Ingredients

Equipment Needed

• •Heavy-bottomed saucepan, 2 litre
• •Wide frying pan for the spinach
• •Whisk
• •Fine sieve
• •Baking sheet lined with parchment

Instructions

1. 1

   Warm the shells

   Heat the oven to 160C. Place the tarteletter on a baking sheet lined with parchment and warm them for six to eight minutes. This isn't really baking. It's reviving. Pastry shells lose their crackle the minute they sit on a shelf in a packet, and a few minutes in a low oven brings the layers back to life. They should feel light and dry, not toasted.

   Don't fill the shells until the very last moment. The point of tarteletter is the contrast between crisp pastry and warm filling. Soggy shells are the one thing that ruins this dish.
2. 2

   Wilt the spinach

   Melt a knob of butter in a wide pan over medium heat. Add the spinach in handfuls, turning it gently with tongs as each handful collapses. It looks like a mountain at first and ends up as almost nothing. That's normal. Once it's all wilted and dark green, tip it into a sieve set over a bowl and press lightly with the back of a spoon to drain. Wet spinach in the sauce makes everything weep, and that's not the texture you want.

3. 3

   Sweat the shallot

   In the same pan, melt the 40g of butter over a gentle heat. Add the minced shallot and let it soften for two or three minutes until translucent. No color. Browned shallot tastes of caramel and changes the direction of the sauce, and the direction we want is clean and fresh, not sweet.

4. 4

   Build the roux

   Sprinkle the flour over the butter and shallot and stir continuously for a full minute. The mixture should look like wet sand and smell faintly nutty, never raw. This minute is what cooks out the floury taste. Skip it and you'll taste raw flour in the finished sauce, and once it's there you can't take it out.

5. 5

   Make the sauce

   Pour in the white wine and whisk hard. The mixture will tighten at first and look alarming. Keep whisking. Then add the milk in a slow, steady stream, still whisking, and finally the cream. Bring it to a gentle simmer and let it thicken for three or four minutes until it coats the back of a spoon. Stir in the Dijon mustard and the lemon zest. Season with salt and white pepper. Taste it. The sauce should taste round and bright at the same time, rich from the cream and lifted by the wine and lemon.

6. 6

   Add the spinach

   Take the pan off the heat. Stir in the drained spinach and the chopped dill. Give it one gentle squeeze of lemon juice, no more. The acid wakes the whole thing up. Taste again and adjust the salt. The sauce is ready when the spinach is folded through evenly and the green has loosened the colour of the cream just slightly.

7. 7

   Fold in the salmon

   This is the step that matters most. Tear the cold-smoked salmon into rough strips with your fingers, never with a knife. Fold the salmon into the warm sauce off the heat. The residual warmth is enough to take the chill off the fish without cooking it. The moment salmon cooks in cream, it goes from silk to chalk, and you cannot bring it back. You'll know when it's right because the salmon stays soft and translucent, just barely warmed through.

8. 8

   Fill and serve

   Place two warm tarteletter on each plate. Spoon the salmon and spinach filling generously into each shell, letting it spill a little over the edge. That overflow is part of the look, the sign of a generous hand. Top each one with a few dill fronds, a small spoonful of salmon roe if you're using it, and a sprig of cress. Serve immediately, while the shells are still crisp and the filling is still warm. Tak for mad.

Chef Tips

• •Buy the tarteletter shells. This is not a corner cut. Even Danish home cooks who bake everything else from scratch buy the shells, and the brands sold in Danish supermarkets are genuinely good. Making puff pastry vol-au-vents at home is a project for a different day.
• •The salmon must be cold-smoked, not hot-smoked. Cold-smoked salmon is silky and translucent, the kind sliced thin for smorrebrod. Hot-smoked salmon is opaque and flaky and belongs in a different dish entirely.
• •Dill is not optional and basil is not a substitute. The herb is part of the structure of this dish. If you cannot find fresh dill, make something else.
• •An aquavit alongside is traditional and works beautifully. A crisp dry Riesling or a good Danish pilsner are the other natural choices.

Advance Preparation

• •The dill cream sauce can be made up to a day ahead, without the spinach and without the salmon. Cool, cover, and refrigerate. Reheat gently over a low flame, whisking, then fold in the wilted spinach and salmon just before serving.
• •The spinach can be wilted and drained earlier in the day and kept covered in the fridge.
• •Never assemble the tarteletter in advance. The shells go soft within minutes of meeting the filling. Warm the shells, fold the salmon into the sauce, and fill at the table if you can.

Frequently Asked Questions

Nutrition Information

1 serving (about 330g)