As I recently mentioned I have been feeling under the weather the past week – and as you all know, there is nothing more off-putting then food when you are feeling ill. My dad used to joke with me that when I was growing up, that there were three words that I would tell him more often than any other, and it wasn’t “daddy I love you” but rather “daddy, I’m hungry!” When I would stop eating he knew that I was really ill… and that was when my parents would start to worry!

Hence – there has not been a lot of cooking going on in my kitchen over the last week. However, I was looking through some of my pictures from the summer when I was in Sweden (yes I am still unemployed and have plenty of time on my hands), I realised that although I was not actively blogging, I was very actively cooking, and have a quite few recipes up my sleeves that I want to share with you, like this Salmon and Spinach pie.

This recipe was actually introduced to our family by our previous maid Lolita, who worked for us for about 12 years. To be honest, she wasn’t a very good cook, but she did have a couple of recipes that were stellar and this was one of them.

We all know that smoked salmon and spinach are too ingredients that goes so well together, but what really makes this dish
slightly different and that much better is the creamy herb sauce that goes with it, with both lime juice and garlic it really gives this pie a great kick!

Lolly actually learnt this recipe from a Danish woman, which is probably why it went down so well in our family, as the flavours are incredibly simple and clean and very….well…Scandinavian!

Ingredients

For the Pie

• Puff pastry (I didn’t have puff pastry at hand, but made the world’s simplest pie dough)
• 250g spinach, chopped (I always use frozen)
• ¼ litre cream
• 3 eggs
• 200g smoked salmon cut into strips
• 20g butter ½ tsp nutmeg (I am not a big fan of nutmeg, so don’t usually add it in)
• Salt and pepper for seasoning
• Handful of pine nuts.

For the Cream Sauce (1dl = 100ml)

• 3 dl sour cream
• 1 dl cream
• ¼ dl lime juice
• 2 tsp salt
• ½ tsp pepper
• Dill – large handful, finely chopped
• Parsley – small handful, finely chopped
• 1 tsp dry tarragon
• 2 -3 spring onions, finely chopped
• 2 cloves of garlic, minced
• ½ tsp paprika

Method

Before you start making the pie, start with the dressing, as it needs to be in the fridge for at least an hour so that all the flavours have time to adjust and combine.

For the dressing

Beat the sour cream, lime juice and cream together.

Then add the garlic, spring onion, dill, parsley and tarragon and mix thoroughly .

Season with salt and pepper. Taste. As always, if you want to add some more of something – do so, but remember, the flavours do become stronger once it has been in the fridge.

Cover with plastic wrap and pop it into the fridge

For the Pie

Heat your oven to 200°C

Fry the defrosted spinach in butter for about 5-10 minutes, season with salt, pepper and nutmeg, and add a little bit of the cream.

Mix thoroughly and turn off the heat.

Stir in the strips of smoked salmon into the spinach.

Roll out the puff pastry and place it in the pie form.

Transfer the salmon and spinach mix into the pie form.

In a separate bowl, beat the eggs and cream, and then season it was with salt, pepper and nutmeg as well.

Pour the egg mass on top of the spinach.

Spread pine nuts on top and bake the pie in the oven for 25-30 minutes. (I love the pine nuts so tend to be quite liberal with this!)

 ♦♦♦♦♦♦

This for me is a very summary lunch recipe, and although we are turning towards autumn in the northern hemisphere, you guys down south are slowly getting into summer, so this would be perfect. And if you are lucky enough to live in a country where its hot all year round – I promise this will be a staple :)