"Puffy" Pizza - Not a Seinfeld Episode

I want to begin by expressing my gratitude to Pepperidge Farms for making puff pastry accessible to all. I love working with puff pastry and I'm thinking about establishing a ministry to extoll the virtues of cooking and baking with it.

It's something of an ordeal to make from scratch. Gobs of butter must be incorporated into dough that is folded into itself multiple times. But buying it ready-made, either in sheets or in shells right form the freezer case in the supermarket, is the way to go.

There's really only one thing you need to remember about puff pastry. It won't rise (puff) properly unless your oven is set at 400 degrees (we're talking Fahrenheit).

Puff pastry works with savory dishes equally as well as it does with desserts and that's what this week's episode is all about. I basically put pizza toppings inside a puff pastry triangle, sealed and crimped the edges, baked them at 400 and -- Voila! -- about 20 minutes or so later, beautiful puffy triangles with sizzling hot pizza fixings inside. It's sort of a larger version of those miniature factory-produced snacks you used to see advertised on television.

And here's the recipe:

1 pkg frozen puff pastry sheets, thawed

1/2 lb Italian sausage (you choose: hot or sweet)

1 cup sliced Cremini mushrooms

1/2 cup onion, finely diced

1 cup pizza sauce (store-bought is okay)

1 cup shredded Mozzarella cheese

1/4 cup shredded Parmesan cheese

1 large egg beaten with 1 Tbsp water

Flour to dust the work surface

Thaw the puff pastry for about 20 minutes, unwrapped, at room temperature.

Remove the sausage from the casing if necessary and brown in a large skillet over medium heat, breaking up the meat with a wooden spoon. Drain and discard any accumulated fat. Add the mushrooms and onions and cook, stirring until tender. Remove from the heat and stir in the pizza sauce. When cooled slightly, stir in the cheeses.

Make the egg wash with the beaten egg and water. Set it aside for a moment.

Preheat the oven to 400.

On a lightly floured board, roll out each sheet of puff pastry to approximately 11-inch squares. Cut each square in half on the diagonal to create four triangles.

Divide the filling among the triangular pieces of puff pastry and brush the edges with the egg wash. Fold over the dough and crimp the edges with the tines of a fork.

Gently dust off any excess flour from the filled pastries and brush with additional egg wash.

Oil or spray a rimmed baking sheet and place the turnovers on the sheets. Bake for about 15 to 20 minutes until the pastries are puffed and golden brown.

* * * * *
ERRATUM

From the New York State Department of Corrections: In last week's blog post, I wrote that Kimmelweck rolls were from a bakery by the same name in Buffalo, NY. Not so. Kimmelweck is actually a derivative of a German word for the roll, the key part of the word being "kimmel," which means caraway seed in German.  If anyone in Buffalo or elsewhere was offended, insulted, disturbed or otherwise bothered by this misstatement of fact, I apologize for the error.

As Henry Kissinger once said, "I am often mistaken, but never in doubt."