Nika's Culinaria - Eat With Your Eyes

In my personal experience, being pregnant means I have to eat a lot of fish that has omega 3 oils. This means a lot of salmon. A LOT.

This can get tedious, even with the most perfect salmon one can get their hands on. For this reason, I have put together the following recipe that brings together wild caught Alaskan salmon, summer squash, fresh cilantro from my garden, brie, and organic phyllo dough.

Delicious Salmon in Phyllo

Ingredients:

Organic Phyllo Dough (The Fillo Factory Fillo Dough)
1/2 stick butter, melted
2 lbs. salmon fillets, (deboned and no skin)
1 medium summer squash
1/4 vidalia onion (must be sweet and mild)
Course sea salt, to taste
4 - 3 inch by 1.5 inch slices of brie, can leave the crust on
Fresh ground pepper
Fresh cilantro, several sprigs for phyllo pocket and some for garnish.
Lemon slices for garnish

Directions:

Preheat oven to 400 F.

Slice summer squash evenly and thinly. Place on paper towels, sprinkle with sea salt, and set aside. This will reduce some of the liquid in the squash so that the phyllo doesn’t get overloaded with squash water.

Melt the butter over low heat in a small pan.

Using proper phyllo-handling practices, lay down a layer of phyllo (whole sheet) and paint with butter-soaked pastry brush.

Repeat until 5 layers have been assembled, cut in half along the short axis so that you have two equal pieces. You will get rectangles. You can do this anyways you wish, get artistic if you like.

I made two sets of 5 layers so that I would have 4 rectangles to work with.

Set aside.

Slice the Vidalia onion very thinly; slice brie to about 3 inch by 1.5 inches, not too thick; wash several sprigs of cilantro in cold water and set all aside.

Portion the salmon into 4 equal amounts. Allow salmon to lose the chill from the refrigerator until it is almost room temp. Season with course sea salt and fresh ground pepper.

Center the salmon in the middle of the phyllo rectangle and then layer on squash slices, onion, cilantro, and brie. Fold over edge of the phyllo rectangle, paint with melted butter, and then fold over second half to form a pocket. Turn it over and place seam-side down on a parchment lined baking sheet. Brush with more melted butter.

Repeat this assembly with remainder of fish and vegetables.

Bake in the 400 F oven for 15 minutes. Watch to be sure that the phyllo does not burn on top.

Serve with cilantro and lemon garnish as well as fresh mesclun greens.

Enjoy with white wine, iced tea, or lemonade!



This does really well as leftovers the next day, eat chilled. Be sure to not store this with moist items as the phyllo dough will become really mushy.