Recipes 29: Shortcrust Pastry Recipe Easy

Transcript:How to Make a Shortcrust Pastry

Today I'm going to show you how to make shortcrust pastry. Shortcrust pastry is one of the most versatile pastries you can use. It can be used in sweet dishes, savory dishes, whatever. A lot of people are a little scared of making shortcrust pastry, you don't need to be -- it's very, very easy, and I'm going to show you how.

Ingredients for Shortcrust Pastry

For shortcrust pastry you will need:

200g / 7 oz plain flour or all purpose flour (see tip below)
Pinch of salt
110g / 4 oz unsalted butter, cubed
2-3 tbsp very cold water

Start Mixing the Shortcrust Pastry Dough

For shortcrust pastry, there are two different methods of making it. You can make it by hand or you can use a food processor, which is my preferred method because it's much quicker to do and it's very simple.

So into the food processor, we need to put the flour and the very cold, icy cold butter and a little pinch of salt. We just give that a quick blitz using the pulse setting on the food processor. We're going to keep mixing that until the flour and the butter looks like coarse sand and I actually think we're just about there.

Finish the Shortcrust Pastry Dough

Put the lid back on and this time we're going to run the motor on the machine and I'm going to add the very cold water, and we're going to do this very carefully, don't add all the water at once, we're going to stop the moment the pastry comes together. And we're there.

We need a sheet of plastic wrap, or Clingfilm, gather up the pastry, mold it together just gently with your hands into a ball, wrap it in plastic wrap and that's it! That's how easy it is to make shortcrust pastry. This now needs to go into the refrigerator before you use it, for a minimum of about 30 minutes, just to make sure it is well rested.

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Pancetta, Caramelized Onion & Kalamata Puff Pastry “Ravioli” with Roasted Red Pepper Sauce

Yield: Serves 4-6.

Total Time: 1 hour

Recipe adapted from Dara Michalski of Cookin' Canuck. Everything is just how she passed on to us, except we used additional puff pastry, giving a larger puff pastry/filling ratio and we had to change the cook time for our elevation at sea level. If you'd like more filling in your ravioli, halve the amount of puff pastry (use just 1 sheet) and double the amount of filling per ravioli.

Ingredients:

For the Red Pepper Sauce:

3 Red Bell Peppers, seeded & cut in half (1/2 will be used for ravioli)
2 cloves Garlic
3 tbsp (45ml) Plain Greek Yogurt
Pinch Red Chile Flakes (more or less to taste)
Sea Salt to taste

For the "Ravioli":

2 sheets (8 oz. ea) purchased Puff Pastry, thawed (or make your own Puff Pastry)
2 oz. (60g) Pancetta, chopped
2 tsp (10ml) Olive Oil
1/2 medium yellow Onion, chopped
1 oz. (15g) Kalamata Olives, pitted and finely chopped
1/2 roasted Red Pepper, chopped (see instructions below)
1 1/2 tsp (8ml) fresh Oregano, finely chopped, plus more for garnish
2 tsp (10ml) crumbled Goat Cheese (chevre)
1 Egg White
2 tsp (10ml) Water

Directions:

Roast the Red Peppers:

Preheat the broiler, rack approx. 6" from broiler element. line baking sheet with aluminum foil

Core and seed red bell peppers. Lay skin side up on lined baking sheet and gently press down so they lie flat. Broil for about 15 minutes or until skins are almost completely blackened.
Place roasted peppers in a paper bag and let them steam themselves for 10 minutes. Remove from bag and peel off the skin. Finely chop half of one bell pepper for the ravioli filling, and roughly chop the rest for the sauce.

Make the Red Pepper Sauce:

Combine the 2 1/2 roasted bell peppers, garlic, yogurt, and chili flakes in a food processor or blender.
Blend until smooth. Season with sea salt to taste, keeping in mind ravioli filling will be well seasoned by the Kalamata olives and pancetta.

Make the "Ravioli":

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F. Line 2 large baking sheets with parchment paper.

Lightly dust a work surface with flour. Roll each puff pastry sheet into a 12" square (will be approx. 1/4" thick). Cut the sheets in half to form two rectangles. Cover with a towel or plastic wrap until ready to use.
Over medium heat cook the pancetta until lightly golden. Drain on paper towels. In the same pan, add olive oil and onions and cook, stirring occasionally until golden. In a bowl, combine pancetta, onions, Kalamata olives, roasted red pepper, and oregano.
Whisk together the egg white and water to create an egg wash.
On the first two puff pastry rectangles, spoon a heaping teaspoon for each ravioli into 8 even mounds per sheet (2 rows of 4 mounds per sheet). Add about 1/4 teaspoon of crumbled goat cheese on top of each mound. Brush in between each mound with the egg wash. Cover with the other puff pastry rectangles and gently press around each mound to seal the two sheets together.
Cut around each "ravioli" with a hand held ravioli cutter, knife, fluted wheel or small cookie cutter. Carefully slide each "ravioli" onto the lined baking sheets, spacing them evenly so the air can circulate well between them. With a small knife, cut two small slits into each ravioli to release steam while cooking. Brush tops of puff pastry with egg wash.
Bake for approx. 20 minutes or until golden, rotating sheet pans halfway through cooking. Place on cooling rack for 5-10 minutes.