Jane Grigson's Fish Book - Jane Grigson [153]
Fry the rest of the onion gently in 2 tablespoons of butter, until it is soft. Add the rice, and stir about until every grain is coated with melted butter. Pour in 450 ml (15 fl oz) of water (or chicken stock, if you have any: but don’t use a cube) and leave to cook gently in the usual way. Add more liquid if necessary, and when the rice is soft, remove from the heat and flavour with dill, parsley, salt, pepper and nutmeg.
Take a heavy baking sheet. Roll out half the pastry to an oblong. Put half the rice on to it, leaving a good margin free. The slices of fish go on next, then the slices of hard-boiled eggs and the mushroom mixture. Last of all the rest of the rice. Roll out the remaining pastry to a similar sized oblong. Brush the rim of the pastry, round the filling, with cream, or top of the milk, or egg, and lay the second layer on top. Press down round the rim to seal the pie. Turn over the rim to double it, and nick the edge all round to make sure of a firm seal. Decorate the pie with leaves made from pastry or dough trimmings, and pierce a central hole for the steam to escape. Brush pie and rim over with beaten egg and cream, or a mixture of both. Leave to rest for 30 minutes – in a warm place if using brioche dough. Bake in a fairly hot oven (gas 5–6, 190–200°C/375–400°F) for an hour. If the pastry browns quickly, protect it with buttered paper. When the pie is ready, have the rest of the unsalted butter melted in a little pan. Pour it through the central hole just before serving: a little more won’t come amiss. Serve with a separate jug of melted butter, or, better still, sour cream.
NOTE Kulebiaka could be made with cooked salmon. In this case omit the quick frying in butter.
Roasted kasha can be used instead of rice, should you be able to get it.
QUICHE DE SAUMON
Serves 6
250 g (8 oz) flaky or shortcrust pastry
375 g (12 oz) cooked, flaked salmon
2 teaspoons dill weed or chopped green fennel leaves
2 tablespoons Parmesan
2 tablespoons Gruyère or Cheddar
2 large eggs, plus 2 egg yolks
300 ml (10 fl oz) single or whipping cream
salt, pepper, cayenne
Line a 25-cm (10-inch) tart tin, with a removable base, with the pastry. Bake blind in the oven for 15 minutes – flaky at hot (gas 7, 220°C/425°F), and shortcrust at fairly hot (gas 6, 200°C/400°F).
Spread the salmon evenly over the base. Sprinkle with the herbs and cheese. Beat the eggs and cream together, season well and pour over the salmon mixture. Bake in a fairly hot oven (gas 6, 200°C/400°F) for 30–40 minutes, or until the filling is nicely risen and brown. Serve hot, or warm.
VARIATIONS Instead of salmon and dill weed or fennel, use the following combinations:
Tuna with capers or anchovies.
Jugged kipper with 1 tablespoon French mustard, and juice of 1 lemon, squeezed over before serving.
Good white fish with vermouth, Pernod or anisette.
Mixed shellfish. Reduce oyster and mussel liquor to concentrated essence, and add to eggs and cream.
SALMON BAKED IN PASTRY WITH GINGER
When I wrote Fish Cookery at the beginning of the seventies, George Perry-Smith, the inventor of this dish, was still high priest at the Hole in the Wall restaurant in Bath (these days it is run by two of his pupils, Sue and Tim Cumming). Joyce Molyneux, now at the Carved Angel in Dartmouth, sweetly remonstrated with me when I suggested that frozen salmon could be used. ‘We always waited for the best Wye salmon!’ And now his other pupils and assistants, with restaurants of their own in various parts of the country, all make this dish with the best local salmon they can find, as a badge almost of their training.
I asked once how the idea of putting ginger with salmon had come about, and was told that some medieval recipe was the source. In fact, a number of medieval fish recipes use ginger – powdered ginger, it seems – as a seasoning, but no early recipe comes as close as John Nott’s in his Cook’s and Confectioner