It’s been awhile (again) since I posted anything here, but there’s a very good reason for that.  I’ll get to it, but all I’ll say up front is that the weather gods have been uncooperative.

So, puff pastry!  I don’t have a lot to say about the stuff, as my mother never really worked with the stuff when I was growing up.  At least, not in sheet form, that is.  I remember her making some apple turnovers that were definitely made with puff pastry, but I suspect these were premade and frozen.  So these two recipes are the first time I’ve really worked with puff pastry, and by and large, it’s not too difficult.  From what I understand, it’s not easy to make the stuff, which is fine – as a home cook, I really don’t need to be able to make puff pastry from scratch.  However, these two recipes are good explorations in basic baking techniques, so I’d say working with puff pastry’s a great way to teach someone how to treat the dough right.  In both of these cases, the common thread is to thaw the puff pastry so it won’t break once you try to unfold it, and then crimp the seams together to help reinforce those weak points in the structure, followed by a once or twiceover with a rolling pin to thin it out and smooth out the seams.  After that, the pastry is ready to be shaped.

The first one was definitely the simpler of the two recipes – apple tarts.  This is a sweet application, and the puff pastry was cut into two rounds, each about six inches wide.  Thinly sliced Granny Smith apples are layered atop each of the tarts, and sprinkled with sugar before being placed in the oven and cooked for about half an hour.  Then, after they’re out, some microwaved apricot jam is dabbed onto the edges to make it glisten.  This was topped with homemade vanilla ice cream, and was a resounding success.  This is an extremely easy recipe, and one that I can see making again.

Of course, this was only one of the two recipes, and the second was a salmon turnover.  There’s very little complicated about the recipe – a prepared puff pastry is divided into four squares, and stuff is put in the middle of them.  They’re folded over onto themselves, and baked until done.  However, the recipe suggested that I use the fungal sautee from “The Fungal Gourmet” episode, the rice pilaf from “Power to the Pilaf,” and the smoked salmon from “Where There’s Smoke, There’s Fish.”  This recipe, therefore, was the most referential of the bunch so far, and it presented me with one major challenge: how do I cook the fish?

For those of you who don’t remember, this had to be cooked in my cardboard box smoker rig, so I had to find a time when I could do it at a friend’s house on a Sunday he was free when the weather was dry both that Sunday and the day before.  Naturally, immediately after the tart was done, we didn’t get a dry weekend here for about a month and a half.  EIther it would rain on that Sunday, or it would rain very heavily the Saturday before, ruining my chance to get the salmon cooked.  Finally, however, the weather let up, and a rare sunny weekend popped up.  I purchased the fish, started curing it, cooked the mushrooms and rice the day before, and smoked the salmon without a hitch that Sunday.  After that, I let the salmon cool for a bit, and started mixing up the ingredients for the turnovers.  In addition to the mushrooms, rice, and salmon, there was some green onion, some chopped parsley, and salt and pepper.  All of that was mixed up in a bowl, and a few tablespoons of the mixture was placed in the center of each square.  An egg wash was brushed onto the corners of each, and crimped shut.  Slits were cut on them to allow steam to escape, and the each turnover was brushed in an egg wash to promote browning.  Into a hot oven they went for half an hour.

I only have myself to blame for what happened next.  I should have really checked them in twenty, but I foolishly let them cook the entire way.  They were burned.  They centers had gone past golden brown and turned a deep brown, and the ends were blackened.  It still tasted good, but the damage was done.  Fortunately, I had plenty of leftovers, which meant I could try this again at my parents’ place on July 4 weekend.  This time, I kept a close eye on the cooking, and it came out beautifully.

I still have one sheet of puff pastry left, so I’ve been debating what to do with it.  I think I’ll use it to try the secret bonus recipe that Alton included here as his favorite puff pastry filling: Manwich mix and Cheddar cheese.  Sounds beefy.

Next: An episode on the twentieth letter of our alphabet.

Recipes:

Fruit Tart

Salmon Turnovers