Mastering the Art of French Cooking, Volume 2
Page 16
Egg glaze (1 egg beaten with 1 tsp water in a bowl or cup)
A pastry brush
A small knife
A thin, sharp skewer or large darning needle
When oven has been preheated, paint top of ring and exposed top of disk with egg glaze. (Do not paint sides, because egg could prevent them from rising.)
With a small knife, cut lines ⅛ inch deep and 1½ inches apart (at outside edge) in top of ring, pointing knife always to center of vol-au-vent so the marks will be evenly spaced, like the spokes of a wheel.
Cut a line ¼ inch deep in the bottom disk, where inner edge of circle meets it; this marks the cover, which is removed after baking so that interior of vol-au-vent may be cleaned out.
Make decorative, shallow cross-hatch marks in the top of the dough through the glaze with the point of a knife or the tines of a table fork.
Finally, plunge skewer or needle down through the top of the pastry sheet at 4 to 5 places around the circumference and 3 places in the center. The purpose of this operation is presumably to hold the puff pastry layers in place and help the vol-au-vent rise evenly.
Immediately place vol-au-vent in lower middle level of preheated oven and bake at 425 degrees for about 20 minutes, until the pastry has tripled in height and is beginning to brown. Lower thermostat to 350 degrees and bake 30 to 40 minutes longer, until sides are brown and crisp. If pastry is coloring too much, lay a sheet of aluminum foil or heavy brown paper loosely over the top.
3) Final touches
As soon as you remove the vol-au-vent from the oven and while it is still hot, cut around the inside edge of the ring to remove the cover you marked in the bottom disk; this has now risen, along with the rest of the dough. (Cover will probably break and should be eaten by the cook, who must sample the pastry anyway.)
Being very careful not to pierce sides or bottom of crust, scrape uncooked pastry out of vol-au-vent with the tines of a table fork or the handle of a spoon. (You may turn this into a cheese ramequin, but you should use it while still fresh; see following recipe.)
Set vol-au-vent again on its pastry sheet and put in the oven for 5 minutes, to dry out, then let cool on a rack. If bottom of pastry burned or darkened unduly during baking, shave off the discolored part with a sharp knife.
Storing and reheating
If you have a warming oven, set it at around 100 degrees where pastry will keep for a day or two, drying and crisping to a delicious texture. Otherwise, the sooner you can eat the vol-au-vent the better, unless you are going to wrap it airtight and freeze, where it will keep for several weeks. To reheat cold or frozen vol-au-vent, set on a lightly buttered pastry sheet in a preheated 425-degree oven for 5 minutes, then turn oven off and leave a few minutes more, until crisp.
FOR THE UNCOOKED INSIDES OF THE VOL-AU-VENT
Ramequin du Juste Milieu
[A Hot Puffed Cheese Dish to Serve as an Entrée or in Place of Potatoes]
For 4 to 6 servings
The fresh, preferably still warm uncooked insides of a vol-au-vent (usually ⅓ to ½ cup, pressed)
1 cup milk
2 eggs
Salt, pepper, and nutmeg ¼ cup grated Parmesan cheese
A 3- to 4-cup baking and serving dish about 1½ inches deep, lightly buttered
Purée the uncooked pastry and milk for a minute or so in an electric blender until perfectly smooth. Add eggs, seasonings, and cheese and purée 5 seconds. Pour into buttered dish.
(*) DELAYED-ACTION NOTE: May now be covered and refrigerated until the next day.
Half an hour before serving, bake in the middle level of a preheated 375-degree oven until nicely puffed and browned. Serve immediately.
MAKING A VOL-AU-VENT COVER
When you want a cover for the vol-au-vent, form it separately, and bake the 2 together on the same pastry sheet.
Use the circle of leftover dough you cut from the second disk of pastry that made the vol-au-vent ring. After it has rested in the refrigerator while you were making the vol-au-vent itself, roll it out into a disk about 9½ inches in diameter; loosen it from the rolling surface to let it shrink if it will. Roll it up on your pin and unroll upside down on a lightly buttered pastry sheet. Then trim it into a neat circle using an 8½-inch cutter or plate as a guide.
Place a slightly smaller cutter, cover, or other round object on top and draw the back of a knife from edge of pastry to edge of cutter at ¾-inch intervals all around to make a scalloped edging.
To discourage dough from rising more than a little in the oven, prick all over (except on scalloped edges) at ⅛-inch intervals with the tines of a table fork, going right down through the pastry to the pastry sheet. Cover and chill the dough for about an hour, so that gluten will relax and dough will bake evenly without shrinking.
Using scraps of dough left over from the vol-au-vent, make decorative cutouts ⅛-inch thick and of any shape and design you wish. After painting top of dough with egg glaze, affix the designs and paint them also. Then make shallow, all-over cross-hatch marks through the glaze and into the dough with a small knife or the tines of a fork.
The design illustrated is a very simple one of circular cutouts, which puff up in an amusing manner; you may use ovals, leaves, strips of dough, or anything you wish, but remember that everything rises, and if you cut your shapes too thick and narrow, they may topple off in the oven.
Baking
Whether baked separately or along with the vol-au-vent, put the cover in a preheated 425-degree oven for about 20 minutes, until nicely browned, then turn thermostat down to 350. Pastry is done when it feels crisp and light, which should be 30 minutes or so in all. Let cool on a rack.
FLEURONS
[Puff-pastry Puffs, for Decorations and Garnitures]
When you are not making a cover for the vol-au-vent, you may wish some extra bits of puff pastry to decorate the edge of the platter around the shell. These are called fleurons, or flowered shapes, because they are small and decorative, usually fluted ovals or crescents. Classic French recipes often suggest fleurons as a garnish to some of the beautiful filet of sole or scallop dishes, where pastry elegantly takes the place of a mundane starchy vegetable. You may make fleurons either out of the carefully preserved trimmings from your vol-au-vent or bouchée cuttings, or from the re-formed and reconstituted dough described after the next recipe.
Roll dough ¼ to ⅜ inch thick and make disks with a round, 3-inch, fluted cutter. With one stroke through the center, cut each disk into an oval and a crescent.
Place ½ inch apart on a dampened pastry sheet and chill for at least half an hour to relax the dough—an hour or more would be better. Glaze with beaten egg, decorate with cross-hatching, and bake in middle level of a preheated 450-degree oven for 12 to 15 minutes, until nicely puffed, brown, and crisp.
PETITES BOUCHÉES
[Cocktail Shells of Puff Pastry]
Cocktail-size patty shells, petites bouchées or little mouthfuls 2 inches in diameter, are made in 1 layer. Use the leftover circles cut from the second layer, or rings, of larger patty shells, or cut circles from the leftover and reconstituted puff pastry dough in the following recipe.
Roll the dough ¼ to ⅜ inch thick, cut with a 2-inch fluted cutter, and arrange on a dampened baking sheet. With a 1-inch cutter or a small knife, press a cover outline in the top of the dough, going ⅛ inch deep. Glaze and bake, following the preceding directions for fleurons. When baked and still warm, delicately cut out the cover and remove any uncooked pastry from interiors.
These small shells may then be filled and reheated for serving, or you may freeze them until needed.
UTILIZATION DES ROGNURES
[Reconstituting Leftover Dough into Puff Pastry Again]
You will have as much dough left over from cutting a vol-au-vent as you have in the vol-au-vent itself, and almost as much from bouchées. You can even make another vol-au-vent from these scraps, or half a dozen bouchées, or anything else calling for puff pastry. Demifeuilletée, the
simpler puff pastry, is treated the same way. Puff pastry leftovers are called rognures, meaning trimmings or scraps.
Your object is to join the scraps into one piece of dough in such a way that the layers of butter and flour in each scrap are horizontal, as they were when the dough was first made.
Cut the scraps as necessary.
Arrange them so that they will form a rectangle. Then paint an edge of each with cold water, overlap it slightly upon its neighbor, and seal the seam with the balls of your fingers.
If you are very skillful, you can manage to make a few careful rolls with your pastry pin and join the seams of dough so perfectly that you can cut it out for patty shells or the 2 large disks needed for a Pithiviers. The surest system, however, is to flour dough lightly, roll into a rectangle, spread the top two thirds with a tablespoon of softened butter and fold in three. Wrap, chill an hour or two, and finish off with 2 more turns. Refrigerate for several hours or overnight, or freeze, so that dough will relax thoroughly before you use it again.
Re-use of leftovers
You can still get puffing and flakiness out of the leftover of leftovers, using the preceding system. The pastry will not be as tender when baked as it was at first, and it may well offer a bit of resistance when you roll it out. However, it works very well for most appetizers, as well as for cookies and for the fleurons and the petites bouchées in the 2 preceding recipes.
Puff Pastry Entrées
Cornets, Rouleaux, Cheese Napoleons, and Cheese Tarts
Just a few of the many delicious pastries you can make with pâte feuilletée are described and illustrated in the following pages; see also dessert pastries and cookies. One could easily write a book on puff pastry alone, and we find it hard to limit ourselves to a sensible few. We hope, however, that these recipes will give you a feel for how to use it so that you can go off on your own and be confident with other recipes you find elsewhere.
CORNETS
[Puff Pastry Horns—Cream Horns]
Strips of puff pastry are rolled around cone-shaped forms, baked until the pastry has browned and set, and baked again with a creamy cheese filling to make a most attractive first-course fantasy. (Encrusted with sugar, they come out of the oven with a caramel coating for dessert creams.)
For 18 to 20 horns about 5 inches long, serving 8 to 10 people
1) Forming the dough
18 to 20 buttered cream-horn molds (or bake the pastry in several batches)
2 large pastry sheets rinsed in cold water but not dried
½ the recipe for chilled simple puff pastry
A tray lined with wax paper for refrigerating pieces of dough you are not actually working on
A ruler or cutting guide
A ravioli wheel
A pastry brush and cup of cold water
Stand the buttered molds within easy reach, and have the pastry sheets near you. Roll the chilled pastry out into a rectangle 14 inches long, cut in half crosswise, and refrigerate 1 piece of dough. Roll remaining piece of dough rapidly into a rectangle ⅛ inch thick and slightly more than 8 by 13 or 14 inches in diameter. Trim off ragged edges. (If kitchen is hot, work very rapidly, and refrigerate all pieces or strips of dough you are not actually working on in the following steps.)
Cut strips of pastry ¾ to 1 inch wide and 13 to 14 inches long, using cutting guide and pastry wheel as shown.
Paint a half-inch band of cold water along top length of a strip of dough. Hold mold by its large end; slip tip of mold under right end of dough strip, then pinch dough all around the tip of the mold to seal it.
Holding tip of mold with your left hand, with your right hand rotate its large end clockwise—to your right—winding the dough onto the mold in a spiral from tip to large end, and letting dough overlap ⅛ inch upon itself as you go. Be careful not to stretch the dough, which should remain an even ⅛ inch thick. When dough is cold and firm, you will find it easy to work with.
Seal end of dough at large end of mold, pressing with your fingers. Place horn on baking sheet, sealed-side of dough against sheet; press lightly to hold the horn in place. Proceed with the rest of the horns in the same manner.
2) Chilling, glazing, and baking
Chill at least 30 minutes, but an hour is preferable, to relax dough before baking. When ready to bake, preheat oven to 425 degrees and set rack in middle level. Just before baking, paint tops and sides of horns with egg glaze (1 egg beaten in a small bowl with 1 tsp water), and make cross-hatching on surface with the point of a knife or the tines of a fork. Bake immediately; horns are done in 15 to 20 minutes, when molds slip easily out of them. For recipes where you are to fill the horns and bake them again, remove from oven when a pale brown so they will not darken too much during their second baking; otherwise leave them in a few minutes longer, to brown nicely.
(*) Pastries are at their best when eaten within a few hours of baking; you may keep them, however, in a warming oven at around 100 degrees for a day or so; otherwise wrap airtight and freeze them. To thaw, place on a lightly buttered baking sheet in a 400-degree oven; turn oven off, and leave about 10 minutes.
FONDUE DE FROMAGE POUR CORNETS, ROULEAUX, MILLE-FEUILLES, ET CROQUETTES
[Cheese Filling for Cream Horns, Mille-Feuilles, and Croquettes]
This is a very thick sauce that will not run or flow out of shape when heated in pastries, or when coated with beaten eggs and bread crumbs and deep-fried. Rather than cooking it in the usual way, with a flour and butter roux that is moistened with hot milk, you beat the milk into the flour and then add the butter, making what is technically known as a bouilli.
For about 2½ cups
¾ to 1 cup milk
½ cup all-purpose flour (measure by scooping dry-measure cup into flour and sweeping off excess with knife)
A heavy 2-quart saucepan
A wire whip and a rubber spatula
2 Tb butter
2 “large” eggs
Salt, pepper, pinch of nutmeg, and drops of Tabasco or a pinch of Cayenne pepper
4 ounces (about 1 cup) coarsely grated Swiss cheese
2 ounces (less than ½ cup) grated Parmesan cheese
3 to 4 Tb heavy cream
Gradually beat driblets of milk into the flour, in saucepan, adding ¾ cup and beating to a smooth consistency. Add butter, and set pan over moderate heat, stirring. When mixture comes near the boil and begins to be lumpy, remove from heat and beat vigorously to smooth it out. One by one, beat in the eggs, and bring to the boil, beating constantly. Sauce must be a thick paste; if very stiff, thin out over heat, beating in more milk by dribbles. Remove from heat, season with salt, pepper, a pinch of nutmeg, and rather strongly with Tabasco or Cayenne pepper. Let cool for a few minutes, then fold in the cheese. Fold in just enough cream to soften it slightly, but sauce must hold its shape when mounded in a spoon; it should not spread out later, when cooked with pastries.
(*) AHEAD-OF-TIME NOTE: May be made several days in advance of using; may be frozen. Clean off sides of pan, and press a sheet of plastic wrap over the surface of the sauce to prevent a skin or crust from forming.
Additions
Use half the amount of cheese called for in the preceding filling, and fold in ⅓ to ½ cup of either diced ham or mushroom duxelles (diced fresh mushrooms sautéed in butter, Volume I, page 515).
CORNETS À LA FONDUE DE FROMAGE
[Cream Horns Baked with Cheese Filling]
The preceding cheese filling
A pastry bag with round tube opening
Puff pastry cream horns, baked but barely browned
Rather soft Swiss cheese
A grater (small holes)
A lightly buttered baking sheet
Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Pack the cheese filling into the pastry bag and squeeze it into each pastry horn. Grate cheese so that you have rather long whiskery wisps, and pack a large pinch into opening of each horn.
Bake in upper third of preheated oven 10 to 12 minutes, to melt cheese and heat filling to
bubbling hot. Serve as soon as possible.
ROULEAUX
[Puff Pastry Cream Rolls]
If you cannot find molds for cream horns, you may find metal molds suitable for pastry rolls; or use pieces of well-oiled unvarnished wood 5 to 6 inches long, such as a cut-up broom handle. Form, bake, and fill puff pastry rolls in the same general manner described and illustrated for horns. When baked with the preceding cheese filling, stuff whiskers of cheese into both ends to prevent filling from oozing out.
MILLE-FEUILLES À LA FONDUE DE FROMAGE
[Cheese Napoleons]
You will probably find far more use for cheese Napoleons than for pastry-cream dessert Napoleons. They make an elegant first course or luncheon dish and are practically as easy to assemble as the count of one-two-three—when you have ready-made puff pastry on hand. A thin sheet of baked puff pastry is cut into squares or rectangles that are sandwiched together with the cheese fondue filling and baked until the filling is bubbling hot.