[Liz]

Perfect elegance if you observe meatless Christmas Eve.

Salmon en Croute / Crab Champagne Sauce

Ingredients:
Fillet of Shetland salmon (1.2 kg)
Two Packs Frozen Puff Pastry (Defrosted)
Piece of root ginger grated or fresh Japanese sashimi ginger
Crystallised Ginger
4 Tangerines
Teaspoon Cornflour
Sprig of Thyme
Sea Salt
Freshly ground Pepper
Saffron or Paprika
Generous glass of Champagne.

Take a fillet of fresh salmon, cut into two pieces. Salt the fillets with
sea salt and pepper and fresh thyme. Grate some root
the fillets, flesh side down in puff pastry sealing ginger, or
Japanese pink ginger if you’re so lucky, also a little crystalised
ginger and apply the mixture to the flesh side of the fillets.

Place the filets flesh side down on puff pastry, wrap the
whole parcel and bake an a medium oven for about 30 minutes, the
pastry will look “done”.

10 minutes before you take the salmon out
of the oven, quickly saute some crab in olive oil
laced with ginger and tangerine zest. Add champagne, some heavy cream and thicken a bit.

[Liz]

[noiseman]

I think I could live on salmon, especially fresh salmon like they have in the Pacific Northwest. And I agree that crab is better than lobster, though I love lobster, too. To me, what makes crab meat so much better is that it’s sweeter.

As for types, I’ve mainly had king crab and snow crab. The choice between those two mainly comes down to how hard you feel like working. I like being able to just snap the snow crab legs instead of having to get out the heavy hardware. More convenient, but king crab tastes even better and once you do manage to crack it open there’s a bigger reward for your effort.