Presenting another savory salmon option for afternoon tea for you, inspired by a recipe by personal chef to British royalty, Carolyn Robb. I picked up her book recently, Tea at the Palace, and did my own spin on one of her salmon recipes. (And by the way, I highly recommend the book – it has a number of amazing looking recipes I can’t wait to give a try. From someone who baked for royalty for 13 years, at a number of the royal castles.)
I reverted to using my favorite pre-prepared phyllo cups from my local grocer’s again. One of these days I’ll tackle making my own phyllo cups, but where I can cut a corner to save myself some time, and not sacrifice flavor, I will!
Couple of things that might be helpful as you prepare the ingredients – instead of using spring onions as the original recipe called for, I used leeks. I prepared the leeks by slicing them thinly in rings, then swirled them well in a bowl of water and let them sit for a few minutes to make sure the dirt fell to the bottom of the bowl. Then scooped them out with my fingers and sliced them a little further.
For the corn, I had fresh corn on the cob, so I sliced the kernels off of one raw ear. Obviously, if you don’t have ears, you can use frozen corn, or grill an ear of corn on a grill first to get a little char, and cut it off after for use in the tartlets.
I used a little olive oil in a small pan to first saute the leeks until they started to soften, then the corn until it got a nice char on it. That added some good flavor to both before I added the ingredient into the tartlets.
The tartlets were easy to assemble with the pre-made phyllo cups. If you are making your own phyllo cups, you’d need a mini-muffin pan, or regular muffin tin if you wanted to make them bigger. I personally prefer the mini-version because it’s an easy 1-2 bites, which is perfect for afternoon tea.
You basically put the leeks, corn and salmon in the cups, then pour over the cream/egg mixture until it reaches the top of the cups and doesn’t spill out.
I would add – make sure you add the dusting of cayenne on the top – there’s just something very lovely about the little bit of heat you get when that hits you, combined with the leeks, corn and smoked salmon flavors all coming together in the one bite.
After these had come out of the oven and cooled for a few minutes, I tried one, then another, and before I knew it, a half a dozen of them were gone. So I gotta say, I personally found them a little bit addicting!
So perhaps this will work for you as another variation on a salmon dish for your afternoon tea – give it a try!
Smoked salmon tartlets
Ingredients
- 2 packages of pre-packaged mini phyllo cups (30 total)
- 1 4-oz. package of smoked salmon
- 180 ml (3/4 c.) heavy whipping cream
- 2 large egg yolks
- 1/4 tsp. salt (or to taste)
- 1/8 tsp. pepper (or to taste)
- 1/4 c. chopped leek, lightly sauteed (~1 large leek)
- 1/4 c. corn, lightly grilled (~1 large ear)
- ~2 Tbsp. olive oil for sauteeing the leek and corn
- Cayenne powder for dusting
Directions
Preheat the oven to 350° Fahrenheit. Set out the pre-made phyllo shells on a baking tray.In a small bowl, whisk together the heavy cream and egg yolks until blended, then whisk in the salt and pepper. Set aside until you’re ready to fill the cups.
Prepare the leek by chopping it into thin rings. Fill a small bowl with cold water and drop the leek rings into it, swirl it around to loosen any dirt, and let it sit for a few minutes to let the dirt settle. Pull the leeks out of the water with your hands and dry them on a paper towel. Then do a quick chop into smaller pieces that will work in the mini cups.
Heat a tablespoon of olive oil in a small saute pan, add the chopped leek and saute on low-to-medium until they start to soften (just a few minutes). Set aside.
Take your raw ear of corn and slice off the kernels. Add another tablespoon of olive oil into the same saute pan and add the corn kernels, cooking them for a couple of minutes, or until they start to char just a bit. Set aside.
To prepare the salmon, simply slice into about one-inch pieces per tartlet, to add one per tartlet.
To assemble the tartlets, first add a bit of leek, corn, and salmon on top. Use the rest of the ingredients to fill as many tartlets as you can (should fill about 24-28 mini-tartlet cups). Pour the cream/egg mixture over the top of each tartlet to fill each one, making sure they are not overfilled so the mixture drips over the side. Finally, sprinkle with a little dusting of cayenne pepper.
Bake the tartlets for 15 minutes until the mixture has set and the phyllo is golden brown. Best served warm.
Very Nearly Teatime 
Perfect for canapés with a glass of wine!
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Indeed! 🙂
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