Flaky Salmon Pie
– How to Cheat

It’s good that New Covent Garden of soup fame has branched out into ready-made sauces. The problem is they are a bit over-ambitious – too many flavours competing with each other. However, while a regular cheat might find a straight lemon, parsley or even a caper sauce a more useful thing, the combination of all three in the sauce we have used here does work extremely well with salmon. So, if you then add another very convenient hero ingredient, namely, ready-rolled puff pastry, you can create this crisp, light, flaky salmon pie in moments.

Serves 4

Ingredients

12 oz (350 g) skinless salmon fillet
4 gherkins or cornichons
1 x 260 g New Covent Garden Lemon, Caper and Parsley Sauce
1 x 375 g pack ready-rolled puff pastry
a little flour
1 small egg
salt and freshly milled black pepper

Pre-heat the oven to gas mark 7, 425ºF (220ºC).

First cut the salmon into bite-sized chunks and chop the gherkins (or cornichons) quite small. Then, in a bowl, mix the salmon with the sauce and gherkins (or cornichons) and season with salt and freshly milled black pepper.

Now what you need to do is, roll out the pastry on a lightly floured surface to a 12 inch (30 cm) square, trimming off any excess edges.

Then, lift the square around the rolling pin and on to a greased, large baking sheet and place the fish mixture in the centre. Lightly beat the egg with a fork and glaze around the edge of the pastry with beaten egg, then pull the opposite corners of the pastry to the centre and pinch all the edges together firmly, so the pastry seams form a cross – a bit like an envelope. Glaze all over with beaten egg and if you feel so inclined, decorate with any pastry trimmings, making them into leaves. Glaze these too and then bake the pie for 25-30 minutes or until the pastry is well-risen and golden. Then let the pie settle for about 10 minutes before serving. A green salad with lovely watercress and cucumber would be a good accompaniment.

How to Cheat Hero Ingredients: