Inside the Box - Part Deux

Sometimes people send me nasty emails. I got one this week after I sent the weekly newsletter with the recipe and video for "Seafood Au Gratin." This particular recipe, which I copied word-for-word and step-by-step from the inside of the Pepperidge Farms Puff Pastry box (mentioned in the video), called for garlic powder and chopped parsley to be added to the bechamel.

So the email was very curt: "You're a chef. You should know you never use garlic powder and you never cook parsley."

Really?

Well, truth be told, I wasn't really cooking either one. I added each as a flavoring agent. And then I used more parsley as garnish to add a little color to the dish.

Anyway, each is entitled to his or her opinion. I liken this to my recipe for Tiramisu, the delicious Italian dessert that uses ladyfingers dipped in espresso with mascarpone and cream. I've often said that this is but one version. And there are probably tens of thousands more that have slight variations. In fact what I said was that there was probably a tiramisu recipe for every grandma in Italy.

Nevertheless, my recipe this week is not an original. It is, as noted above, from the inside of the puff pastry box. And the reason I called this week's blog "Part Deux" is because a few weeks ago I used another recipe from inside the same box -- for White Chocolate Mousse.

So I don't have very much else to say about this recipe because it speaks for itself. The technique for making the sauce is fairly classic: A roux, consisting of equal parts of unsalted butter and all-purpose flour, then some milk that is stirred until it's hot enough that the roux thickens it. Then further thickening with the addition of shredded cheese.

Actually, there is one other note on this. A colleague who is a personal chef asked if this dish could be frozen. The answer is a resounding "No." Roux-based cheese sauces do not freeze well. They become grainy as the ice crystals work their way into the sauce. And puff pastry couldn't stand up to the humidity that is part of every freezer.

So here's the video, followed by the recipe. And don't worry about the garlic powder and parsley. I give you my permission to cook with both.

10 puff pastry shells
4 Tbsp unsalted butter
1/2 lb shrimp, peeled and deveined
1/2 lb scallops, cut into bite-sized pieces
2 cups cremini mushrooms, sliced
1/4 tsp garlic powder
2 Tbsp flour
1 1/2 cups whole milk
1 cup shredded Swiss cheese
2 Tbsp fresh parsley, chopped

Bake pastry shells according to package directions.

In a skillet over medium heat, melt half of the butter. Add the shrimp and scallops and cook until done -- about 3 minutes. Season with salt and pepper and set aside.

Add mushrooms and garlic powder to the pan and cook over medium heat until tender. Set mushroom mixture aside.

In another pan, add the remaining butter and stir in flour until smooth. Add milk and cook until the mixture comes to a boil. Reduce to a simmer until the mixture thickens. Add the cheese and the parsley and cook over low heat until the cheese is completely melted and incorporated into the sauce.

Return seafood and mushrooms to the pan you cooked them in and heat through.

Divide among the puff pastry shells and pour the sauce over. Garnish with additional parsley.

Thinking Inside the Box

Yes, yes, I know. The phrase is "thinking outside the box." But this week's recipe is one I found inside the box of Pepperidge Farm Puff Pastry Shells.

And I don't recall seeing anything on the outside of the box that would have alerted me to the fact that printed on the plain cardboard side of the box were some recipe gems. This week's is a perfect example and in a few more weeks, you'll see another one I found inside the same box.

 The typical way to make mousse of any flavor takes time, patience and effort. This one is virtually effortless. But I did make a discovery that involves patience and I'll get to that in a little bit. Traditional mousses -- both sweet and savory -- involve the use of beaten egg whites and one must master the technique of folding those egg whites gently into the chocolate or the meat without deflating the egg whites.

 The mousse illustrated in this week's recipe uses whipped cream. I suppose if you wanted to take a shortcut you could buy that artificial dessert topping sold in the freezer case, but freshly whipped cream is so much tastier. And it's not that hard to do. Your electric mixer does all of the work.

But here's another hint to faster and fluffier whipped cream: chill the bowl and the beaters in the freezer.

Let's also mention that white chocolate is not really chocolate at all because it contains no chocolate liquor and has no chocolate flavor. It's a mixture of cocoa butter, milk solids, sugar, lecithin and vanilla. Despite this, it still tastes really good, don't you agree?

 Speaking of chocolate, my recipe calls for an ounce or two of bittersweet chocolate to be melted and drizzled over the mousse. I think three or four ounces would be better, as the additional volume makes a drizzling stream of dark chocolate easier to achieve.

 As for that discovery -- I covered the leftover mousse with plastic wrap and put it in the fridge, thinking that I'd get to it later to make some additional desserts for the camera crew to take home. We never got to it the day I made it. But the next day, I checked to see if the mousse was still okay and it acquired the rich and airy texture that traditional mousses (the ones made with egg whites) get when made properly.

 Make no mistake -- the original mousse in the puff pastry shell was delicious. The one left to "cure" in the fridge was, in my opinion, better. Another example of your patience being rewarded.

 Here's the video, followed by the recipe. And once again -- thanks, Pepperidge Farm!

6 Puff Pastry shells
6 oz white chocolate
1/1/2 cups heavy cream (divided use)
1 to 2 ounces of semisweet chocolate

Bake and cool the puff pastry shells according to package directions.

Melt the white chocolate with a 1/4 cup of the cream over medium low heat, stirring to incorporate and until the chocolate is completely melted. Cool for 20 minutes until reaches room temperature.

In a chilled bowl with chilled beaters, place the remaining cream and whip it until it is between soft and stiff peaks. Fold about half of the whipped cream into the cooled white chocolate mixture to temper it, then gently fold in the rest of the whipped cream.

Melt the semi sweet chocolate over medium low heat until it is completely liquified.

Spoon the mousse into the pastry shells. Drizzle the melted dark chocolate over the mousse and serve.

"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.

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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."