Curried Salmon Cups

This salmon and potato recipe is a great way to serve canned salmon as a starter or side dish and make it look and taste like something special. It's very easy to do, but you need time to prepare the cups.

Choose just about any brand of potato other than coliban or sequoia to make the cups, and don't try baking them in a microwave on this occasion -  it's just about impossible to get them crisp once you've done that because of the amount of moisture that gets into the skin.

Here's what you need for six people:

• 6 medium sized potatoes, washed and dried
• about 80g (2 oz) of butter, melted
• 1 225g can of salmon, drained and mashed
• 1tbs plain (all-purpose) flour
• 1tsp powdered vegetable stock
• 1 cup milk (250mls)
• 1 tsp curry powder
• freshly grated parmesan cheese

Preheat the oven to 180°C, 375°F. Bake the potatoes for one hour, then cut of the top third of each and scoop out the flesh, leaving a casing about 1cm thick. Keep the pulp for soup or pancakes.

Brush the cases with half the butter and return them to the oven at the same temperature for a further 15 minutes, until crisp.

While that's going on, put the remaining butter in a pan, stir in the flour, curry and stock powder to a smooth paste. Cook through, still stirring, for about 1 minute and then remove from the heat and quickly beat in the milk. Return to the heat and stir until the mixture boils and thickens. Stir in the salmon.

Fill the readied cases with the salmon mixture, top with the grated cheese and return to the oven to melt and just brown the topping. Serve at once with a crisp salad or as an unusual accompaniment to steak in the 'surf and turf' tradition.

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