Rice casserole with salmon

Delicate rice casserole with homemade basil pesto sauce, juicy sweet and salty tomatoes, egg omelette and salmon "interlayer" ... I suggested it as the main dish for Sunday fish lunch, which we cooked together with my daughters in the editorial kitchen of Publishing House "Gastronom" for the October issue of the magazine this year. "Apple crumble with prunes and cranberries", "Salad with soft goat cheese and beets", "Ukha" Rostovskaya "from Elena Bon", which were also on our menu, at various times I have already published in my cookbook on the site. And now I add this casserole to it.

Ingredients

• 1. For the pesto sauce:
• fresh green basil leaves 50 g
• peeled pine nut kernels 50 g
• 1 large garlic clove (7 g)
• lemon juice 1 tbsp l.
• hard or semi-hard cheese (like "Cheddar" or "Parmesan", respectively) 50 g
• extra virgin olive oil 50-70 ml
• salt to taste
• 2. For the main course:
• white long-grain aromatic rice (for example, Jasmine or Basmati varieties) 180 g
• chilled fillet of red fish (salmon, salmon or trout) (with or without skin) 400-450 g
• tomatoes (preferably sweet and juicy, with thin skin) 350-380 g
• 2 medium eggs (total weight about 130 g)
• cream 20% fat 200 ml
• salt, ground black or a mixture of 4 types of pepper to taste
• some olive oil to lubricate the mold

Directions

1. Make pesto sauce. To do this, wash the lemon with soap and dry with a paper towel. If desired (if you plan to use its zest in other recipes in the future) pour boiling water over it to remove the layer of preservatives from its surface. Rinse the basil with warm, then cold running water and dry a little on a paper towel. Heat pine nuts lightly (about 1-2 minutes) in a pan over medium heat, stirring occasionally so as not to burn, until you smell them lightly. Place on a plate and let cool. Tear off the leaves from the sprigs from the basil, put them in a blender and chop. Peel a clove of garlic and cut off the end with roots, rinse with running water. Place the processed garlic and cooled nuts in a blender over the basil and chop. Pour olive oil into them and chop everything thoroughly until smooth (if necessary, periodically lowering the unmilled remnants of ingredients with a spoon down to the knives). Grate the cheese on a fine grater, put in the sauce, add salt and lemon juice and beat everything again with a blender until homogeneous. Set aside the amount of sauce required for this recipe (80 g), and put the rest in the refrigerator or freeze (see PS "Introductions" to the recipe).
2. Boil rice
3. Boil rice. I do it this way: in a metal saucepan with a thick bottom with a volume of about 2 liters, I bring 350 ml of cold (preferably filtered) water to a boil over medium heat. I wash the rice in a separate bowl with warm and then cold running water. I put it in boiling water, stir until the water boils again, and then another 1-2 minutes so that it does not stick to the bottom. Then I cook the rice over low heat, without closing the lid, until the water drops just below its surface, and only small bubbles remain on the latter (this can take about 10 minutes). Then I loosely cover the rice with a lid and cook until it completely absorbs all the water (this can be checked by ear: when the characteristic “crackling” appears, the rice is ready). You just need to make sure that the fire is not too strong, otherwise the rice may burn. Turn off the heat under the cooked rice and leave it under a tightly closed lid until eating.
4. Turn on the oven and heat it to 3.2 (180 ° C).
5. Brush a small glass-ceramic baking sheet (17.5 x 27.5 cm, 4 cm high) or whatever you have in stock with a little olive oil.
6. Cut salmon into slices
7. Rinse the fish with cool running water. If you took the fillet on the skin, remove it (it will not be needed in the recipe), if necessary, select bones from the fillet. Cut the fish across the layer into slices 0.8-1 cm thick (large slices can be cut in half). Set aside the prepared fish for now until use.
8. Mix boiled rice with pesto sauce
9. Mix the previously boiled, still warm rice with 80 g of pesto sauce.
10. Beat eggs and add cream
11. In a small bowl, whisk the eggs with a hand whisk until fluffy, add cream, salt and pepper to taste, and whisk again. Pour about ⅔ of the mixture into a saucepan with boiled rice and pesto, mix thoroughly and place in a baking sheet. Smooth out the rice layer with a spoon.
12. Put salmon slices in a mold on top of the rice
13. Spread the fish slices over the rice, add a little salt to taste.
14. Cut the tomato into rings
15. Wash the tomatoes, dry with a napkin and cut into slices 7-8 mm thick, removing the remnants of the stalks. Place them on top of the fish and add a little salt to each.
16. Put the tomatoes on the fish, pour the egg mixture
17. Pour the rest of the egg mixture into a mold over the fish and tomatoes, cover the baking sheet with foil, and place in the oven. Bake the dish for about 30 minutes under foil and another 20-25 minutes without foil (until the egg mixture thickens and slightly golden on top of the casserole) at 3.2 (about 180 ° C) or in accordance with the recommendations in the instructions for your oven for baking fish casseroles.
18. Cut the finished rice casserole with salmon into portioned pieces
19. Cool the finished casserole a little in the form, and then, spread out on portioned plates using a serving spatula, serve. Bon Appetit!
20. Store the rest of the casserole in a sealed container in the refrigerator at 0-6 ° C for no more than a day. It tastes good both warm and cold, so there is no need to reheat it (for example, in foil in the oven).