salmon coulibiac

Make this impressive fish pie, a brilliant dinner party centerpiece that can be prepared ahead.

Prep: 1 hour
Cook:1 hrs 30 mins
Plus cooling and resting
More effort
Serves: 6

Ingredients

4 eggs
50g butter
700g skinless, boneless lightly smoked raw salmon fillets (available from Waitrose & Sainsbury’s – if you can’t find them, use non-smoked raw salmon fillets), cut into finger-thick slices
2 x 375g blocks all-butter puff pastry
1 egg, beaten, for glazing
1 large onion, finely chopped
1 tsp cumin seeds
1 tsp coriander seeds
4 cardamom pods
2-star anise
200g basmati rice
1 bay leaf
4cm piece cinnamon stick
400ml fish stock or water
zest 1 lemon, juice ½
large bunch dill

salmon coulibiac Method

Step: 1 Get everything prepared ahead. Boil a pan of salted water, add the eggs, and cook for exactly 8 mins. Drain and cool under cold water, and skin and put aside.

Step: 2 Take a non-stick frying pan, heat half the butter, and sizzle the slices of salmon for 1 min on each side, just to harden the fillets but do not cook them all thoroughly. Take up the salmon onto a plate.

Step: 3 Cook the rice. Liquefy the rest of the butter in the same pan. Now add onion, cumin and coriander seeds, cardamom, and star anise, next gently fry for about 8 mins or until golden. Mix in the rice and add bay leaf and cinnamon stick, then spill over the stock and season liberally. Cover and drive it to boil, now lower the heat to its lowest setting and continue to cook for about 10 mins. Turn off the heat and let it covered for 10 mins, again stir through the lemon zest and juice. Put aside to cool. (You can do this in advance several hours before) When cool, stir through the chopped dill.

Step: 4 Now to assemble the pie, roll out one of the pieces of pastry to a rectangle as wide but a third longer than this magazine (23 x 40cm), now settle on a baking tray. Pack half the rice along the middle of the pastry, disposing of the star anise and cinnamon as you do so, leave a good 5cm border around the sides. Layer the salmon over the rice, slice the eggs, and layer those over the whole salmon layer. Top the eggs with the last rice and use your hands to carefully pack everything down to a firm, equal shape. Brush any stray grains of rice off the border, after that brush the border with beaten egg,

Step: 5 Roll out the second piece of pastry to a rectangle a little larger than the first one. Drape over the coulibiac and lightly press the edges to seal together the 2 pastry sheets. Cut the extra edges to neaten and press down with a fork. (From this step you can now chill the uncooked pie on the baking sheet, for a day or frozen for around two months).

Step: 6 And to cook, heat oven to 220C/200C fan/ gas 7. Polish the pie all over with beaten egg and, if you want, lightly score the pastry with the back of the knife in a criss-cross fashion, making sure you don’t cut it thoroughly. Bake for about 20 mins, then lessen the heat to 200C/180C fan/gas 6 and continue cooking for 20 mins till golden brown. Let it rest for 10 minutes, and serve in thick slices with a bowl of Dill cream or Herb salsa.