Recipe: Smoked Salmon and Dill Cream Cheese Puff

Smoked Salmon and Dill Cream Cheese Puff:

I was invited to a Christmas Eve potluck at a friend's house, and everyone was asked to bring a homemade dish to share. I decided to make smoked salmon puffs with dill cream cheese filling. I had originally planned to play it safe and make a smoked salmon bruschetta, but decided to be a little more adventurous at the last minute. I absolutely LOVE puff pastry, so I decided to experiment a little and see how my imagination would translate into great tasting food. It actually turned out well, and I only set off the fire alarm twice! (I'm still convinced that the fire alarm was broken that day, since there was no smoke in my kitchen.)

Smoked Salmon and Dill Cream Cheese Puffs

(an original Little Wooden Chef creation)
(makes 30 - 40 1-inch puffs)

Ingredients:
4 oz Smoked Salmon
Few Sprigs of Dill for garnish
One Package Puff Pastry Sheets (I prefer Pepperidge Farm)
Green Onion and Dill Cream Cheese (see recipe below)

1. Thaw the frozen puff pastry on the counter for 40 minutes before trying to work with it. Don't leave it out thawing for too long, though, or the dough will become too soft and hard to work with. 

2. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.
 
3. Unfold the puff pastry sheet on a piece of parchment paper or non-stick baking mat.

4. Use a pizza cutter to cut the dough into six long strips. You can use the fold marks as a guide - make a cut along both the fold marks, and then cut each of those three strips in two, length-wise. Cut the long strips into one-inch squares.


5. Arrange the squares on the parchment paper or non-stick baking mat. Stack the puff pastry squares so that each piece is made up of two square pieces of pastry. Lightly press the two squares together. Make an small square indention in the middle of each square. This will help in step 8.

6. Use a fork and punch holes in the puff pastry. This helps the puff pastry rise evenly while baking.

7. Bake the puff pastry squares in the preheated oven for 15 minutes, or until puffed and golden brown.

8. Cool the puff pastry for 10 minutes. You should see a small square indention in the middle of each pastry piece. Use a fork or knife to remove the middle. You now have a puff pastry cup that you can use for the smoked salmon and dill cheese puff.

9. Fill a pastry bag with the green onion and dill cream cheese spread, and snip off one corner of the bag. You'll be using this to pipe the cream cheese into the puff pastry shells. If you don't have a pastry bag, you can also use a ziploc bag (like I did in the picture below). It works just as well! Or, if you don't care about presentation, you can just scoop the cream cheese into the puff pastry cups.

10. Fill the puff pastry cups with the dill cream cheese mixture. Then, take a small piece of smoked salmon, roll it up, and stick in the cream cheese mixture. Pipe a little more cream cheese in the smoked salmon roll, and garnish with a small piece of dill. I wanted my dish to focus mainly on the smoked salmon, so I only filled the cups about half full with cream cheese, and piped only a little cream cheese into the salmon roll. You can adjust this to your personal preference.

11. Enjoy!

Green Onion and Dill Cream Cheese Spread

(an original Little Wooden Chef creation)

Ingredients:

4 oz cream cheese (1/2 cup)

1 tbsp freshly squeezed lemon juice (1/2 a lemon)

1 tbsp dill, chopped

3 tbsp green onion, chopped

1. Combine all ingredients in a small bowl and mix well.