Anne Morgan Highland Pasta with Smoked Salmon is Delia Smith’s smoked salmon pasta recipe, a quick supper for 2 people. You soften onion and mushrooms in butter, then make a sauce with white wine and crème fraîche. You stir in the smoked salmon just before you serve, and the whole dish takes about 40 minutes.
Delia brought this recipe back from the Isle of Skye. She was there because she was writing about salmon farming on the Strathaird Estate. It is printed in The Delia Collection: Fish.
The same amounts also make a starter for 4 people. For a bigger table, her smoked salmon tart serves 4 to 6.
The sauce is light. It is made with wine and a little flour, and only a spoonful or two of crème fraîche goes in at the end.
Delia Smith’s Smoked Salmon Pasta
Course: DinnerCuisine: BritishDifficulty: Easy2
servings10
minutes30
minutes650
kcalShort pasta in a white wine and mushroom sauce, with strips of smoked salmon. It is served at once in deep, heated bowls.
Ingredients
- For the pasta:
225g (8oz) smoked salmon
25g (1oz) butter
1 medium onion, finely chopped
1 clove garlic, crushed with 1 teaspoon salt
110g (4oz) chestnut mushrooms, thinly sliced
1 teaspoon mild curry powder
1 tablespoon plain flour
150ml (5fl oz) dry white wine
2 tablespoons crème fraîche
Directions
- Onion: Melt the butter in a solid-based frying pan. Add the onion and cook it over a low heat for about 7 minutes, until it is soft.
- Mushrooms: Add the crushed garlic and the mushrooms, and cook for another 2 to 3 minutes.
- Thicken: Mix the curry powder with the flour. Stir them into the pan, so they soak up all the buttery juices.
- Wine: Add the wine a little at a time, and stir briskly after each addition. When it is all in, cook the sauce for 3 minutes more.
- Cream: Stir in the crème fraîche. The sauce is now ready.
- Pasta: Bring a large saucepan of lightly salted water to the boil. Cook the pasta for 10 to 12 minutes, until it is tender but still has some bite.
- Salmon: Meanwhile, tear the smoked salmon lengthways into strips.
- Reheat: Warm the sauce through again, then add the salmon at the very last minute.
- Serve: Drain the pasta and return it to its saucepan. Quickly stir in the sauce and salmon, and serve.
Notes
- The garlic is crushed with a teaspoon of salt, and smoked salmon is salty too. Taste the sauce before you add any more, my own tip.
- Her recipe gives 10 to 12 minutes for the pasta. Check your packet as well, my own tip, because shapes differ.
FAQs
Which pasta shape is best for it?
Any shape works. The card lists the short shapes from her book, and on her website today Delia also suggests tagliatelle or campanelli.
Buy dried pasta for it. In Book One of How to Cook, she calls it a false idea that fresh pasta is better than dried. Her puttanesca pasta is another fast supper, but it is made with spaghetti.
Can I make the sauce ahead?
Yes. Delia says the sauce can be made in advance, up to the point where the crème fraîche is in. Lay a piece of clingfilm on its surface if you are not using it straight away.
Then only the pasta is left to cook before the meal. Keep the salmon out of the sauce until you reheat it.
How do I make it for 4 people?
Double every ingredient, by my own sums. You need 225g of pasta, 450g of smoked salmon, 50g of butter and 300ml of wine. Use 2 onions, 2 cloves of garlic and 225g of mushrooms.
The sauce takes 2 teaspoons of curry powder, 2 tablespoons of flour and 4 tablespoons of crème fraîche. Keep the salt in the garlic at 1 teaspoon, my own tip, because the salmon is salty.
Use a wide frying pan, so the onions have room to soften. That is my own advice too, and the pasta cooks in the same time.
How many smoked salmon pasta recipes does Delia have?
One, and this is it. Her food editor said so on her website in 2019, when a reader asked for a version with lemon.
The reader thought it came from a supermarket magazine. The editor replied that Delia and her husband owned Sainsbury’s Magazine, but other writers had recipes in it too.
If you like lemon with smoked salmon, squeeze a little over each bowl, my own tip.
Why is there curry powder in the sauce?
Delia often uses it outside curries. She writes in her Complete Cookery Course that curry powder is always in her kitchen. She adds it to sauces and to cheese biscuits, as well as to curries.
She also warns that brands differ, and some are much hotter than others. This recipe asks for a mild one, so check the label on yours.
Can I use trimmings instead of sliced salmon?
Yes, my own swap, and they cost less than slices. Trimmings are already in small pieces, so there is nothing to tear.
Delia uses trimmings herself in other dishes. Her scrambled eggs with smoked salmon are made with them, and so is her salmon pâté.
How much pasta can the sauce take?
About 150g, my own view. The recipe has 110g of pasta for 2 people, and the sauce still coats a little more than that.
Delia likes pasta with only a small amount of sauce. She writes that a concentrated sauce should just dress the pasta, and that more sauce than pasta is a modern mistake.
