Okay, let’s get on to the fun stuff. You have the recipe for the pastry and the pesto via previous posts.
Now let’s put it all together. Yes, I used chicken but left over turkey will do the job as well and as many of you still have Thanksgiving to look forward to, having a supply ready to pull from the freezer for winter gatherings might be another way to use up any extra meat.
You will need:
1/2 recipe of the puff pastry (I only need six pockets)
1/4 cup cooked chicken (or turkey)
2 large fresh mushrooms, chopped
1 tsp. butter or oil
a pinch of salt
milk/cream
I was in the middle of many different things for this fall high tea I am working on, so stopping every so often to wash my hands in warm water and let everything drift away was a good thing to keep me centered and in the present moment. Getting to a point where there are too many balls in the air does not help anyone. Deep breath and continue…..
In a medium pan add the butter or oil and once melted add the chopped mushrooms. Saute the mushrooms until cooked and browned. Mushroom/butter juices is a good thing as it will keep the mixture moist.
Add the cooked chicken and salt to taste. Toss. The chicken does not need to be hot as it will be going in oven and the mixture is best used cool when making the pockets as excess heat can effect the pastry dough.
Put the mixture into a food processor and pulse several times. The point is not to make a paste but to finely cut the mixture, making in easier to handle in the pockets.
Roll out the pastry and using a cookie cutter cut out the circles for the pockets. You can see in the picture that I have two sizes. I used the larger one and the plain side to cut the circles.
Place a small amount of the mixture on one side of the circle and fold over. Press down around the edges and using a slightly smaller cutter crimp and re-cut the open edges. I used the fluted side of the smaller circle to finish off the pockets. Yes. you will loose a little dough as you can see. This will ensure that all the open edges are sealed. I found I did not need to use water between the layers of pastry to help seal the dough and the filling was solid, so if there was a small opening, nothing nasty dripped out.
If you don’t have a set of double sided circle cutters, use a glass and then once filled and sealed move, move the glass back a little bit to get a smaller half circle. The edges will be straight and no one will know the difference.
There will be left over filling unless you only made 8 teaspoons of filling. I used the remainder for a sandwich but it can go into soups, stews, omelets or anything else your heart desires.
Place on a tray and brush with milk or cream to aid the browning.
Bake at 375 degrees until heated through and the pastry is puffed and brown, about 15 minutes. As this is a food processor puff pastry, it will not puff as much as a made from scratch variety but still does the job nicely.
Serve warm or at room temperature with sage pesto which by the way, turned out to be just fine with 1/2 clove of garlic. The pockets are fairly plain making a lovely background for the flavours in the pesto. For serving at the fall tea, I piped the pesto onto the pockets.
This picture is more of the help yourself option. Another choice which would be simpler from a serving perspective in a holiday appetizer situation would be to mix the pesto with the chicken/mushroom mixture and fill the pockets with everything.
Chicken and Mushroom Pockets with Sage Pesto from My Kitchen Wand.
