Puff Pastry

[Poivrot Farci]

...Staffmeals...

(Insert yawn emoticon). Washingtonian covered that one about a year ago.

And puff pastry translates to pâte feuilletée, not mille-feuille(s) which is merely a sweet application with custards thereof.

[The Hersch]

And puff pastry translates to pâte feuilletée, not mille-feuille(s) which is merely a sweet application with custards thereof.

Millefeuilles can be savory as well as sweet. But what is this comment à propos of?

[Heather]

(Insert yawn emoticon). Washingtonian covered that one about a year ago.

Post has a slighter larger readership, no? Presumably they did not all read the Washingtonian. At least the WaPo wasn't advising flipping sunny-side-up eggs this week.

Not get all pedantic and shit , but according to old-school Larousse, mille-feuille is sweet. At any rate, Mr. Farci appears to be correct in that puff pastry is pâte feuilletée, and mille-feuille is an application using pâte feuilletée.

Amernick's method is not that far off the method acribed to Carême, although his recipe calls for eggs. It sounds interesting - if I had even a modicum of the patience required to make puff pastry at home.

Edited for clarity, and sarcasm.

[Waitman]

Post has a slighter larger readership, no? Presumably they did not all read the Washingtonian. At least they weren't advising flipping sunny-side-up eggs this week.

Not get all pedantic and shit , but according to old-school Larousse, mille-feuille is sweet. At any rate, Mr. Farci appears to be correct in that puff pastry is pâte feuilletée, and mille-feuille is an application using pâte feuilletée.

Amernick's method is not that far off the method acribed to Carême, although his recipe calls for eggs. It sounds interesting - if I had even a modicum of the patience required to make puff pastry at home.

Although, for better or for worse, mille-feuille has fallen into common menu usage denoting anything stacked between puff pastry (just as you can now get a fish confit. I'm reasonably sure I once had something called a Tomato Mille-Feuille that involved no pastry at all, just layers of different and differently prepared tomatoes and cheese.

[Heather]

fallen into common menu usage denoting anything stacked between puff pastry (just as you can now get a fish confit.

Indeed.

I'm reasonably sure I once had something called a Tomato Mille-Feuille that involved no pastry at all, just layers of different and differently prepared tomatoes and cheese.

I seem to recall that a "Mushroom Napoleon" has been served at your table, so you've done your part to debase the term.

[Waitman]

Indeed.I seem to recall that a "Mushroom Napoleon" has been served at your table, so you've done your part to debase the term.

"Napoleon" is a bastardization anyway. Try walking into a French pastry shop and asking for one and what you get (nervous laughter and quizzical looks -- I've done it). I'm allowed to further corrupt the word however I see fit, even making the dish with phyllo instead of puff if I choose (or the cookbook commands). .

[DonRocks]

"Napoleon" is a bastardization anyway. Try walking into a French pastry shop and asking for one and what you get (nervous laughter and quizzical looks -- I've done it). I'm allowed to further corrupt the word however I see fit, even making the dish with phyllo instead of puff if I choose (or the cookbook commands). .

Napoleon Le Bon Bonbon.

[The Hersch]

In Mastering the Art of French Cooking, vol II, Julia Child has a savory dish she calls Milles-Feuilles a la Fondue de Fromage, which she Englishes as Cheese Napoleons (1970, p. 139). If anyone here is suggesting that St. Julia contributed to the debasing of anything, I shall have to ask him or her to step outside.

[Poivrot Farci]

I would like to tangle with neither The Hersch nor The Lurching Ghost of Mrs. Child but contemporary savory Mille-feuilles, Napoleons and other whimsical interpretations of generally sweet productions* (chaussons, pithivers, galettes, palmiers, fleurons) may be the result of creative atrophy or passionless research as there exist savory puff based counterparts and no moratorium on new names/designs. Carême was using PP for savory applications, as documented in “Le Patissier Royal Parisien” 1810, and “Patissier Pittoresque” 1815 to invent vehicles for savory preparations with specific names as per their shape and usage: vol à vent, bouchées à la reine, croquants, tourtes, friands, croustades and such...Mrs. Child's cheese mille-feuilles may fall under square allumettes or minimalist stacked cheese koulibiac. Puff possibilities are endless, but savory pissaladières with a base other than bread dough (and with tomato) are modern northern dillusions of traditional southern Gallo-Roman fare and should be named as such.

Officially, we owe the original puff pastry recipe to François Pierre de la Varenne's “modern” 1651 haute-cuisine breakthrough cookbook: Le Cuisinier François. Varenne's fundamental contributions to culinary posterity rival only those of Taillevent and Carême. His credited culinary firsts include: bouquet garni, oeufs à la neige, eggs white clarification, duxelle, béchamel (first to thicken soups with roux rather than Taillevent's bread) and, anyone, anyone...the mille feuilles, later perfected by Carême.

Legends of the flakey pastry's origins include a 1311 charter by Robert du Fouilly, Bishop of Amiens in which “gateaux feuilletées” are to have been mentioned. Rabelais wrote of “Grand Gateaux Feuilletez (sic)” in his 1532 novel Pantagruel (son of Gargantua).

A 17th century pastry chef named Feuillet, personal patissier to the Marshal of Condé is alleged to have invented the variety of dough, eponymous through past tense conjugation and gender.

Not to be outdone, ca. 1620 another Frenchman inadvertently created puff stuff, allegedly. Upon the early death of his parents, Claude “Le Lorrain” Gellée became a pastry apprentice and followed a pastry troupe to Rome where he became a personal chef to artist Agostino Tassi. As well as cooking for the painter, Le Lorrain's duties included mixing colors which burgeoned a desire to paint as well. While juggling a toque and palette he is thought to have forgotten some dough and butter in a corner, then hastily folded, assembled and baked the equally inflated prototype.

*1959: Lenny Lipton writes the lyrics for reefer anthem Puff the Magic Dragon, later recorded by Peter, Paul & Mary... then performed on the small stage in my 2nd grade class a long time ago.

[Pool Boy]

I used premade puff pastry to make this, but it would have been far better with homemade pastry.

I think I am scared to make homemade (puff?) pastry. There's some magic there that is unknown to me and basically intimidating. I am sure home made pastry is far better than what you buy at the store. But man, that must be hard to make.

[Pat]

I think I am scared to make homemade (puff?) pastry. There's some magic there that is unknown to me and basically intimidating. I am sure home made pastry is far better than what you buy at the store. But man, that must be hard to make.

I've made pate a choux and it's come out okay, so I'm not too intimidated about puff pastry. It's work, but I think I can do it. At least I'm willing to try. I still haven't tried it, but this soup requires something freshly made. It doesn't attach to the top of the bowl properly if it's a premade (i.e., commercial) puff pastry.

[lperry]

I think I am scared to make homemade (puff?) pastry. There's some magic there that is unknown to me and basically intimidating. I am sure home made pastry is far better than what you buy at the store. But man, that must be hard to make.

Porcupine and I took a class from Ann Amernick on puff pastry. I highly recommend it, because if nothing else, she will tell you, as she did me, not to be afraid of the dough.

[porcupine]

I think I am scared to make homemade (puff?) pastry. There's some magic there that is unknown to me and basically intimidating. I am sure home made pastry is far better than what you buy at the store. But man, that must be hard to make.

Not really. Time consuming, yes. There are two common methods; the classic method wherein you make beurrage and detrempe is a bit of a pain, but the other method isn't much worse than pie dough. It just has more steps.