“Okay,” my friend said. “I’m going to watch everything you do when you make that goat cheese tart. I need to learn how to cook puff pastry.”
“Oh,” I said. “It’s very complex. You’ll have to take notes.”
I was kidding, of course.
She followed me to the kitchen. I opened the freezer. I took out a package and held it aloft. “Behold,” I said gravely. “Pepperidge Farm puff pastry.”
“You’re kidding,” she said. “Can I buy it anywhere?”
“Anywhere,” I said in a solemn voice as I opened the box, took out the paper wrapped panels of dough, removed one, rubber banded the other one shut and stuck it back in the freezer.
Then I laid the removed bit on a piece of parchment paper put down on a cookie sheet. Poured us both out glasses of wine. “Now we wait,” I said. “For what?” she said—by this time she had realized it was a joke, that thing about taking notes. “For it to defrost.”
We sat by the fire drinking our wine. Then back to the kitchen where the pastry was thawed enough to unfold its full length onto the parchment paper. “Don’t let it defrost too much, and when it gets like this, you put it in the fridge till you’re ready to cook with it.”
Into the fridge it went. While it was there, I sliced two onions very thinly and sauteed them in a couple of tablespoons of butter till they were soft and sweet and golden brown. Went out to the fall garden and snagged some sprigs of woody thyme that survived the frost. Came back in, took out the puff pastry and a round of goat cheese. Turned the oven on to 400 to preheat.
“NOW I have to watch,” she said. “How do you get that puffed up border all around the tart?”
“Observe and learn,” I said. Taking a little knife, I sketched a border around the edge of the pastry, about an inch wide. Then I took a pastry brush and dipped it in the buttery juices of the onions in their skillet and brushed the melted butter around the border. I looked at my friend.
“That’s it?” she said. “That’s it,” I said, as I scattered the onions all over the inside of the border, crumbled the goat cheese atop, and stripped the thyme branches of their leaves over it all.
The oven beeped temperature ready. Cookie sheet slid in the oven. Timer set for twenty minutes. Another glass of wine.
I checked at twenty minutes, and the border was nice and puffy, but I wanted more gold in the color, so I left it in another five. It came out awe-inspiringly beautfiul. And delicious. As we dug into our portions, my friend said, “I can’t believe it. All this time I never knew. First thing when I get home, I’m buying two packages and having them all the time in the freezer.”
We had a good time talking over all the things you could do with them. And here was one of the best I discovered a few weeks later for a friend’s birthday.
For filling, I spread sour cream in a thin layer inside the border. The rim itself I buffed with a little cream. Then on top of the sour cream, I spread out a jar we’d gotten for Christmas of New Mexico apple butter flavored with green chile (Thank you, Peter and Emily). It looked a little naked, so I sprinkled some chopped pecans on top. (These would normally have been sliced almonds, but the birthday girl is allergic to those.) Baked twenty, twenty five minutes till it was all gold and bubbling.
Everyone said it was one of the best desserts ever.
Puff pastry. As they say in the ads ‘in the freezer section of your supermarket’. As I say, “Dependable Elegance.”