Pratha Crust Salmon Pie - Salmon #2

For those of you who have dinned in Petite Millie, One Utama, you would have heard of White Truffle Oil Fish Pie. It comes with a loose crust made of puff pastry. In the pie, are pieces of white fish swimming in a pool of creamy gravy together with shitake mushrooms and fennel.

After having this once, I then decided to have my own version of this, borrowing the concept from Petit Millie.

I have read somewhere before that frozen pratha or roti canai can be used in place of puff pastry to cover baked soups. And it definitely a good idea since we needed a round piece of puffy crispy flaky pastry as a loose lid. Cutting out this shape at home is quite wasteful, I feel. So, a round pratha is definitely the better choice for me.

Somehow I don’t like the taste of fresh shitake, it’s very overwhelming at times, so I ditched it and used Portobello. Mini Portobello to be exact.
I also don’t oven a bottle of whatever truffle oil, but have a huge bottle of EVOO , hahaha, so I will use that. Actually I have macadamia oil and walnut oil, but nah…. I’ll stick with EVOO. Love the colour contrast.
And used salmon instead of a white fleshed fish.

Actually I tried to do this using 2 methods. The first method is like cooking cream soup and the other method is to do a roux first. The 2nd method is definitely more sinful, but it nearer to the spot.
Plus the crispy pratha… gawd. Your waistline will hate you.

Pratha Crust Salmon Pie
by WendyinKK

Serves:5

450gm salmon
1 bay leaf
500ml water
200gm Portobello mushrooms
1 fennel bulb
200ml whipping cream
1 Tbsp butter
1 Tbsp olive oil
Salt and black pepper for seasoning
Some dried parsley for sprinkling
Extra virgin olive oil for drizzling (EVOO)
5 pcs of frozen pratha (I prefer Kawan brand)

Roux
250ml milk
50gm butter
35gm flour

1. Place salmon, bay leaf and water into a pan. On medium heat, bring to boil. Let the fish sit in the water for 5 minutes. Fish the salmon out. Let it cool down. Strain the broth and keep it. When salmon has cooled, remove the flesh in chunks and discard skin and bones.
2. Prepare roux. Heat a saucepan and on medium low heat, cook butter until bubbles disappear. Pour in the flour in one go and stir it for 1-2 minutes, it should smell good. Turn off the heat and gradually pour in the milk and whisk the roux until smooth. Set aside.
3. In a bigger pot/wok, melt butter in olive oil and put in fennel and cook until fragrant about 1 minute. Then put in mushrooms and cook for another 1 minute. Pour in retained fish broth and bring to a boil. Pour in roux and stir until smooth. Pour in cream and stir. Season with salt and pepper. Cook until gravy thickens slightly (won’t take long), like cream soup. Put in salmon and turn off the heat.
4. Keep warm until time to serve.
5. Prepare pie crust. Preheat oven to 200C (no fan) and lay the frozen pratha pieces onto a paper lined baking tray ( I prefer the dark enamel pan for better heat, Do not use Silpat) Let the pratha thaw in the tray while the oven heats up. Bake it for 15 minutes on the 2nd lowest rack until golden and puffy.
6. To serve: Place 1 cup of the pie filling into a soup plate, drizzle some EVOO, sprinkle with parsley flakes and top with a piece of puffy pratha.