Salmon Coulibiac Recipe | Russian Fish pie
This delicious Russian fish pie pairs salmon with rice, eggs, and mushrooms wrapped in rosemary infused puff pastry.
I was sat in my living room last night watching TV, with a craving for some home-cooked comfort food. Like, proper comfort food. And who pops onto my screen? Master baker and The Great British Bake Off judge Paul Hollywood with a salmon coulibiac recipe. There to satisfy my comfort food craving.
What he made, a salmon coulibiac, or Russian fish pie if you will, looked absolutely delicious.
Prior to this I had never even heard of a salmon coulibiac. How I’ve lived my life without knowing what a salmon coulibiac is I do not know. But alas, here we are.
Fish, rice, mushrooms and eggs? In pastry? I just had to try it.
So of I went out and bought the ingredients for this salmon coulibiac recipe, played around and was pleasantly surprised with my salmon coulibiac success.
It was just as delicious as it looked on telly. So thank you Paul Hollywood, for your satisfying comfort food, and introducing me to Salmon coulibiac, AKA, Russian fish pie.
Just look at how pretty that pie is. I think I took more selfies with this salmon coulibiac then I did on my last holiday.
It just looks like something you want to eat, right?
What is coulibiac?
So if you’re anything like I was, then you’re probably wonder what this Russian fish pie actually is.
Coulibiac is a Russian pie usually filled with salmon, rice, mushrooms, onions, and hard boiled eggs. A coulibiac is relatively easy to make, it just demands patience. It’s a magnificent dish that would make for a brilliant centrepiece to any party.
Imagine, a cold night, rain tapping on the window, the T.V on with some movie you’ve seen a hundred times before, the middle of your dinning room table, steam radiating from a pie sitting on a old wooden chopping board, you slice into it to reveal the structured placement of rice, eggs, and salmon… beautiful.
Anyway, I think I’m getting just a tad carried away with romancing this coulibiac. My point is that it’s delicious, but your point is what is it and how’s it made. So more on that.
A lot of the time that goes into baking coulibiac is the time it takes to cook the rice and salmon, then allowing them to cool and rolling out pastry.
Once your salmon coulibiac pie is assembled however, you can keep it stored in your fridge then pop it in the oven for baking when you’re ready. That reason, coupled with its aesthetics and delicious taste. Is why this recipe for salmon coulibiac would make the perfect dining centrepiece.
The best way to think about coulibiac is like a salmon wellington but with eggs and rice.
Just don’t ask me to pronounce coulibiac.
Variations
As for variations, you can mix this up however you’d like in terms of ingredients, but one variation I would recommend is to use a pie dish.
Wish a pie dish, you simply have to layer your ingredients in the dish and not on pastry. Then cover the top with pastry, trim it, score it, then bang it in the oven.
For UK shoppers, if you don’t already have a pie dish, I highly recommend this one here from amazon. It’s £23.99 and looks just about as comforting as this fish pie tastes.
For USA shoppers, this one from amazon.com would be my recommendation.
Furthermore, you can split the recipe into single serving dishes. For UK shoppers, these are the kind of dishes you would need, and for USA shoppers, these are type of dishes you would need.
With those dishes, you would be able to split this recipe between each dish and serve them as single servings. You will be able to get anywhere from 4 - 8 filled dishes with puff pastry to spare going of this recipe.
Salmon coulibiac Russian Fish Pie
Ingredients
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 200C/400F/Gas 6/180 fan and starting boiling a large saucepan of water. Once the water is boiled, add your eggs and boil for 8 minutes. Once your eggs a boiled, leave them in a bowl of cold water to cool.
- In another saucepan, bring 500ml water to a boil, dissolve your mushroom stock cube and add 50 grams of rice. Simmer covered for 7 minutes then take of the heat and leave so the steam finishes cooking the rice. You will only need 100grams of cooked rice, 50 grams uncooked will give you just over that so feel free to eat the leftovers.
- Melt the butter in a large frying pan and gently fry the onion until soft but not coloured. Add the cumin, paprika and a generous pinch of salt.
- Add the sliced mushrooms and cook until softened. Stir in the cooked rice and dill. Transfer to a bowl and leave the rice mixture to cool whilst you bake your salmon. Season salmon to taste and wrap in tin foil. Bake for 15 minutes.
- Roll out half of the pastry and place onto a baking tray.
- Once cool, spread the rice mixture down the centre of the pastry leaving a boarder all the way round. Flake the salmon on top of the rice. Arrange the boiled egg slices over the salmon.
- Brush the edges of the pastry with beaten egg. Roll the remaining pastry, slightly larger than the first piece. Sit this over the salmon coulibiac and press the edges to seal the two pieces of pastry together. Trim the edges if needed and lightly score the top of the pastry.
- Brush the salmon coulibiac with beaten egg, bush rosemary springs into the top and bake for 30-35 minutes, or until the pastry is crisp and golden-brown. Leave to rest for 10 minutes before slicing.
Notes
For step by step instructions with photos, see below.
Nutrition Facts
Calories
848.55Fat
58.45Sat. Fat
19.3Carbs
54.76Fiber
2.46Net carbs
52.29Sugar
2.82Protein
26.2Sodium
655.97Cholesterol
209.92The nutritional information shown is an estimate provided by an online nutrition calculator. It should not be considered a substitute for a professional nutritionist’s advice. See our full nutrition disclosure here.
Step by Step Salmon coulibiac recipe instructions with photos
Step one
Firstly, preheat you’re oven to 200C/400F/Gas 6/180 fan.
In a saucepan, bring 500ml mushroom stock to a boil with 500g basmati rice. Once you reach a rolling boil, reduce the heat to low/medium and cover with a lid. Leave to cook for 7 minutes then take of the heat and let the steam finish cooking the rice.
Step two
Begin prepping your fish. Take 300g of salmon fillets and season to taste. I’ve added a fish seasoning, two lemon wheels, three small sprigs of rosemary and one garlic clove chopped.
Once prepped, wrap your salmon in foil making a salmon parcel. Bake in the oven for 15 minutes.
Step three
In a large frying pan, melt your butter and add your chopped onion. Fry until the onion is soft and season to taste.
Now it’s time to hard-boil your eggs! Bring water to a boil in a saucepan and add your three eggs. Your water should cover your eggs entirely.
Once you reach a rolling boil, cover your saucepan with a lid and turn the heat down to a medium heat. Allow to simmer for 8 minutes.
After 8 minutes, remove from heat and place your eggs in cold water until you need them. Once your eggs have cooled down you can remove the shell and slice your eggs in half.
Step four
Add your mushrooms to the frying pan and add the paprika and cumin. As you will see in the images below. I didn’t use a large frying pan and had to change the pan mid cooking. Don’t make the same mistake as I did. Start of with a large frying pan to avoid this.
Step five
Once your mushrooms have softened. Add your cooked rice and dill. Remove from heat, taste and adjust seasoning to taste. Set to one side and allow to cool. You want your rice mixture to be completely cooled before assembling your coulibiac pie.
If you use the rice mixture whilst it’s still hot, your pastry wont bake properly. So set aside for at least 30 minutes.
Step six
Once your salmon is baked remove from the oven and allow it to cool.
Go have a cup of tea whilst all your pie fillings cool completely or save some Smartblend food recipes to try next.
Step seven
Its salmon coulibiac pie assembling time. Cut your puff pastry in half and roll out into a large rectangle. In the middle of the pastry, add a line of your cooled rice, mushroom and onion mix. Pat down to keep it compact.
On top of that, flake over your salmon fillet.
Atop the salmon, arrange your hard-boiled eggs.
Beat one egg, and brush the beaten egg around the side of your pastry.
Step eight
Roll out your second half of the pastry to be a little bit bigger then you did the first half. Cover the top of your pie and push down around the edges to connect the pastry. Cut around your pie if you have excess pastry.
With your thumb, you can go round the pie making a small folding pattern like the photo below, then score the top of the pie and brush the entirety of the pie with your beaten egg.
Step nine
Leave your salmon coulibiac in the fridge for 30 minutes so the egg wash starts to harden slightly. After 30 minutes arrange rosemary sprigs around your pie.
Bake your coulibiac in a oven for 30 - 35 minutes or until your pastry is crisp and golden-brown. Once cooked, allow your salmon coulibiac to cool for 10 minutes before slicing.
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