Quick Cuisine: Puff Pastry Braid with Spinach & Mushroom
What does not taste good in a puff pastry? Honestly, a store bought puff pastry can elevate any meal to something fancy with no effort. The recipe is a combination of kitchen clean out and fancy brunch. I repurpose a mix of mushroom duxelles and spinach mix here, but really you can do as you wish and make it your own. Enjoy!
Ingredients:
one rectangular puff pastry
250 grams/8 cups of fresh spinach chopped (one cup of frozen spinach works but squeeze out the water)
one teaspoon olive oil
one cup of mushroom duxelles (if you want to just saute a can of mushrooms in olive oil, that works too!)
85 grams/3 oz goat cheese
two Tablespoons parmesan cheese
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
pinch of good sea salt
Directions:
In a large pan that can hold all the spinach heat the olive oil at medium and add the spinach and cover. Allow the spinach to wilt and then cook out the water. This will start as 8 cups but reduce to one cup. Place in a bowl with the mushrooms, cheese, salt and pepper. This will be thick - it should not be watery at all! Mix everything through and place in the fridge for at least 30 minutes or overnight. It comes out to approximately 2 cups of filling. If you decide you don’t like mushrooms, use more spinach and cheese, remembering that this should not be a watery mix!
Preheat the oven to 200C/390F. Roll out the puff pastry, but keep the parchment paper for the baking. Before cutting, think of the pastry in thirds. The two outer edges become the braid, and the middle will hold the filling. When you cut the strips on the side - make them about an inch/3-4 cm each and cut straight or diagonally and carefully cut strips as shown on the side leaving the middle third for the filling. Take out the chilled filling and place in the center. Carefully take the strips one by one and layer over each other like a braid - it does not need to be perfect or super tight - let the mix breathe a bit. If you like you can sprinkle the braid with a touch of sesame seeds or I use everything bagel seasoning for color.
Bake for 25 minutes(check the oven at 20) some ovens require 30 minutes and cool for at least 15 minutes before cutting. Done. Enjoy! This works warm or cold.