If you’re surprised that I now have a “cooking” category and a post in it, you haven’t misjudged me there. My mum trained as a chef, and has been doing it so excellently for more years than I’ve been alive that I frankly get intimidated.
So today my mum was putting things on a baking tray when I stopped by the kitchen. I came, I saw, I took over! Here’s what we did with some store-bought puff pastry and some handy leftovers:
**Leftovers puffs**
Preparing the pastry:
Take puff pastry, spread out however the heck you like (I both slapped it into submission and used a rolling pin), gently lift as soon as it starts to stick, turn, spread out the other way until thin and stretchy.
Fillings: do not add QUITE to the edges of the prepared pastry
*bolognese* spread any lightly cooked and marinaded bolognese mix in dollops over the pastry, not quite to the edges.
*sunday lunch* take leftover meat (used lamb), shred and remove any pockets of fat, sprinkle over prepared pastry. Add any leftover accompanying veg, carrot and potato here, chopped fairly small. Add any seasonings desired, marjoram went well.
*cheese and potato* Take fave (hard) cheese out of its vestibule, cut a little off, crumble over pastry, add in fairly soft potato, add more cheese, crush an chop in a clove of garlic, add any more cheese desired.
Rolling and tucking:
Once the pastry is well-loaded with filling, carefully start rolling it up from the top edge towards the bottom. It should now look like a rough sausage roll. Pinch the open ends to seal them, crease along the top edge, fold in any “lips” of pastry at the bottom.
Cutting and cooking:
Cut into rounds roughly as thick as your thumb, or a little over if you don’t have thick thumbs. Arrange on a baking tray, around the outside first. Put in the top of an oven pre-heated to gas mark 7, or wherever there’s room if filling it up. Check after about 10 minutes, or as soon as the delicious smells start making you salivate from several rooms away.
Cooling and testing:
Turn onto a wire rack as they become cooked enough, come back in 5 minutes if they’re not all ready. “Accidentally” break one, eat it to test that they are in fact full cooked. Turn off the oven!!!
craftyclairy 