Recipe: Quick (Rough) Puff Pastry

I made a "quick" puff pastry for a mushroom tart with mushrooms that I picked up from the local farmers market.

While I love puff pastry, I don't want to spend three days preparing it, or spend money on expensive store-bought doughs!

After some quick research, I found a recipe for a rough puff pastry that required a food processor. Since I am really ghetto, I don't have a food processor either, so I prepared the puff pastry by hand in a day.

There's a term that my chef instructor (Chef Patrice!) taught us for preparing a tender short crust pastry. Sablé, a method of gently kneading cold butter and flour together to form a thin layers of butter and flour. While I still "turned" the puff pastry a number of times, I believe the sabléing lended some tenderness to the pastry.

Here's a short video on the method (sorry for the graininess - I know *nothing* about video shooting / editing):



Ingredients
1 c unsalted butter
1 2/3 c all purpose flour
3/4 t salt
1/4 c ice-cold water, more if needed

Method
Dice butter and place in freezer for 15 minutes.

Sift together flour and salt into a large bowl. Add about half of the butter cubes to the flour mixture and sable until all butter has been kneaded. Chill if necessary (if it is a hot day, or you feel that the butter has softened too much!). Add remaining cold butter cubes and sable again. Do not work the butter in too much - you want a shaggy appearance.

Mix in ice water with a spoon or spatula. Gather the rough dough together and place onto parchment paper. Place another layer of parchment paper on to and flatten with your hands. Chill the dough for fifteen to thirty minutes at this point if you are working on a warm day.

Fold the dough into thirds and roll out. Turn the dough 90 degrees and fold into thirds again. Repeat the turning process two more times, then chill until firm, fifteen to thirty minutes.

The dough may be used in your recipes, or stored, wrapped, in the freezer for up to two months.

I'll post the recipe for the mushroom tart later - here's a side view of the puff pastry. Not too bad for handmade!

Recipe: Pumpkin Ravioli with Pecans and Butter

I promised in my last jaunt with ravioli making that I'd post a couple more photos and possibly a recipe. Here she is!

I opted for a pumpkin ravioli this time as I found the crumbly meat mixture to be difficult to work with last time. The pumpkin, on the other hand, held together nicely and didn't provide too much air in the way of vacant space inside the raviolis themselves.

This time, I used the same pasta dough recipe, and made the raviolis by running them through the pasta machine a number of times. I ran a quarter of the pasta dough recipe through the pasta machine at a time. For the first few passes, I folded it into thirds and ran it through again. I ran it through each thickness setting at least three times before increasing the thickeness setting dial.



I prepared a filling by mixing together:
1 c cooked pumpkin (I suppose cooked butternut squash would work wonderfully as well!)
1/4 c grated piave vecchio cheese
Pinch nutmeg
Salt and Pepper to taste



The rolled pasta dough was placed onto the ravioli form; I then placed the corresponding piece over the dough and pressed slightly to create an indent in the sheet of pasta dough.





About two teaspoons of the pumpkin filling was spooned into each indentation, and, after water was brushed around the edges of each ravioli, another sheet of pasta dough was placed and pressed into place.





A rolling pin was used to cut the dough against the ravioli form, and the individual ravioli were gently popped out and dredged heavily in flour. The raviolis were allowed to dry at room temperature for a good half hour before being dredged in more flour and stored between sheets of parchment paper in the fridge.





When I was ready to eat some ravioli, I removed them from the fridge and boiled a large pot of salted water. Once the water came to a rolling boil, several (about six per serving?) raviolis were dropped into the water, and immediately stirred to separate from one another.

Concurrently, I melted about a tablespoon of butter over medium heat, and toasted some pecan halves for about 2-3 minutes, stirring to prevent burning. I seasoned the mixture with salt and pepper, and also a pinch of ground thyme. Once the ravioli had cooked for about five minutes and floated to the top of the pan, I removed them with a slotted spoon and dropped into the hot butter. I continued to stir the raviolis and walnuts for a couple of minutes, then plated and served, garnished with some chives and freshly shaved piave vecchio.

It was rich, but so good. And vegetarian to boot!

I've also had the ravioli in chicken broth, and with some of the meat mixture from my lettuce wrap recipe since. It makes for a hearty, yet healthy meal. :)