I’ve seen these in a few places around t’interweb over the last few months and they sometimes look amazing and sometimes a bit of a flop. Clearly baking the perfect puff pastry salmon & courgette roses is not the easiest task in the world. Never one myself to be perplexed by a challenging dish, I decided to give them a go.
There was a lot of trial and error in these and I’m hoping to give you some real exact instructions so if you make them you can be successful first time, unlike the 4 attempts I had before I got something that looked remotely beautiful.
One thing I will add about these is that they are YUM! I thought they were pretty much going to be style over substance, but no… They are delicious. Even the ones that looked like a bit of a flop, with crispy over brown courgette and pastry that didn’t look ‘quite’ done. They all tasted great. The saltiness of the salmon, combined with the creamy cheese was delectable. So, if you aren’t bothered about presentation then definitely give them a go.
They are also a lot easier to make than they look. The only heavy prep is the courgettes and rolling the puff pastry. You can have these ready for the oven in less than 10 minutes. Yes, they might look like a lot of effort when cooking for one, but they would make such a nice lunch with a side salad – or a great starter if you are entertaining (or self-indulging). Trust me, the effort required is not proportionate to the impressive looks of this dish.
Here are my top tips for making these:
- Courgettes – I used a mandolin to get thin and even slices, and also, it’s much quicker. I have 3 size settings for mine – and I tried with all of them to see how this would work best.
- 6mm – way too thick.
- 3mm – Still too thick
- 1.5mm – winner. To be honest the thin width of the courgettes wasn’t ideal as they browned very easily, but any thicker and the rose wouldn’t roll up properly
- Baking
- Use a tray. Don’t make the mistake I did and put it in a dish – which stopped the heat properly baking and browning the sides
- The pastry – you want it to be fairly thin but not too thin. Not sure how else to describe it.
- I beat one egg and lightly basted the outside of the pastry before putting it in the oven – which seemed to really help golden up that pastry.
So, there you have it. The recipe below is for 1 person and makes 2 roses, which would be a good size for lunch. You could halve this for a stater, or if you want a lighter lunch.
Here’s a step by step visual to help you on your way:
Salmon & Courgette Roses
Course: Lunch, StarterCuisine: FishDifficulty: Medium1
servings10
minutes25
minutes400
kcalSalty & creamy salmon & courgette roses – rich cream cheese and smoky fish combine perfectly with the puff pastry in this beautiful starter or lunch recipe.
Ingredients
75g block of puff pastry, rolled thinly and sliced into 12×4″ rectangles (I used 60g as the calculation for calories here, since I weight what was actually used and it was about 30g per rose – I don’t have the skills to not have wastage when using pastry unfortunately!
50g smoked salmon
50g spreadable cream cheese
1/2 courgette sliced into 1.5mm thickness (around 40g is needed for the recipe)
1 small egg, beaten
Directions
- First slice the courgette using a mandolin. If you don’t have one then try and slice them pretty thin. You could use a speed peeler, but then you’re likely to have pretty brown courgette once baked.
- Roll the pastry and cut two pieces of 12×4″. Spread the top half of each with a tbsp of cream cheese each. Preheat the oven to 180°C
- Layer the courgette so about a third is peeping out of the top of the pastry. Layer them over the top of each other. I used about 15 pieces per rose.
- Place the salmon along the middle of each pastry rectangle, so that about half is over the courgette
- Tuck the bottom of the pastry over and roll it up from the side so you have a nice rose shape. Lightly coat the outside of the rose with egg using a pastry brush.
- Place in the middle of the oven for 20 minutes and voila! Beautiful salmon and courgette roses!