Hake muslin in puff pastry

How to make hake muslin in puff pastry.

Who said that it is not possible to prepare a good, beautiful and cheap dish at home ?

Today’s recipe is an example, hake muslin in puff pastry . You may be thinking that hake is not a very cheap fish, but the truth is that it depends a little on the time of year when we buy it.

Today’s recipe, I think it would be perfect for any of the Christmas dinners or for any of those good- at-home meals .

As I have a well-stocked chest, I will not be affected by the scandalous prices that hake often reaches, especially at Christmas time, so I am clear, it falls.

This is a fairly simple recipe , in reality, it simply consists of preparing a dough with the fish and other ingredients that will give it softness and texture and cooking it inside a puff pastry. The result is soft, delicate and very good. It is a delicious dish .

Preparation of hake and vegetables

1. Cook the hake in salted water for 8-9 minutes. We remove from the fire, drain and let it warm.
2. We clean the slices of hake from skins and bones and crumble with our hands. We reserve.
3. Peel the carrot, the pepper and the leek and chop the vegetables into small pieces. We reserve.
4. In a small frying pan, heat 4 tablespoons of olive oil and add the carrot and the bell pepper.
5. We braise at medium-high temperature until we see that the carrot begins to be soft.
6. Add the leek and continue poaching for 10 more minutes.
7. In a bowl, mix the minced fish with the poached vegetables, the cream, the brandy and season with salt and pepper.
8. On the other hand, we mount the egg whites until stiff and add them to the bowl of the rest of the ingredients, mixing it with enveloping movements. We reserve.

Form, bake and final presentation of hake muslin

1. We stretch the puff pastry on sulfurized paper and place the filling.
2. We preheat the oven to 200º C.
3. We close the dough as if it were a small package, painting the joints with beaten egg. The egg will act as a glue and will prevent the dough from opening during baking.
4. We paint the puff pastry with beaten egg and bake with the oven, central tray, heat up and down, at 200ºC for 25 minutes.
5. Halfway through cooking, if we see that the puff pastry is toasting a lot, we can cover it with aluminum foil.

We serve this fish muslin not too hot and we can accompany it with a sauce to your liking. I hope you like it and it becomes one of your delicious Christmas dishes.

You can see all the photos of the step by step in the next album.

Tips for a Fluffy Hake Muslin

• In the market it is easy to find hake at 6.00 or 7.00 euros per kilo at the moment, so what I usually do is ask the fishmonger to cut it into slices and when I get home I freeze it.
• Yes, I know that there is nothing like fresh fish, but for various reasons I prefer to freeze it. On the one hand there is the dreaded anisakis , that unpleasant parasite that lives in a multitude of fish that when frozen at -20ºC for no less than 48 hours we manage to kill.
• Another reason why I am fond of buying fresh fish and freezing it at home, is that I get a stocked pantry for times when it is at a worse price.
• If left over (I doubt it …), it can be kept in the fridge and then heated in the oven again.
• You can even prepare the muslin beforehand, follow the entire process and freeze before baking, so that the puff pastry is crispy.