Salmon Wellington

So years ago I was not eating meat, but wanted to serve something special for everyone at christmas.  Frankly lots of vegetarian cookbooks claim that dishes are "perfect for the holidays"when really your average meat-eater doesn't want to come over and have what they consider a "side dish" (stuffed squash for example) for a main course.  This pretty much leaves you with pasta.  Another thing that lots of non-vegetarians don't want to find at your house: a main course based on beans.  Justifiably or not they are afraid of them.  Since I was never really a vegetarian, and always ate fish that usually left me serving fish to company.  This is a really special fish dish that is not very hard to make, and perfect for the holidays - for real.  I pulled this off Recipezaar.com - a very cool site where you can read people's reviews of recipes and search their database for what you want.  I've found some winners on that site over the yeas. 

SERVES 8

Salmon Wellington

Ingredients

8 (6 ounce) salmon fillets (skinless)

1 egg yolk, for glaze

1 package puff pastry

MUSHROOM ONION FILLING

3 tablespoons butter

1/4 tsp. dried thyme

salt & pepper

1 lb mushroom, chopped

2 onions, chopped

1/4 c. sherry

1/4 c. heavy cream

LIGHT WHITE WINE SAUCE

6 tablespoons dry white wine

6 tablespoons white vinegar

2 tablespoons shallots, minced

1 1/2 cups heavy cream

1 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon white pepper

2 tablespoons parsley, minced

Directions

1. Make mushroom onion filling:  Pulse the onions in the food processor until finely chopped.
2. Melt butter or margarine in skillet and saute onion until lightly browned.
3. Pulse the mushrooms in the food processor until the mushrooms are pretty finely chopped.
4. Add mushrooms and thyme to the onions and cook, stirring, until most of the liquid has evaporated. 
5. Add  the sherry and cook until the liquid has reduced.
6. Add the cream and cook, stirring, until that has reduced.  You will be left with a flavorful mushroom paste.Season to taste.
7. Remove to bowl and chill.
8. *Fillingmay be refrigerated up to 2 days or may be frozen. (I make it 2 days in advance so I can hang with the kids on christmas)
9. Roll half the pastry on a floured board into a rectangle approximately 14 inches long and 12 inches wide.
10. Cut into 4 rectangles. You can cut decorations out of the corners here, they usually end up just being bulky and annoying.
11. Repeat with remaining dough.
12. Place salmon fillets on a greased baking sheet.
13. Tuck the thinner parts of fillet underneath, making them all the same thickness.
14. Divide mushroom onion filling among the fillets and spread evenly on top.
15. Cover each with a rectangle of pastry.
16. Tuck 1/2 inch of pastry under fillets; trim off excess dough. It doesn't really matter how much goes under. . .
17. Do not cover the entire bottom with pastry or it will become soggy.
18. Brush top and sides with egg yolk glaze, being careful not to let glaze drip.
19. Re-roll scraps of pastry and cut out small decorations.
20. Place on Wellingtons and glaze the entire pastry again.
21. *Maybe refrigerated up to 8 hours.
22. Make light white wine sauce: Place wine, vinegar and shallots or onion in medium saucepan.
23. Bring to a boil, lower the heat, and simmer until slightly thickened and reduced to approximately 4 tablespoons.
24. Slowly whisk in the cream.
25. Simmer, stirring occasionally, until sauce thickens to desired consistency. This will take a little time, but as the water evaporates from the cream, it will thicken.
26. Season to taste with salt and pepper.
27. Stir in chives or parsley.
28. Reheat before serving.
29. If sauce becomes too thick, thin down with additional wine or cream. Serve hot.
30. Before serving, bring Wellingtons to room temperature for 1 hour.
31. 30Preheat oven to 425F.
32. Bake Wellingtons for 20-25 minutes or until the pastry is golden.
33. At this time, if the fillets are 3/4 inch thick, they will be moist and flaky.
34. Spoon a small amount of sauce on each plate, place Wellingtons on sauce and pass remaining sauce.