easy salmon en croute

Where is the recipe from?

Waitrose's weekly newspaper. Also available online [HERE]

Ingredients & any changes made?

Leeks, ready made butter puff pastry, Boursin with garlic and herbs, salmon.
Only two tiny changes made. Instead of buying a large fillet which would have been too much, I bought two small fillets. Nor did I buy the pack of leeks as again it would have been too much, so I bought one large leek instead. This saved both money and wastage. Other than these alterations I bought exactly what was listed in the recipe.
The recipe itself was so simple. Very few ingredients and no skill needed other than the need to skin the salmon, which I'd never done before. The knife used was too small but it did the job and I felt quite pleased to have removed the skin as well as I did.

The leek and Boursin filling was incredibly simple to make, and what's not to like. Delicous ingredients.

Verdict?
My en croute presentations skills need more work. It looked more like a pastry brick both before and after cooking. But it was easy and quick to put together.

It also looked dull, if I make it again I'd give the pastry an egg wash to add a shine. I'd also try to make it look nicer, it was so chunky that I am ashamed to show it here.

It is a good recipe though. Very simple, nothing complicated. If you were entertaining and wanted something that looks like it was harder to do in order to impress, then this is a great one to do. Just work on the wrapping of the salmon and don't just slap it around the way I have. It would have been better had I wrapped the fillets individually instead of together, and as I said earlier, an egg wash would have given it a glossier look. Perhaps it wasn't suggested as the butter pastry was rich enough already, but from an appearance point of view it would certainly have helped.

Mushroom Tartlets

Where is the recipe from?

The Royal Touch, by Carolyn Robb

Ingredients & any changes made?
Puff pastry, woodland mushrooms, dried porcini mushrooms, chives, thyme, lemon juice, cream, onion. Pretty much kept to it, though I used half a shallot instead of an onion. I chose to use lemon thyme. When sauteeing the mushrooms I also added a teaspoon of butter. Also, the recipe makes a lot of tartlets, so I eyeballed it to make a smaller quantity.

Verdict?
If you love mushrooms, or to be more precise, mushroom vol au vents, then you will LOVE this. It's so easy to put together, and you already know the flavours will be fantastic.
I have tried this recipe before so knew it was simple and tasty, but in my first attempt I overcooked the mushroom 'paste'. It's worth bearing in mind when sauteeing at the start not to let them go too far. Once they are lightly coloured, the mushrooms and onion are then whizzed up to make what is described as a paste, but looks more like a lumpy pate. Egg yolk and cream are added. This is then smeared onto the rectangles of puff pastry before lightly cooked mushrooms are placed on top. Again, take care not to overcook as then the tartlets going into the oven for around 15 minutes.
The end result is just lovely. Good if you are entertaining as it's pretty failsafe. My only query is that in the book the tartlets look quite glossy, which I assume is down to the photography and all the foody styling tricks they use to make things look perfect and beautiful, but it makes me wonder if I've done something wrong.

Tried to find this online so I could link it up, but alas, I couldn't. Is it worth buying the book for? I'd say yes, it's one of many very doable recipes, and I already have plans to make another from this book now I've started leafing through it again.

cooking the books

Not literally, but 'trying out recipes in cookbooks" wasn't a snappy blog name.
Trying to motivate myself to try out some of the recipes that catch my eye in the cookbooks I own. Let's see if I can update it more often that once every six years this time!!