Puff, the magic pastry

Published 12:02 am Tuesday, January 24, 2017

I once made puff pastry from scratch. That’s why I now buy it at the store.

When done right, puff pastry is almost supernatural. You take a thin, flat piece of dough, bake it, and it puffs up into a work of art many times its original size, with hundreds of the thinnest, flakiest, most delicate layers of pastry suspended ethereally in its buttery goodness.

All that, and it’s delicious, too.

Making it at home takes time, dedication and not an inconsiderable amount of effort. And until you develop the right touch for it, you can end up (like I did) with a flat, leaden plank of pastry. Mine was buttery, but it wasn’t puffy at all.

So I take the store-bought shortcut, and I am not ashamed. You can find puff pastry in the freezer section of your local grocery store.

Once you get it, the question isn’t what you can do with it, the question is what can’t you do with it. It’s good for sweet dishes and for savory, you can use it for appetizers and desserts, and Beef Wellington just wouldn’t be Beef Wellington without it.

I used it for two dishes and could not have been happier about the way they turned out. Whether the recipes were ridiculously simple or somewhat more complicated (chicken pot pie), the store-bought puff pastry made making them easy.

And they all tasted great.

I started with chicken pot pie, because I have fond memories of eating it at the Walnut Room in a Chicago Marshall Field’s store before the store acquired the much less romantic name of Macy’s. It was, in my memory, the best chicken pot pie I had ever had. I liked it so much I bought the Marshall Field’s cookbook just so I could have the recipe.

That was years ago, but I never made the recipe until now. That’s because I was a little daunted by the calories, and more than a little disappointed that the published recipe appeared to leave out a number of ingredients.

But I made it, and I added the missing ingredients (though it’s fewer than I thought) and now the pot pie is back to being one of the best I have ever had. The secret is that it uses a velouté sauce, which is easier to make than it sounds. You simply stir together melted butter and flour, and slowly add hot chicken stock until you get a sauce that is rich and velvety (“velouté” is French for “velvety”).

The delicate puff pastry on top is just icing on the cake — a very rich cake, with an incredible velouté sauce.

Next up were the pretzels, but these are not ordinary pretzels. These are called Puffzels, I’m sorry to say, because they are made with puff pastry. The resulting pretzels are lighter in texture than you might expect, but they are also heavier because of a surprise lurking inside the dough.

The pretzels — sorry, Puffzels — are stuffed with cheese, sausage and a smear of mustard. They are hearty, which is not a word typically associated with puff pastry, and utterly delicious.

Puffzels

Makes 6 servings

1 TBS poppy seeds

1 TBS sesame seeds

1 tsp garlic powder or dried, minced garlic

1⁄2 tsp onion powder or dried, minced onion

1⁄4 tsp coarsely ground black pepper

1 egg

2 TBS German-style mustard

2 TBS all-purpose flour

1⁄2 (17.3-oz) pkg (1 sheet) frozen puff pastry, thawed

2 C shredded muenster cheese

7 oz smoked pork or turkey sausage or kielbasa, coarsely chopped, about 11⁄2 cups

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Mix the poppy seeds, sesame seeds, garlic powder, onion powder and black pepper in a small bowl. In another small bowl, beat the egg and mustard with a fork.

Sprinkle some of the flour on the work surface. Unfold the pastry sheet on the work surface. Cut the pastry sheet into 3 strips along the fold marks, then cut each strip in half lengthwise, making 6 strips in all.

Roll each pastry strip into a 16-by-3-inch rectangle (this will be easier if you begin rolling lengthwise). Brush half of each strip, lengthwise, with the egg mixture (reserve any remaining), then top with about 1⁄3 cup cheese and about 1⁄4 cup sausage. Starting on the side with the filling, roll up the pastry to form a long rope, pinching the ends and seams to seal. Shape the rope into a pretzel shape (not too tight — it will need space to puff), brushing a bit of egg mixture on the ends to help them stick. Place on the prepared baking sheet.

Brush the Puffzels with the egg mixture and sprinkle with the poppy seed mixture.

Bake for 25 minutes or until deep brown. Let them cool on the baking sheet on a wire rack for 10 minutes.

Per Puffzel: 470 calories; 34 g fat; 16 g saturated fat; 94 mg cholesterol; 21 g protein; 20 g carbohydrate; 2 g sugar; 2 g fiber; 946 mg sodium; 305 mg calcium.

— Recipe from Pepperidge Farm