Lasagna with Salmon

Serves 6

Ingredients

Atlantic salmon on bone - approx 700 grams
15 ml oil
1 medium carrot, diced
1 big stalk celery, diced
1 medium size onion ( preferably the tender white variety), diced
salt and pepper
250 gram mascarpone
20 ml fish or vegetable stock
Italian parsley leaves - about 12

Method

Lasagna Sheets

You can use the pre-prepared variety but with this dish it is better to make your own -see Lasagna Dough

Salmon filling

Put salmon in a pan with oil and cook on top of the stove or in the oven.

Dice all the vegetables, put on top of salmon, add salt and pepper. Cover with a lid.

When salmon is cooked (only needs 10-15 minutes) remove it and let the vegetables continue cooking until they are very soft, The vegetables should emulsify in the oil. Then vitamize them

Skin the salmon and take out all bones. Salmon fillets can be used if you don't want to deal with bones. But the flavour is better on the bone. (Note- just about everything is better cooked on the bone.) Discard the brown part and break up all the salmon flesh and mix with the vegetable puree and then add marscarpone. This should make a very thick paste.

Before you start layering the lasagna, put one spoon of fish stock (or keep some of the juice that you get from cooking the fish or make extra vegetable juice for this) into bottom of dish to make the lasagna humid.

Layer lasagna sheets with the vegetable, salmon, mascarpone cream and keep on doing this till all the mixture is used. Put some vegetable or fish liquid over the top. This lasagna should not be too high, just 3 layers. It should be an 'elegant' not a bulky dish. (Often in Australia there is too much sauce and not enough pasta. The name lasagna means you have to have more leaves, i.e.lasagna, than filling).

Set oven at 200 degrees C and let the lasagna warm through gently for about 12 minutes.

Depending on your preference, you can cook the salmon lasagna uncovered and let it get crispy on top or cover and let it steam a bit which results in a soft top.

Serve with parsley leaves on top

Note

This lasagna cannot be re-heated. It changes flavour and texture.
In Italy, traditionally eggs were not eaten with fish and so pasta with fish would be made without eggs. However the Atlantic salmon used in this recipe is considered more like a 'meat' in flavour and so the pasta for this dish is made with eggs.