I have just finished entertaining what seemed like throngs of people – many of whom were overnight guests. My wife and I loved it. But the trick for us was to be able to spend as much time with the guests as possible while still making our kitchen the centerpiece of our meal preparation. Somehow a dinner around our dining room table seemed so much more inviting than sitting at a restaurant table – no matter how elegant and exclusive the restaurant.
Frozen puff pastry to the rescue!
I have done the brioche trick in the past. It is perfectly wonderful. It does require patience and time (and refrigerator space.) Somehow our fridge seems to find itself packed to the gills when we have guests and I have learned, sometimes painfully, not to overload it. Once, in fact, at our place at the lake the fridge was so full it refused to work – an astute clerk rather than sell me a new refrigerator, told me to go home and unload it and start over with less ambition. That worked. Since then, I have been more attentive to such detail.
Puff pastry will help you in this quest. It is at once crisply delicious -- and nicely accommodates everything from your favorite breakfast pecan rolls to a brie infused delicacy for cocktail hour. And your grocer has it in the freezer section of the market. It does not need refrigeration once it has thawed overnight in its original packaging (and that packaging can be sneaked easily between other items in the fridge. Here I go again. )
You must take an oath not to tell how simple these two wonderful recipes are. They take about as much time as making breakfast toast – well, maybe just a little more – and they are so worth it.
Pecan rolls
Ingredients:
• 1 stick of butter, room temperature
• 1/3 cup brown sugar
• 1/2 cup pecans, chopped (optional)
• 1 package (17.3 ounces,/2 sheets) frozen puff pastry, defrosted filling ingredients:
• 2 tablespoons butter, melted and cooled
• 2/3 cup brown sugar
• 3 teaspoons cinnamon
• 1 cup raisins (optional)
Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Place a standard muffin tin on a sheet pan lined with parchment or a Silpat. This is in case the rolls bubble over.
Trim the ends and then cut the roll into 6 pieces. Place each roll spiral side up, in a muffin cup. Press each down into the butter mixture.
Repeat with your second sheet of pastry and leftover ingredients.
Bake for 20-25 minutes. Be careful not to burn the puff pastry. Cool for 5 minutes in the pan. Then quickly turn it out onto a Silpat or a wire rack.
Brie Palmiers
Palmier simply refers to the manner in which these are put together. It is a technique that calls for spreading the puff pastry with the filling and then rolling it up equidistant from both long ends to the center. Turn the sheet over and cut into 1/2 inch slices and bake. The result is beautiful. The taste, too, is something to remember.
For the filling: cook together 1/2 cup of strawberry jelly with 1 tablespoon Dijon mustard. When well combined and smooth, turn off the burner and allow the mixture to cool. Melt a stick of butter and cool. Spread the puff pastry sheets with room temperature brie, rind removed. (Typically, the rind is left on brie to serve since it is an important part of the cheese itself. In this case we want a spreadable, smooth consistency to brush or spread on the puff pastry. If it is not at room temperature, it is likely to tear the puff pastry when spread on it.) Spread enough brie on each sheet of puff pastry so that no pastry is showing through when you are finished. Brush the strawberry-mustard mixture over that. Sprinkle toasted pecans over the filling. Roll up from each edge to the middle and slice into ? inch slices. Brush both tops and bottoms of the slices with room temperature melted butter and place on parchment or a Silpat. Bake at 350 for 20 minutes until golden. Allow to cool on a rack. These are best served right away.
Judge Kirkendall is a retired probate judge. He has taught cooking classes for more than 25 years at various cooking schools in the Ann Arbor area and has himself attended classes at Cordon Bleu and La Varenne in Paris, as well as schools in New York, New Orleans and San Francisco.
He is past president of the National College of Probate Judges and can be reached at Judgejnk@yahoo.com.
