stuffed salmon | Cecile's Cuisine

A few weeks ago my sister-in-law gave me a cookbook entitled the Happy in the Kitchen by Michel Richard. She said that she thought of me when she saw the book for three reasons. The primary reason was because the title of the cook reminded her of my signature ” Bon appetit and Happy cooking” . The second reason she purchased the book was because she noticed that there were silpats and fleximolds on the pictures of the preface. Finally she bought the book because it presented very uncommon but fun ” out of the box'” recipes and thought I could find some inspiration in it. Well she was right:-)
I love cookbooks!!! But will only buy cookbooks that have beautiful picture and that present challenging out of the box recipes. In my collection I have many books from Stephane glacier, Thomas Keller, Gordon Ramsey, Alain Ducasse and Christophe Michalak.. fun, fun, fun.

Yesterday in search of an inspiration for our dinner, or for a dessert I lingered over the book that she gave me. There were so many recipes I would have loved to make but settled on the salmon only because I had all the ingredients st home.

Ingredients for 2-4:

A bundle of fresh green asparagus ( normal sizes, not too thin, or too large)
A thick salmon filet of about 16 inches in length
olive oil
Salt
Pepper

Lemon Beurre Blanc Recipe:

the juice of one lemon
1/4 cup of white wine
1/2 cup of heavy cream
1/4-1/2 cup of butter or 1/2 to 1 stick of butter
Salt
Pepper to taste

Trim the asparagus by breaking the ends.
With a potato peeler, peel all the asparagus.
Rinse them over running water
Place the asparagus in the large round mold, cover the octogonal silpat and microwave them for 2 minutes.
Meanwhile, slice the salmon filet in half in its thickness without cutting the edges of the salmon.
Place the asparagus inside the salmon as shown below.
Trim the asparagus ends so that the asparagus flush with the salmon.
Cut the salmon in 2 or 4 equal portions.
Place those stuffed filets on the flexipan.
Drizzle oil with the oil spritzer, spritz some olive oil. Season with des salt and pepper and cook in s warm over for 5 minutes.
Meanwhile, prepare the lemon beurre blanc: in a small saucepan, warm up the white wine, the lemon juice and the cream and bring the mixture to boil.
Cook the mixture until it reduces to about 2 tablespoons.
Add the butter and whip it in.
Season with salt and pepper. Add a dash of sugar if you think that the lemon beurre blanc is too sour.
Place the salmon on individual plates and drizzle the sauce over the fish and eat up. Miam, Miam!!!

Bon Appetit and Happy Cooking!!!

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!!!