Hazelnut, Brie and Raisin Pastries
Still no internet connection, still stressed-out over it... needed a little treat this morning! remember I was practically missing a full meal on Saturday- haha! Salads are fine, but their pros are also their cons. They do not fill you up. If you only have a salad in the evening, you are going to wake up hungry like I did and want to have a couple of these little things! So I suppose I had better tell you how to make them!
This little idea is actually based in something that I saw from the French cook Eric Kayser. He simply split open croissants, filled them with Comté cheese and hazelnuts and re-fried them... but they did look delicious!
At the same time, you know me well enough by now to know I would not revel in the thought of over-indulging so. There is plenty of butter in a croissant- to fry it in more butter and to fill it with a heavy cheese would be too much of a good thing. So this is my little version of a variation on the same theme!
For my little pastries, I started off by pre-heating the oven- puff-pastry needs a lot of heat to puff up nicely! For the filling, I used hazelnuts, which I first blanched for a couple of minutes to soften them slightly. I then drained them and squashed them down a little until they split in two. You can do this using a plate or a chopping board. I had a mix of about 2/3rds hazelnuts to 1/3rd raisins. And then of course the Brie. I chose to use a lower fat version, as a higher fat cheese will tend to ooze more and make a mess- oh- and it does have more fat too!
I cut the puff pastry into squares of 5"- 6" and then split those diagonally into triangles. I placed a couple of thin slices of brie into the center of the pastry triangle and a teaspoon of the mixture on top. Not too much cheese and not too much filling. If you have too much cheese it will spill out and the pastries will stick to each other. Fold the outer edges of the pastry over each other, so that they enclose the nut/cheese and raisin filling, but leave a little on show at the open end.
Spread them out on a baking sheet so that they have a good distance between each other in case too much cheese spills out, so that they do not stick together- and then off they go for a 15-20 minute ride!
All you have to do after 20 minutes, when they have become cool enough to eat.. is to enjoy! And you will! I guarantee it!
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