Always keep your puff pastry briquette in the freezer as it's a simple ingredient for a ton of delicious, quick meals, and not just desserts. Make mouth-watering little lamb pies, bake spinach and cheese pie, or make simple berry puffs.
Lamb puff pastry
Ingredients:
- 500 g of yeast-free puff pastry;
- 500 g of lamb;
- 1 onion;
- 100 g of cilantro;
- 3 cloves of garlic;
- 2 chicken eggs and 1 yolk;
- 1 tsp cumin;
- 1/3 tsp freshly ground black pepper;
- salt;
- 20 g butter.
Remove the dough from the freezer. Wash the meat, pat dry with a paper towel, cut into cubes and rotate in a meat grinder. Peel the onion and garlic cloves and chop with a knife. Hard boil the eggs, peel them and rub with a fork.
Place a piece of butter in a preheated skillet, melt and sauté the onion and garlic in it until transparent over medium heat. Put the minced lamb there, season everything with cumin and cook, breaking the lumps with a spatula, for 4-5 minutes. Transfer the contents of the dish to a deep bowl, stir in the eggs, chopped cilantro, pepper and salt to taste.
Cut the dough into 8 pieces and roll each into a rectangle. Spread generously half of each layer with the filling, leaving a clean edge of half a centimeter. Fold the edges of the garments and pinch them with your fingers. Brush them with yolk using a cooking brush and bake the puff pastry at 180oC for 20 minutes.
Spinach and Cheese Puff Pie
Ingredients:
- 500 g of yeast-free puff pastry;
- 400 g of spinach;
- 200 g feta cheese;
- 2 onions;
- 2 cloves of garlic;
- 2 chicken eggs;
- 50 g of pine nuts;
- a pinch of nutmeg;
- 50 g butter.
Let the dough sit at room temperature until soft. Heat the nuts in a dry skillet until golden brown. Chop spinach leaves and peeled onion thinly. Fry the onion in half a serving of butter until golden brown, add whole garlic cloves, slightly pressed with a knife, then spinach. Saute the vegetables for a few minutes, then put them in a colander and cool, discard the garlic.
Coat a rectangular baking dish with the remaining butter. Cut the softened dough into two equal parts, place the first baking sheet and blind the high sides. Beat eggs with nutmeg, toss with spinach filling, crushed cheese and nuts and cover the base of the pie with the resulting mass. Cover it with half of the dough. Bake the puff pastry dish at 180oC for 25-30 minutes.
Puff nests with cherries
Ingredients:
- 500 g yeast puff pastry;
- 300 g cherries;
- 100 g of icing sugar;
- 1 chicken yolk;
- vegetable oil.
Cut the defrosted dough into 10x10 cm squares and pierce each with a fork. Distribute the cherries evenly in the center of each layer, sprinkle with powdered sugar, tidy up the edges to form nests or baskets, and place them on a greased baking sheet at some distance from each other. Bake the cherry puffs at 180oC for 10 minutes. Then moisten them with yolk and place in the oven for another 3 minutes.
