This fish stuffed pastry was introduced to me as an appetizer or first course many years ago. Finding the puff pastry is easy, it’s usually fairly inexpensive and making the fish filling couldn’t be too hard, so we decided to give it a try with some frozen Ahi tuna steaks. The fish filling was a little improvised and mostly based around the white wine sauce, but it turned out well enough to share it with you. As the saucy fish filling is the part that takes the most time and attention, you can always make a bit extra for warming up later.
Ingredients:
Olive Oil
Salt
Pepper
Chili peppers- dried
Onion- ½ - ¾ of one, minced finely
White wine
Garlic- minced or pressed, to taste
Bayleaf- dried
Parsley- ¼ cup fresh and minced, or less to taste
Tomato sauce- a small amount, a ½ cup or so
Tuna steak- we used 2 good sized ones
Puff pastry
Feta Cheese
Parmesan Cheese
Egg - for brushing on pastry
Start the olive oil and add the onion, garlic, bay leaf, salt and pepper. Add enough tomato sauce to give some color to the mix and spice it up with some dried chili peppers. Add some white wine and let it simmer for a bit.
Depending on the kind of pastry you find, remove it from the freezer and follow the appropriate thawing instructions. The shells we used needed about an hour for defrosting and then required an initial baking of about 20 minutes at 425ºF (220ºC). Once the pastry is done, remove from the oven and let cool for a few minutes. Carefully remove the little lid (found on the shell type) and it’s ready for stuffing. If you get the traditional flat sheets of puff pastry, you do not need to do an initial baking and can form an attractive envelope or turnover style shape around the fish stuffing.
Put the thawed (or fresh) fish in to the boiling sauce and let it cook until the fish starts to flake apart
and you are able to combine it well with the sauce. Add some more white wine to help develop a good texture. Continue to let it simmer until the fish has become part of the sauce.
Your best friend here is the white wine, which allows you to simmer the stuffing for the time needed to give it flavor while still maintaining a moist yet hearty consistency that will hold up well in the pastry. It should be dry enough to stuff the pastry but saucy enough that it still can maintain moisture after being baked in the shells.
Stuff the pastry with the fish sauce and add a little bit of feta (or your personal favorite) cheese and pepper before putting back on the little pastry top. After all the puffs are stuffed brush some beaten egg on their tops. Add some parmesan and bake at 425ºF (220ºC) for around 20 minutes and serve with a nice green salad. Yum.
The nights selection:
Back onto our favorite IPA’s, we chose the the Hop Ottin’ IPA from Anderson Valley Brewery Company. It’s a first choice both on tap and at the supermarket. Strong and with a huge bouquet, just like we like it. We can’t wait to go to Anderson Valley to visit the magic labrotory and enjoy a tasting. The found that the last The Dø album “Both Ways Open Jaws”, goes well with both the meal and the beer. We can’t stop listening to it since it came out worldwide in the end of 2011. This French/Finnish duo, was already was part of our playlist with their debut album “A Mouthful” and now they’re back on heavy rotation. Enjoy!
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