Sunday Supper: Salmon Wellington with Warm Rice Salad

Here’s a final Sunday Supper idea for 2020, and one I’ve been thinking and fretting about making for a while.

Why the fretting? Well, have you ever cooked salmon? If you have, you know how tricky it can be to do well, and how fast it can go from perfect to dried out. Wrapping it in puff pastry and baking it seems masochistic, really. If I were kinder to myself I’d have gone with a phyllo dough, but no, I was stubborn and wanted those flaky, puffy layers that only puff pastry can give you.

The problem though, is those layers take at least 35-40 minutes at high heat to cook in a Wellington situation, and 35-40 minutes at high heat sounds like death for a salmon fillet. But I still wanted to try! I glanced around the internet, and I’m not the first to attempt this. But for every other recipe I found, I suspect the pastry is undercooked. I’m sure the salmon was delicious, but that pale, golden colored pastry? After just 25 minutes? It’s not done. There’s no way.

I didn’t want perfect salmon and undercooked pastry, so I tried a few tricks that I think worked out pretty well. The first is rolling the pastry out pretty thinly, which helps give you enough to cover two stacked salmon fillets, which are a bit wider than the traditional beef roll. But rolling thinly also helps the puff pastry cook a little faster, which we want here. The second trick is adding a moisture barrier under the salmon, but something to add moisture on top of the salmon. The good news about a Wellington, is we are basically steaming the salmon here so it is hard to dry out completely, but I wanted some back up, and then somewhere for all the juices to go on the bottom. The third trick was stacking 2 fillets together to make a thicker cut of salmon. Finally, the last trick I tried was just packing in the flavor. The truth is, this is still salmon baked for probably 10 minutes longer than is ideal, so its going to be well done. That luscious, perfect salmon, doesn’t-need-anything-else-flavor wouldn’t be possible, so I layered with as much backup as possible, including garlic, preserved lemon, and the warm spices in baharat, a Middle Eastern Spice blend.

In the end, I did make a pretty good salmon Wellington! I would probably roll my bottom pastry a little thinner next time, and I made the mistake of wrapping the ends under instead of cutting off the excess. But the flavor was fantastic, and I didn’t think the salmon was overcooked. I happily ate all the leftovers, along with the absolutely delicious rice salad, with jewel-like dried fruits, sharpness from the shallot, and creamy goat cheese.

The dried fruits and warm spices are perfect for the season, just in a slightly unexpected way.

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Salmon Wellington with Warm Rice Salad

Serves 6

For the Wellington:

• olive oil

• 4 cloves garlic, minced, divided

• 1 quarter preserved lemon peel (reserve the flesh), minced

• 4 cups baby spinach

• 1 small shallot, minced

• 3/4 cup cooked beluga lentils, drained and rinsed

• 2-3 sprigs fresh thyme, leaves stripped and roughly chopped

• 3/4 tsp kosher salt, plus more, to taste

• 1 tbs baharat spice mix (see note)

• two, 1 lb salmon fillets, skin removed

• 1 package puff pastry, chilled

• 1 egg yolk

For the warm rice salad:

• 1 cup jasmine rice

• 1 1/2 cups water

• salt and pepper, to taste

• 3 tbs good olive oil

• juice and flesh of one quarter of a preserved lemon

• 1/2 tsp apple cider vinegar

• 1/2 tsp zaatar

• 1/2 cup dried cherries or cranberries

• 1/4 cup golden raisins

• 1/4 cup toasted pine nuts

• 1/2 cup chopped parsley

• 1 shallot, thinly sliced

• 2 oz goat cheese

1. Prepare the wellington fillings: Heat a little olive oil in a pan over medium low heat, and add half the minced garlic and cook until fragrant, about one minute. Add the preserved lemon peel and cook another minute. Add the spinach, and cook just until wilted, another 1-2 minutes. Remove to a large plate to cool.

2. Heat a little more oil in the pan, add the minced shallot and cook 2-3 minutes, until softened, then add the remaining garlic and cook another minute, until fragrant. Add the thyme and the lentils, and cook, mashing the lentils a bit with the back of your spoon or spatula, until everything is dried out the lentils look like very chunky mashed lentils. Taste and add salt and pepper as needed, then set aside to cool completely.

3. Pat the salmon fillets dry with paper towels, then sprinkle with the 3/4 tsp salt and baharat spices.

4. Assemble the wellington: mix the egg yolk and 1 tsp water together in a small bowl. Roll the puff pastry as large as needed to wrap around the salmon. Don’t be afraid to roll it thinly, that will help it cook more quickly, which we want here. On the puff pastry, layer first the spinach mixture, then the salmon fillets, stacked to make it as even thickness as possible. Top with the lentil mixture. Bring one long side of the puff pastry over the salmon and brush with the egg wash, then bring the other side up and over that one. Bring in the short sides just over the exposed ends of the salmon, trim any excess dough, and brush with egg wash to seal. Don’t just wrap each end under the roll of pastry, you will end up with a very thick pastry bottom that will never cook (I say this from experience). Flip the whole pastry package over and brush the top with egg wash. Score with a sharp knife, then transfer to the fridge to chill for at least one hour.

5. While salmon is chilling, gather your rice salad ingredients. And heat oven to 425 degrees. After salmon has chilled for at least one hour, bake, 30-35 minutes, until the pastry is puffed and dark golden, then remove from the oven and let rest 10 minutes.

6. While the salmon is baking, make the rice salad. In a pot, bring the water to a boil and add the rice, then reduce heat to low, cover and cook for 15 minutes. Remove from heat and let sit for 10 minutes.

7. While rice cooks, in a large bowl add the preserved lemon flesh and juice, apple cider vinegar, zaatar, and salt and pepper to taste. Whisk to combine. When rice is done, fluff with a fork and add to the bowl and toss to coat with the dressing. Add the dried fruit and pine nuts and toss, then add the shallots and parsley and mix everything together. Taste and adjust seasoning if needed, then crumble in the goat cheese and give a final toss.

8. To serve, slice the salmon Wellington and plate with the warm rice.

Thanksgiving Leftovers Mashed Potato Soup with Stuffing Croutons

We made it to the Friday before Thanksgiving! Is that something to celebrate? I think so, as it can also be read as “we made it this far through this hellish year.” That’s reason enough to applaud ourselves. And yes, the hellish time is not over, but I can look past the muted holidays and the clumsy coup attempts and see two effective vaccines silhouetted in the light at the end of the tunnel. I still don’t know yet how far away the end of the tunnel is, but I can start to see it. That’s something to be thankful for this year.

Last year, on the Friday before Thanksgiving, I happy-danced off a plane at Heathrow with Claire and Ryan, to a weekend in London ahead of our week in Dubai. I was looking through pictures yesterday, and it was painful to see how oblivious we were to a threat that we now know was already circulating through Europe. How casually we mingled, sans masks, with packed crowds in holiday bar pop ups, inside restaurants(!) and on the Tube. But we also looked like we were just letting ourselves have fun, a concept foreign to most of this year. The Dubai pictures show the same. So, I’m mostly just thankful now that we took that trip in 2019, so I have somewhat fresh memories to get me through the separations and pure anxiety of this year, and to look forward to traveling with family and friends again one day.

That is my thankful list this year, and I’d also add on that I’m thankful no one I know has been truly impacted by Covid, beyond one friend’s mild case and my own three-month stint on the unemployment rolls. And, of course, the general way we’ve all been impacted. I know I’m lucky, my friends are lucky, my family is lucky, and all we can do is hope we stay lucky.

So in 2020, the Friday before Thanksgiving, I’m not walking off a plane in London, but I’m trying for optimism, trying not to panic about the riskiness of my small gathering plans, and trying to make it one more month to December. We can do it.

Before December, though, we need to get through the immediate aftermath of Thanksgiving. Whatever form it will take for you, a holiday is still a holiday. Even if you only manage to muster a level of excitement usually reserved for, say, President’s Day, a holiday is still a holiday, and a day off work is still a day off work. There will inevitably be a little depression heading into the Monday after, when we are somehow expected again to work all five days in a week. Capitalism really is a monster.

May I suggest we all take comfort in our leftovers? There should probably be some pie. Good, breakfast is covered. Then of course you have The Sandwich, where I hope you don’t discriminate and pile a bit from every container of leftovers between two good slices of bread. Please toast that bread in a pan with olive oil and sea salt first.

But should you want to really go for comfort, let me introduce you to The Soup. This is where you take a bit from all your savory leftovers and any ingredient odds and ends you have left, and combine everything into a flavorful, seasonal bowl of cozy. It would be a good idea to have some leftover potatoes on hand. Here, I use mashed, but I see no reason why scalloped or gratinéed potatoes can’t work, just pull out the blender. Add whatever veggies you’ve got, any leftover turkey or whatever other roasted protein (beef, chicken, ham, tofu, it all works here) and chop everything into small pieces. Then, reserve your leftover stuffing to the side and toast it into croutons in the oven. Get everything in the soup pot with as much broth or water you need, bring it to a simmer, blend as needed. Taste and adjust your seasonings. Ladle into bowls, garnish with your stuffing croutons. Drizzle with a swirl of gravy, top with some cranberry if you have it, and sprinkle any fresh herbs you have left.

Thank me on Monday, when you can have the last of this for lunch.

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Mashed Potato Soup with Stuffing Croutons

This version pulls in ingredients from this year’s Small Thanksgiving menu, but you can of course freestyle this with whatever you have on hand with whatever amounts you wish. I’ve just provided some amounts below, as loose guidelines.

For the soup:

• olive oil

• 2 cups celery, chopped

• 2 cups carrots, chopped

• 2 cloves garlic

• fresh herbs (thyme, rosemary, etc)

• salt and pepper, to taste

• 3-4 cups leftover mashed potatoes and cauliflower

• 2 cups broth (chicken, turkey, vegetable, or water)

• 1-2 cups leftover stuffing

• leftover gravy

1. Heat oven to 300 degrees. In a large pot, heat a couple tablespoons of olive oil over medium heat, then add the celery and carrots and cook five minutes, until softened. Season with salt and pepper. Add the garlic, and whole sprigs of thyme and rosemary or whatever herbs you are using, and cook another 1-2 minutes, until the garlic is fragrant.

2. Add in the broth, then the mashed potatoes. Stir everything around to break up the potatoes, and add more liquid if it seems too thick.

3. Simmer for 5 minutes. While soup is simmering, toast the stuffing in the oven until heated through and crispy. Warm any gravy in the microwave.

4. Remove the herbs and ladle the soup into bowls, garnish with the stuffing croutons, and drizzle with gravy. Enjoy while hot!

Notes:

• Dice up any protein you have leftover and add to the soup: bacon, turkey, sausage, chicken, beef, tofu. Everything and anything could work. Add the meats or proteins in when you add the potatoes.

• If you don’t have mashed potatoes but did make cheesy, gratin, or scalloped potatoes, those can definitely work here too! You probably just want to blend them with the soup base before adding in any chopped leftover veggies or proteins.

• If you have other thanksgiving classics on hand like green bean casserole, roasted squash, or creamed corn, those can work here too, just chop up the green beans or squash into bite size pieces before adding to the soup, in the same step as the potatoes.

Small Thanksgiving: Vegetarian Stuffed Acorn Squash with Walnuts & Wild Rice

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Walnut & Spiced Wild Rice Stuffed Acorn Squash

Flavor profile inspired by Sunny Anderson.

Makes 4 servings as a side dish or 2 servings as a main dish.

• 1 acorn squash

• 3/4 cups cooked wild rice

• 1/4 cup small mozzarella cheese balls (Bocconcini), cut in half

• 2 tbs golden raisins, chopped (or currants, dried cherries, whatever dried fruit you have)

• salt and pepper, to taste

• 2 tbs chopped onion

• 1 tsp curry powder

• 1 tsp fresh thyme

• 1/8 tsp smoked paprika

• pinch red pepper flakes

• 1/4 tsp garlic powder

• 1/4 cup raw walnuts, soaked in water for 20 minutes

• 1/2 tbs soy sauce

• 1/8 tsp celery salt

• 2 tsp olive oil

• cilantro or parsley, for garnish

1. Prick the squash all over and microwave for 10 minutes, then let cool. You can do this part up to a couple days ahead and store the squash, wrapped in plastic, in the fridge until ready to proceed.

2. Heat oven to 350 degrees. Cut squash in half, and remove the seeds. Scoop the flesh into a large bowl, leaving a thin edge in the skins so they can keep their shape. Level off the bottoms of each half so they sit flat on a baking sheet.

3. Add the rice, mozzarella pieces, and raisins to the squash in the bowl and stir to combine. Season to taste with salt and pepper.

4. In the bowl of a food processor, combine onion, curry powder, thyme, paprika, pepper flakes, garlic powder, walnuts, soy sauce and celery salt, and pulse until finely crumbled. Heat a skillet over medium high heat with the olive oil and add the walnut mixture. Cook 2-3 minutes, until browned and fragrant. Add to the bowl with the squash mixture and mix well.

5. Divide the squash and rice mixture between the two squash cups and bake for 15 minutes. Serve warm, and garnish with cilantro or parsley as desired.

Notes:

• At first glance, this recipe looks like it has annoyingly small recipe amounts (2 tbs onion??? 1/4 cup walnuts???), but I think that makes it perfect for Thanksgiving, when I know I always have odds and ends of different ingredients laying around. If you have half an onion left from something else, perfect! Do you have walnuts in a dessert? Take a handful. Or, you have some leftover rice, add it! It doesn’t have to be wild rice. Though rice, once cooked, freezes really well, so having some on hand at all times is a great idea, and much cheaper than buying that pre-cooked rice in the freezer aisle at the grocery store.

• I envisioned this for a small gathering, but the great thing about this recipe is that it scales really, well, so double or even triple it for a larger crowd.