Puff Pastry and the fear of failure

 

Lunch today, with a hand pie reheated too long--it got too browned
artichoke hearts, cherry tomatoes, asparagus, and hearts of palm
and, yes, that's a mince tart from neighbor Mary.

Puff pastry has intimidated me too long. I decided to stand up to it recently and sifted through my appalling recipe file for one I’d wanted to cook for a long time: chicken hand pies (every culture has some version of this pastry shell stuffed with a meat filling, from empanadas to pierogies to pasties—this recipe was from the New York Times). My first mistake: somehow I got it into my head that the recipe was for chicken salad hand pies. Not until I got to making the filling did I realize it was a cooked meat filling of chicken, mushrooms, onion, broth, crème fraiche, and seasonings.

But it wasn’t the filling that intimidated me. It was the puff pastry. (I’m also intimidated by phyllo.) I had been making tuna pasties using biscuit dough, and as one friend gently said, there was way too much bread and not enough of the tuna filling. And I’d been rolling out the biscuits, so why not roll out puff pastry?

It comes in a twelve-inch square, and the recipe says to roll it out to a fifteen-inch square on a lightly floured cutting board. Fifteen inches is pushing the limits of my work surface and besides the dough began to tear, but I think I got to about thirteen and a half. When the directions on the box say lightly floured, take it literally. I had been afraid of lots of flour that flew everywhere and was a hot mess to clean up. Not so, I floured the work surface and the rolling pin very lightly, and the dough did not stick at all.

Next up: use the tip of a knife to divide the dough into nine squares. After a couple of stabs at it, that too proved easy. So I moved ahead, put filling in each square (not the three-quarter cup recommended but more like half a cup), folding the ends to make a triangle, and crimping the edges with my fingers. I had hand pies! The last step was to brush with either melted butter or an egg wash of one egg mixed with one Tbsp. water. I prefer the egg wash. Bake at 375 for 20-30 minutes or until golden brown.

Chicken hand pies as they should look,
but not good photography. Sorry.

Here are two fillings I’ve used with other pastry shells in the past and will now make—soon!—using the puff pastry in my freezer.

Tuna pasties

1 7 oz. can albacore tuna, in water

1 cup shredded cheddar

¼ cup celery, diced finely

1 Tbsp. fresh parsley, chopped

1/3 cup sour cream

This may not make enough filling for all nine squares. Serve warm.

Coulibac

 Coulibac is the Russian version of a stuffed pastry shell, traditionally made with fresh salmon or sturgeon, rice or buckwheat, hard-boiled eggs, mushrooms, onions, and dill. My version is a shortcut, using canned salmon.

1 cup shredded carrots

½ cup finely chopped onion

½ cup finely chopped celery

3 Tbsp. olive oil

1 cup thinly sliced mushrooms

1/3 cup sour cream

2 Tbsp. lemon juice

½ tsp. dried dill

½ tsp. salt

¼ tsp. pepper

1 16 oz. can salmon, drained, bone and skin removed, meat flaked

Cook carrots, onion and celery in oil until tender. Add mushrooms and sauté until just limp. Remove pan from heat and add sour cream, lemon juice, salt, pepper, and dill. Gently stir in salmon.

My next challenge may be to make spanakopita with phyllo—or, hmmm, could I use puff patry?