce infused with thyme, it pairs well with the duxelles, all in all the components of this dish are very well balanced its very very very very delicious. My mother is already telling me who ‘n’ who I have to make this dish for…I don’t think everyone is getting the point of this blog. I teach, so YOU can cook it….sigh… All I know is, I'm not making that dough from scratch for those, Pillsbury will come to my rescue.

Serves 6

Ingredients (Printable recipe)

3 Salmon steaks cut in half (skinless)

Season with

1 tsp. salt

½ tsp. black pepper

Mushroom duxelles

8 oz mushrooms

1 onion/shallot

1 clove garlic

½ tsp. salt

½ tsp pepper

2 tbsp butter

1 tsp. oil

¼ cup wine

Puff pastry crust

Recommend: Pillsbury puff pastry

Or home made this recipe:click here

Thyme infused Honey mustard sauce

½ cup regular mustard

½ cup honey

2 table spoon fresh thyme leaves

¼ cup water

1 tale spoon sugar

Instructions

For the sauce

• Combine the mustard, honey, sugar and water in a sauce pan to boil and  thicken
• Once its boiling stir in the thyme leaves for a few seconds and remove from the heat
• as the thyme leave sit in the heat they impart the flavor into the honey mustard sauce

Mushroom duxelles

• Chop very finely the onions and mushrooms
• Melt 1 tbsp of butter with 1 tsp. of oil and sauté the mushrooms and onions
• Add salt and black pepper and continue to cook for about 5 minutes; they will wilt and reduce in size by half
• Once they have softened up, add shredded garlic, the rest of butter 
• Once the garlic has cooked out and the butter melted add the wine
• Allow this to cook down till all the liquid has evaporated
• Remove from the heat and set aside to cool

For the puff pastry

Roll out the prepared dough and portion into 6 pices slightly bigger than the salmon it is covering
Roll the lattice sutter over the dough, streatch it slightly to open the cuts and place it on the salmon
 (see greedy tips for more info on how to roll it)

For the salmon

• FOR FULLY COOKED SALMON: On the highest heat you have with a little oil in the pot sear the salmon on both sides a 5 to 10  seconds per side, the very center will be raw
• FOR SLIGHTLY UNDERDONE SALMON: do not sear just season and continue on to the next step
• Place the seared salmon or raw salmon on a prepared baking sheet and brush each liberally with the thyme honey mustard sauce
• Portion the duxelles into 6 and spread on the tops of each salmon
• Finally place a layer of puff pastry on top each piece making sure it folds over on all sides and bake in the oven at 400 degrees for 15 to 20 minutes
• Serve with mustard sauce on the side

Greedy tips:

• I used a pastry cutter to achieve the lattice pattern on my dough find it here
• You don’t want to fully cook the salmon on the stove because once in the oven it will become too dry and over cooked
• Make sure to flour the lattice cutter so that the dough releases easier from it
•  Start rolling the lattice cutter about half inch up form the bottom edge and roll up the dough and stop about half inch before you reach the top end. That way the two ends of the dough are still in tact. If you roll from end to end, the lattice will fall apart and be hard to move (you can see in images above that the dough is still intact at the end portions) 
• you can make your lattice more closed or more open depending on how much you stretch open the dough, the duxelles will stay more moist if the lattice is more closed (a few of mine are very open because I liked the look, however I did a few with the lattice more closed)

Shopping:

This really makes a difference with presentation



Xoxo Greedygirl