#17 - Rye Puff Pastry, and Potato Dauphinoise Pithivier
How to step up your puff, and a recipe for indulgence
Hello!
Happy Friday - I hope you had a great week.
This week I’m going back to the ever-wonderful puff pastry. I’m going to show you a great way to add additional flavour to the pastry itself through alternative flour, as well as another lovely recipe to show off those beautiful layers in the form of a pithivier. A little like our Galette des Rois from a few weeks ago, this is a free-form pie made with two discs of puff pastry. You can create your own sweet or savoury pithiviers with whichever fillings you like, but I think this potato and leek one is pretty special.
This is also my opportunity to implore you all to make your own puff. I know many people will be put off by the idea, having heard on the grapevine that it is a labour of love, and that only that strange breed of people (pastry chefs) actually make their own. It does, of course, take time, but the hands-on practical time is fairly minimal. The bulk of the work is in the resting and chilling, which your lovely fridge will do for you. All you need is a few spare minutes to do a bit of rolling and folding, which seems a pretty fair deal to me.
Making puff pastry is a very romantic notion to me. I picture cold winter afternoons in my dressing gown, spent slowly rolling and folding, with reading breaks whilst my pastry rests. It’s safe to say that the reality is a stark contrast, as it usually involves me in flour-stained jeans, hastily squeezing in folds between various other things I have to do in the day. I suspect this may be your experience too (if the former, lucky you). But I should add that this makes it all the more worthwhile. I tend to cram my days with far too much, finishing them feeling as though I have actually achieved very little. Homemade puff pastry is, however, physical proof that you have achieved something, and the perfect blank canvas for creating something delicious.
#17 - Potato Dauphinoise Pithivier
Puff pastry essentials - a recap
Changing up your puff pastry
Rye puff pastry, a recipe
Potato dauphinoise pithivier, a recipe
Puff pastry essentials - a recap
For those of you who may have missed it, we’ve covered puff pastry in some depth over on #14. The most important thing to remember about puff pastry is that there are two key elements (the basic pastry and the butter block) that are folded together. Folding them enables us to incorporate the butter in the dough in the form of layers (lamination). These layers of butter then create steam when baked in the oven, causing the pastry to puff up in the beautiful layers that are so characteristic of puff pastry.
You can, of course, buy shop-bought puff. No-one (including me) will judge you, and I have been known to use it from time to time. However, it is important to note that unless you can source all-butter puff pastry from your supermarket the flavour will not be the same. This is because ready-made puff pastry contains vegetable oil (sometimes palm oil) and other preservatives, rather than butter. Besides the important environmental impact of palm oil, the lack of butter means you miss out on a whole lot of flavour.
Changing up your puff pastry
My honest opinion is that puff pastry is perfect just the way it is. Layer upon layer of buttery pastry is always a winner, and it serves both sweet and savoury dishes equally well. However, this also shouldn’t stop you from experimenting a little if you feel confident to do so.
This week, I wanted to add a little extra flavour to the pastry that might complement a savoury pie. When making the Sage and Squash Galette, we used wholemeal rye flour to add a little nuttiness to the pastry. So, it seemed only right to attempt the same with this potato pie. In the recipe below, I have incorporated 50% wholemeal rye flour to the basic dough, as well as increasing the water quantity slightly (rye flour can absorb more than standard wheat flour).
It is important to think about how your pastry will behave if you decide to alter ingredients. In this case, rye flour is much lower in protein than standard wheat flour, meaning that it isn’t going to form as many gluten bonds. Put simply, this means it won't be as strong and stretchy. Of course, we don’t want too much gluten in our pastry - whilst we need it in bread making, too much in our pastry will make it tough and inedible. However, we do need a little to ensure it has good structure and can hold up those layers when baking. So, for this reason I chose to keep 50% of the flour as strong white. Besides this, the recipe and method remain the same as with my standard puff.
Rye puff pastry
Makes 500g
For the détrempe (basic dough):
100g strong white flour
100g wholemeal rye flour
1 tsp salt
1 tsp sugar
50g unsalted butter, melted
90g water
1/2 tsp white wine vinegar
For the beurrage (butter block):
160g unsalted butter, softened
20g plain flour
As previously mentioned, the method here is the same as used a few weeks ago for our standard puff pastry. If you click here, you’ll be taken to the page with the method for this. The images demonstrating the method show the standard puff pastry, so your dough will look darker with the rye flour. However, the method remains the same!
Potato Dauphinoise Pithivier
What better way to spend the winter than eating layers of creamy potatoes encased in buttery pastry. If you are calorie-averse, this is perhaps one to avoid. However, I’d encourage you to cast your fears aside and indulge. This is the sort of thing you treat yourself to once in a while, and if you’ve made your own puff pastry then, frankly, you deserve to.
If you don’t fancy the potato filling, you can really fill your pithivier as you please. A lentil and cheddar filling would work well, or perhaps a good old-fashioned piece of beef fillet. Just be sure that the filling isn’t too wet or your pithivier will be doomed to a soggy end.
One last note - you will need to make the potato filling a day ahead. This gives it plenty of time to cool and be pressed, which is important for constructing your pithivier. You could make both the puff pastry and the filling in the same day, ready to construct the following day. If you want to break up the work even more, the puff pastry will keep well in the freezer until you are ready to use it.
Makes one 8-inch pthivier, enough to feed 6 people
Ingredients
One quantity of rye puff pastry, as shown above
400g waxy potatoes
1/2 leek
150g cream
150g whole milk
2 tsp fine sea salt
30 grinds of black pepper
Pinch of grated nutmeg
One egg, beaten with a pinch of salt for finishing
Method
Preheat the oven to 180°C fan/200°C/400°F/Gas mark 6 and line a small (around 7 inch, see note below) baking dish with parchment.
Begin by preparing your potato filling - this should be done the day before you want to make the pthivier. Peel and thinly slice the potatoes. This is easiest with a mandoline, but I did this with a sharp knife and got equally good results. Slice the leek half into thin rounds, then wash well and leave to dry.
Combine the cream, milk, sea salt, black pepper and grated nutmeg in a small pan and bring to a boil. Remove from the heat.
In a small baking dish, layer your sliced potatoes as evenly as possible, alternating with layers of leeks. Pour the cream over, cover with foil and bake for 45 minutes.
A note on your baking dish: I happen to have a 7-inch round baking dish, which came in very handy here. If you aren’t so lucky, just choose the smallest baking dish you have. Once baked and pressed, you can trim the dauphinoise to fit into your pithivier, so it doesn’t need to be the perfect size from the off. Alternatively, use a cake tin of similar size - just be sure to line it very well with foil or parchment to ensure it doesn’t leak.
After the first 45 minutes, remove the foil from the top and continue baking for another 45 minutes. By this time, the potatoes should feel soft and cooked through when a knife is inserted. If not, continue baking until they feel soft. The baking time here may be shorter if you are using a much larger baking dish.
Allow to cool at room temperature before covering. Place something heavy on top - tinned tomatoes or large jars tend to work well - and chill in the fridge overnight. The goal here is to press the potato together to get nice layers and make it easier to construct the pithivier.
The next day, roll out the puff pastry to a sheet of around 3mm thickness. It should be large enough for two 7-8 inch circles, so bear this in mind whilst rolling out. Chill the rolled pastry in the fridge for 30 minutes to allow it to rest.
Meanwhile, take the pressed dauphinoise from the fridge and invert the baking dish to tip it out. Be careful - although most of the liquid will have cooked off in the baking process, there may still be cream at the bottom of the dish. Trim this to roughly a 7-inch circle using a plate or cake tin as a guide. This will be the filling for the pithivier.
If your baking dish was much larger than 7 inches, don’t get rid of your trimmings. You can stack them on top of the dauphinoise disc - your pithivier might not look quite as neat, but it’s a shame to waste them and miss out on perfectly good filling. If you used a particularly large baking dish, you may even be able to cut two 7-inch circles and stack these on top of each other.
Cut the pastry sheet into two squares (roughly the same size). Place one onto a lined baking tray and place the dauphinoise disc and any trimmings on top.
Brush the beaten egg onto the pastry around the potato filling, creating a border of about 1cm, then place the second square of rolled pastry over the top. Use the sides of your hands to press down gently, creating a nice dome shape and sealing the pastry.
Using a plate or cake tin of around 8 inches as a guide, gently cut around the outside to trim the excess pastry. Keep your trimmings, we will use them next week - see #15 for tips on how to store them. Then, using the same technique as used for our Galette des Rois, create a scallop edge by pushing the back of a small knife into the pastry edge, spacing these about 1-2cm apart.
Brush with egg wash, then use the back of a knife to score lines from the centre to the edge. This creates a nice pattern when baked, and helps ensure our pastry rises and cracks in the places we want. Create a little steam hole by inserting a small skewer or knife in the centre.
To make the steam hole into a feature of the pithivier, you can create a little decoration using the remaining pastry scraps. Use a small round cutter or the large end of a piping nozzle to cut a circle. Using the tip of a round piping nozzle, cut the centre out of this. Cut the steam hole to the same size, then place the pastry ring on top.
Egg wash once more, then chill for a minimum of 30 minutes.
Whilst the pithivier chills, preheat the oven to 200°C fan/220°C/425°F/Gas mark 7. It is important to have a nice hot oven for your pastry, so let it preheat for a good 20-30 minutes before baking.
Bake the pithivier for 20-25 minutes, or until a deep golden brown.
Incidentally, the method for assembling your pithivier is very similar to that of the Galette des Rois, so if you’re having trouble with this then take a look at #14. In the meantime, I am hoping to get access to the new substack feature which will allow me to share videos here too!
Good luck with your baking this week. I’m already looking forward to next week’s newsletter, which will feature an exciting version of a classic cherry pie for Valentine’s Day using your puff pastry scraps.
Speak soon,
Annabelle
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