One of my favorite place to eat is Cypress in Charleston. They have amazing dishes!!! My favorite there is Salmon Napoleon. It is a filet of salmon sliced thinly and stuffed with a mushroom concoction and topped with filo pastry. It is so fine and delicate … a real treat. It is so good, in fact, that everytime we go to Charleston ( not enough), we always have dinner there and I always order that dish afraid to be disappointed by something else I may order. I have been wondering how to make this dish ever since I tried it a few years back… and kept trying to duplicate it without much luck… until last week. Yes, last week as I was making the Duxelles for the Beef Wellington, I thought that may well be the secret stuffing of that amazing dish and so I tried….After trying, I must say that I was quite happy with my discovery.. It was almost as good as Cypress. Yeah!!!!

Ingredients for 2 people: 2 shallots chopped thinly, 1 box of fresh mushrooms, 2 tablespoons of parsley chopped, 1 tbsp of truffle oil, 4 tsbp of butter, salt and pepper, 1/2 cup of white wine, 3 sheets of phyllo dough thawed.

In a large frying pan warm up 1 tablespoon of truffle oil and 2 tbsp of butter. When the oil and butter are sizzling, add the chopped shallots and sweat them for a few minutes. Place the sauteed shallots in a food processor, add the sliced mushrooms and the parsley and chop until you have a paste-like mixture. Melt another 2 tbsp of butter in the frying pan and when the butter is sizzling, add that mushroom paste to the frying pan  and cook at a low-medium temperature. Constantly stir that mixture while it is cooking until the moisture from the mushroom mixture is drying out.Add 1/2 cup of white wine and cook until the wine has evaporated. Season with salt, and pepper.

Slice each salmon filet in three layers. Scoop the mixture on one layer, top it with a layer of salmon.  Repeat again and finish with a layer of Duxelles. Take three sheets of phyllo dough and cut two rectangles the size of the salmon filet. Place each rectangle on each salmon filet. With a pastry brush, brush a little bit of olive oil on the phyllo layers. Season with salt and pepper. Cook in a warm oven at 375 for 10-15 minutes. I cooked my salmon for 10 minutes because I like my salmon medium rare. I serve my salmon filet with grilled summer vegetables. Yum!!!!

Bon Appetit and Happy Cooking!!!