The Chief Taster is a big fan of this dish – he especially enjoys the infused cream, and the fresh taste of the dill.
NB – this dish doesn’t reheat very well – the sauce gets absorbed into the pasta and it becomes a bit dry.
This goes particularly well with Perry of Pesoun – a fourteenth century dish of peas and onions, go to this post, and look at the bottom for how to do that – it’s basically just frozen peas with onions and saffron.
Otherwise try a green salad with lots of dressing. And/or some lightly pickled cucumber.
Recipe for salmon and fresh dill in creamy maccheroni
Serves 4
Ingredients
- 600ml/2½ cups double cream
- 440g/1 lb ideally SKINLESS salmon fillets – this will be about four pieces
- 4 Indonesian long black peppercorns, pinch Urfa pepper flakes, or some grinds of black pepper
- smoked salt
- Couple of bay leaves
- 160g/2 cups maccheroni
- 2 tbsps grainy mustard
- 50g/1 cup panko breadcrumbs
- fresh dill – you could use the entire 20g/1 oz pack. NB don’t be tempted to use dried, it simply won’t do
- capers – optional
- knobs of butter
Method
- Preheat the oven to 210ºC.
- Pour the cream into a medium saucepan, add the salmon, peppercorns and the bay leaves and bring NEARLY to the boil. Cook gently for ten minutes. The salmon should look as if it will easily flake. Take off the heat, set aside, and leave to infuse for at least ten minutes.
- Cook the maccheroni according to the packet instructions, shaving off a minute or two of the recommended cooking time – the maccheroni will go on cooking in the oven. Drain, and put into an ovenproof dish.
- Meanwhile roughly chop the dill.
- Lift the salmon out of the cream, remove any skin, and flake roughly (quite large pieces), directly into the maccheroni, mix in.
- Take the bay leaves and peppercorns out of the cream. Mix in the mustard and half a teaspoon of salt. Pour over the maccheroni.
- Mix most of the dill in with the breadcrumbs. Scatter over the top.
- Bake for 18-20 minutes – the crumb topping should just be turning golden.
- Serve with the remaining dill scattered over, and a few knobs of butter dotted over.
