Redfish En Croute Aux Deux Mousses

This is the kind of showstopper main course you’d see emerge from a Michelin kitchen on a tableside cart. A whole redfish, boned but with head and tail intact, is laid open on a sheet of puff pastry, layered with a bright pink salmon mousse and a vivid green spinach mousse, then sandwiched back together. The pastry gets folded over and sculpted into a fish silhouette, complete with cut-pastry scales and fins glued on with melted butter.

Forty minutes in a moderate oven turns the pastry into a golden, flaky shell while the redfish steams gently within, the two mousses melting into ribbons of color and richness against the white flesh. A classic beurre blanc (literally “white butter," the silky French wine-and-butter sauce) gets ladled around the dish at the table.

This is a project recipe meant for a special occasion: New Year’s Eve, an anniversary, or a dinner party where you want jaws to drop.

Chef Tips

• Have your fishmonger butterfly the redfish for you, removing the spine while keeping head and tail intact. The technique is fiddly to do at home.
• Keep the puff pastry cold until the moment of assembly. Warm pastry tears, leaks, and refuses to puff properly.
• Make the salmon and spinach mousses ahead and chill firm. Soft mousses leak through the pastry seams during baking.
• Brush the pastry with melted butter rather than egg wash for a more delicate, flakier crust.
• Cut a small steam vent in the top of the pastry near the head. Trapped steam blows out the seams instead.

Variations

• Use sea bass, salmon, or trout if redfish isn’t available. Choose a fish around 3 to 5 pounds (1.4 to 2.3 kg).
• Swap one of the mousses for a duxelles (finely chopped sauteed mushrooms) for an earthy alternative.
• Serve with a champagne beurre blanc or a saffron beurre blanc for variations on the classic sauce.