Kulebyaka

Mix the flour, the yeast, the sugar, the 6g of fine salt, the warmed milk and the 2 eggs into a soft dough.

Knead for 5 minutes, then add the 80g of softened butter in three additions, kneading each one fully in before the next.

Keep kneading for 8-10 minutes after the last butter goes in, until the dough is smooth, glossy and pulls away from the bowl in one piece. Enriched dough always looks hopeless for the first few minutes after the fat goes in; it comes together.

Cover and prove at room temperature for 60-75 minutes, until roughly doubled.

Meanwhile, put the rice and the 350ml of water in a pan, bring to a boil, then cover and cook on the lowest heat for 10-12 minutes.

Take the rice off the heat and leave it covered for 10 minutes, then fork it through and spread it on a tray to cool.

Melt the 40g of butter in a frying pan and cook the onion over medium heat for 8 minutes, until soft.

Add the chopped mushrooms and cook for 10-12 minutes, until every drop of water has gone and the pan is dry and squeaking.

Take the mushrooms well past the point where they look cooked. Wet filling is the single reason a kulebyaka leaks, and once the base has gone to paste nothing recovers it.

Spread the mushroom mixture on a plate and cool it completely, along with everything else. Warm filling melts the butter in the dough and the loaf slumps before it ever reaches the oven.

Mix the chopped hard-boiled eggs with the dill, the lemon zest and juice, and half the 5g of fine salt.

Season the salmon on both sides with the remaining fine salt and the ground peppercorns. It goes in raw and cooks inside the loaf.

Knock the dough back and roll it out on a floured sheet of baking paper to a rectangle about 30cm by 40cm and 5mm thick.

Lay half the cooled rice down the centre in a strip the length and width of the salmon fillet.

Spread the mushroom mixture over the rice.

Lay the salmon on top.

Cover the salmon with the egg and dill mixture, then with the remaining rice.

Build the layers upward in a tight block. A wide, flat pile leaves the dough too much distance to travel and the seam will not meet.

Brush the border of the dough with beaten egg, fold the two long sides up and over, and pinch them together into a seam along the top.

Fold the two short ends up and press them closed, then turn the whole loaf over on the paper so the seams are underneath.

Slide it, still on its paper, onto a baking tray and chill for 30 minutes.

Heat the oven to 190C/375F.

Cut four steam vents through the top with the point of a knife, each about 2cm long.

Cut the vents. Steam has to leave, and a sealed loaf splits itself open along a seam at the base, where you will not see it until the juices are already on the tray.

Brush the whole loaf with the beaten egg glaze.

Bake for 35-40 minutes, until deep gold all over and hollow-sounding when tapped underneath.

Push a thermometer through a vent into the middle of the fish: 55C/130F gives salmon that is just set and still translucent at the centre, and 63C/145F is the official food-safety figure if you prefer it firm.

Rest the loaf for 15 minutes before cutting. Cut hot, the layers slide apart and the slice falls over on the plate.

Cut into thick slices with a serrated knife, using a sawing action rather than pressing down.