Saturday, December 6, 2008

Looked horrible, tasted great!

Glenna's post about Hot Chicken Salad Stuffed Pastry inspired me to try something new last night. Appearance wise it was a disaster but taste wise, it was great!

I wanted to make something akin to Double Dave's Cheese Steak Stromboli but knowing that the bread of the Stromboli is ridiculously high in carbohydrates I decided to use something other than regular bread dough. When I went to the store I looked at the puff pastry Glenna mentions in her entry and since it was a little on the pricey side I bought phyllo dough, which was about $2 less per package. I think that was mistake number one.

Mistake number two was that I didn't butter or oil the phyllo sheets but instead just put the cooked carne picada on them, added the cheese, and attempted to roll them. I say attempted because the pastry stuck to the surface and made rolling very difficult. I did manage to get them sort of rolled and placed on a cookie sheet for the oven. But the ends weren't sealed in any way since nothing I did in the attempt to seal them worked.

Mistake number three was that I baked them a little too long...I think. When they came out of the oven, the things were a little too brown and not flaky or moist at all. (note to self - again, butter or oil pastry!) Cutting into them with a fork caused the pastry to fly all over the place so eating them was very messy. I needed to vacuum the carpet this morning because there were pastry pieces everywhere!

The poor little buggers were just downright ugly! Not appetizing at all so I didn't bother with a picture. You'll have to just trust me on this point.

At any rate, the experiments tasted good. The meat was tender, the cheeses were tasty, and the pastry was edible. But barely. DH wasn't too impressed so I don't know if I'll attempt this again. I'd like to though so if any of you have suggestions, please share them with me even if the suggestion is that I stay out of the kitchen. ;)

2 comments:

Glenna said...

OMG, I love it! You know, I had forgotten this but you'll appreciate it. When I made the chicken canneloni, making pasta for the first time, my husband's first comment was "Wow. This is really good and it came out a lot better than some of your other experiments!" Hey, they can't all be gems, right?

The phyllo is a great substitute for all the butter and carbs of puff pastry but I think you're only problem was not buttering the pastry. However, don't know if you know this but you don't have to butter the pastry with a pastry brush. A quick spray of cooking spray (I use the olive oil kind for savory dishes) will work beautifully to keep the pastry light and crispy.

The dish sounds wonderful to me. If I had any phyllo in the house right now....hmmm...I think I'll go add it to the grocery list before I forget it.

Sometimes you have to do it a couple of times to get it to be what you want it to be.

I LOVE that you shared the mishap. I've found that others respond even more to my mistakes (out of solidarity and pity) than to some of my grand moments of inspiration. Hee hee.

CookinsForMe said...

LOL on the statement your husband made! No, they can't all be gems. Part of what makes cooking fun is the willingness to go out on a limb and try something new! I'm not afraid of failures in the kitchen and its a good thing, too. :)

Ah, I didn't know that I could just spray the phyllo! That was my first experience with it and it was so thin and very hard to work with. I'll try this dish again but will spray the sheets first and see if that helps. Thanks for your suggestion, Glenna. :)