This month’s Daring Challenge was hosted by Simone of Junglefrog Cooking.  She chose Salmon en Croute or Wellington (recipe here),  a dish I am familiar with and actually make from time to time.  It’s actually a fantastic dish that can be made super glam or super homey and all in under 30 minutes.

The first couple times I made this dish I made it in individual serving sizes using puff pastry.  Super easy and super impressive.

 Then I made it in a buttered casserole dish, layering the spinach and cheese on the bottom, topping with salmon and then puff pastry.  Equally delish.  But more homestyle.

This time I took creative license and played with the scale alittle.  Perhaps I was inspired by the holiday season and upcoming cocktail parties.  Perhaps it was the desire to do something a little different.  Most likely though, it was my aversion to fish of late that fueled the creation of these smaller scaled en Croute nibbles.

So thinking along the lines of busy Wives’ and Mothers’ and easy holiday appetizers, I thought my approach would be to stroll into Costco or Sam’s and pick up the items I needed and just get on with it.  So I grabbed a bag of frozen salmon fillets, a huge bag of fresh spinach, a package of boursin and a package of Pillsbury Crescent Rolls.

I sauteed the spinach in butter and olive oil and added some slivered garlic.  Then I portioned the salmon into bite size pieces - about 1″ by 2″.  I unrolled the pastry, schmeared it with Boursin, topped with about 1 tablespoon of sauteed spinach and garlic, added the salmon, seasoned lightly with kosher salt and pepper and rolled the pastry up into it’s recognizable crescent roll shape (tucking the pastry corners around the salmon before rolling in order to seal the package together).  I baked the salmon at 350F for 17 minutes, until golden on top and the salmon was cooked through.  It was that easy.

I was very pleased with how well these came out.  A little clunky and not as refined as I was hoping for, but delicious.  They were buttery and flaky from the pastry and creamy from the cheese.  The spinach and the salmon were well balanced and not over powered.  While many of the other DCers talked about how the Salmon en Croute could benefit from a boost in flavor, I think the Boursin brings enough to the table.   

I must stress that my food philosophy is generally based around making everything from scratch. I generally scoff at the Semi-Homemade or 30-minute Meals way of cooking.   But given the expectations that come with the encroaching holidays, family and friends coming around and for me a growing desire to sit with my feet up, I embraced the opportunity to take these simple shortcuts.  And was pleased with the results.  So give this appetizer version a try, with easy ingredients that are readily available.  And put your feet up a little this season.

~Blondie