Savory Salmon Mousse Eclair "Hot Dogs" for the International Incident Hot Dogs Party

Welcome to the very first International Incident Party of the year, hosted as always by the effervescent and lovely Penny aka Jeroxie. But before I talk about what I've brought to the party, I'd like to direct you to her post about the Queensland floods. Many of you reading this may have friends or family affected by the tragedy; for those of us in North America this may bring back memories of Hurricane Katrina and the  ensuing devastation to the Gulf Coast. If you'd like to help, Penny's post outlines some things of the things that you can do - no matter where in the world you are. So please make sure to check it out.

And now, on to my dish. You may be wondering what savory eclairs and salmon mousse have to do with hot dogs.  But, when you break it down, what is a hot dog, really? It's simply ground meat with seasonings on a tube-shaped bun. And that is precisely what we have here! Plus, a hot dog is such a summery food, and I think my interpretation brings an element of picnic to what is usually a backyard barbecue kind of dish.

For the "buns" I used Michael Ruhlman's ratio for pate a choux dough from his book Ratio, which Poppa Trix got me for Christmas. (Coincidentally I also had to make pate a choux the very same day for the French Fridays with Dorie gnocchi dough. Weird.)  The proportions are 2 parts water, 1 part butter, 1 part flour, and 2 parts egg, plus a pinch of salt. I started with 8 ounces of water and took it from there:

I piped the dough into eclair "hot dog bun" shapes:

I know, it's kind of "ew" at this stage

I baked them at 425 F for 10 minutes, then lowered the heat and baked at 375 for about another 20 minutes, until they looked like this:

Meanwhile, for the salmon mousse, in a food processor I whizzed together equal parts (8 oz) canned wild-caught red salmon and neufchatel. To this, I added the juice of half a lemon, 2 tbsp capers, 3 heaping tbsp chopped dill, a pinch of sweet paprika, and salt and pepper. I then whipped 1/4 cup of heavy cream until it was very light and fluffy, and folded this into the salmon. I realize that classically this may not be a true mousse in the sense that I didn't use gelatin and set the whole thing, but I was going for something lighter:

To assemble my hot dogs, I cut the center out of the eclairs and piped the mousse (using a Ziploc bag) into the buns. For toppings (every hot dog must have toppings!) I used red onion and cucumber slices. Poppa Trix declared these to be "his favorite thing ever." But he says that a lot, so judge for yourself. In the meantime, go and see what everyone else has brought to the hot dog party!