Salmon Spinach Pastry

Salmon spinach pastry, originally uploaded by beFOODled.

S made this great-looking salmon spinach pastry last week. It's a recipe from his mom. I'm not joking—it really is only five ingredients! The secret is to use puff pastry that comes frozen in a package. The pastry is rolled up into two separately-wrapped tubes and this recipe uses one of those tubes.

This is the ultimate dinner-party food. It feeds six people, and looks so complicated that people will think you are a gourmet chef! But in fact, it's so easy that it has made me lose my fear of using pastry. There is some long-term prep, though. You have to salt the salmon the day before to get it to release some water.

Salmon Spinach Pastry

puff pastry (half a package)
one package frozen whole-leaf spinach (about 300 g)
250 g ricotta cheese
2 eggs
half of a whole fillet of salmon
Optional ingredients: half an onion, pan-fried and chopped fried bacon

Thaw the spinach in a bowl in the microwave (start with 6 to 8 minutes). When thawed, take out a handful at a time and squeeze out the juice. Chop up the spinach finely.

In a different bowl, add the egg and ricotta and mix with a fork. Stir in the spinach. Add salt. Add optional ingredients if using.

Presalt the salmon for a day and drain off the water. Take off the skin.

Thaw the pastry, about one-and-a-half minutes on low power. Roll it out with flour into a big rectangle about the size of a placemat.



Plunk the salmon on the pastry. If the fillet tapers to a point, you may have to cut off the pointy bit and put it over the bigger piece so that the salmon roughly becomes a square shape over the pastry. Cover the whole top with the ricotta mixture. Wet both ends of the pastry and fold up over the salmon. Leave a slit at the top to vent the salmon.

Bake at around 400 F (200 C) for 40-50 minutes or until pastry is browned.