Salmon Filo Parcels with Homemade Greek Pesto

Earlier this week I was challenged by a friend of mine to make my own pesto as she's a bit of a pesto fiend, this recipe not only accommodates for that, but gives it a little bit of a twist and turns humble pesto into a truly impressive dish. Huge shoutout to DailyMix for the recipe which I'll link below.

Serves 2

20 mins prep time and 40 mins cooking time

Pesto Ingredients:

50g Toasted Pine Nuts (if not already toasted, then just fry them quickly in a dry pan)

2 tbsp runny Honey

100g Feta Cheese

50g Spinach

A few leaves of Basil

Filo Parcels Ingredients:

Two Salmon Fillets

A big knob of Butter

Filo Pastry

Plain Flour

Calorie Count:

Pesto multiple servings: 825 calories per pot, Salmon 362 calories per portion.

Meal Total: 450 calories

This pesto recipe is FAR from traditional. It's often made with garlic and parmesan, but as this Greek inspired dish is a little lighter on the palette we're subbing those out for Honey and Feta, this allows the pesto to be a little creamier and a little softer.

Above is my little Basil plant that I got this weekend, along with a lot more that I'll showcase through the week! Start off though, by getting all of you ingredients in a food processor (nice and easy for you all!) and blend until smooth, or the consistency that you want it. This is another great little thing to tweak depending on your taste, or however you'll be using it. Pesto with parmesan and garlic works better with pasta but as this has fish and filo, you'd probably want a lighter "less cheesy" cheese.

There should be plenty left too, so there's no excuses for taking in boring sandwiches to work! Why not boil a little pasta, drain it, and mix it with some fresh spinach and this pesto for a fantastic worktime lunch?

Once this has all blended put your oven on at 180c, here's we get stack our salmon!

Slice your fillets in half, they'll be sitting atop each other and you'll want to end up with a neat parcel at the end! Spread some flour on a smooth surface, and lay your filo pastry onto this.

A few inches in from one side in the middle, place half of one fillet. Spoon a thin layer of your pesto atop this, like your doing bricklaying! Then sit the next fillet on top of this, and spoon a little more pesto atop this fillet. You should now have a teeny fish and pesto tower.

Fold the nearest edge up, and with confidence, continue to roll this up in the pastry. When you get around a quarter from the end, apply a little melted butter to the remaining pastry on show, this is your glue! HOPEFULLY you should end up with something that looks like this:

My First try too!

Repeat this process for both portions, don't worry if the pastry rips, just keep going with it and trust that the oven will work it's magic! Sit these on a baking tray (probably covered in tin foil, saves on washing AND they won't stick to your pan!) Apply a little more melted butter to the surface, it'll help the parcel bronze and crisp up!

These should take twenty minutes, but just keep an eye on them. This should give you time to clear up all that leftover flour! Urgh! Once they've browned nicely though, get them out of the oven, and serve with some fresh asparagus or other green veg!

Thanks again for reading, I've only been blogging a few weeks but I love it, your continued responses are hugely motivating and I'm so glad to see that many of you are inspired to try these recipes yourselves. This is a community too, so why not share your ideas in the comments boxes below?

Thanks to Ben from Sorted Food and Daily Mix for DailyMix's Recipe

Dan

x