Today, an experienced chef knows the recipes for dozens of pies - made from different dough, in different ways and with different fillings. But, of course, it is puff pasties with meat that are one of the most delicious. So to know the method of their preparation will be useful to every cook, even a beginner.
History of pies in Russia
According to experts, the word "pie" comes from the word "feast". Indeed, what festive feast, whether it was a princely wedding or the wedding of a poor peasant, did without pies? They were prepared with a variety of fillings - sweet, with berries, as well as more nutritious - with meat, fish, eggs and vegetables. The reasons were also different - as a celebration (wedding, birthday, religious holidays), and funerals or commemoration.
Large pies were prepared as a main course, and small, for two or three bites, served as a snack. In rich families they were served immediately after fish dishes, before the main second courses - porridge or roast. And just in wealthy pies filled the gap between the first dish and the second. Sweet, of course, served as a dessert.
Why choose puff pastry?
Why is it that puff pastry with meat got the most popularity? There are many reasons for this.
To begin with, when preparing puff pastry, ingredients containing B vitamins are used - they have a positive effect on the condition of hair, teeth and nails. The content of fast and complex carbohydrates allows you to quickly get enough of even a relatively small amount of food - two or three small pies are enough.
About taste, you can not talk. The dough is easily soaked with juice secreted by meat, which makes it especially aromatic and tasty. In addition, with proper preparation, the baked goods are surprisingly tender, soft, crumbly.
True, excessive zeal should not be at the table. The dish has a high calorie content, so you should not eat up “from the belly” - getting rid of excess calories will not be easy at all.
Making the filling
To prepare a delicate and tasty filling, you will need:
- 700 grams of minced meat;
- 2 medium onions;
- 1 chicken egg;
- salt and pepper.
Stuffing can be taken different. Want a diet dish? Take the chicken. Would you like to get a particularly tasty, juicy dish? Give preference to the pig. But real professionals, deciding to cook puff pastries with meat in the oven, choose a mixture of pork and beef in equal proportions. In this case, the stuffing turns out to be moderately juicy, but not too fat - just what you need.
Also do not forget about onions. Without it, the baked stuffing will be rather dry and rather rough. So, start cooking:
- Peel and chop the onion - as small as possible, so that it is almost not felt in the finished dish.
- Defrost minced meat (if it is frozen - it is better to take chilled, and ideally - fresh).
- Mix the minced meat with onion, add salt and pepper there, break the egg and mix everything thoroughly - you should get the most homogeneous mass.
The filling is ready. Now it can be left on the table or put in the refrigerator for several hours so that the ingredients are saturated with each other as much as possible - this will only benefit from pies with meat from puff pastry.
We proceed to the most difficult - cooking puff pastry.
How to knead the perfect dough?
Many housewives prefer not to make puff pastry at home, but to buy ready-made. It is quite reasonable, given that it is quite difficult to cope with such a task, and puff pastry is not too expensive. But still, a real chef should be able to do everything with his own hands, so we will tell you more about this difficult but important stage.
Stock up on the following ingredients:
- 1 kg of premium flour;
- 2 chicken eggs;
- 800 grams of butter or margarine;
- 2 tablespoons 7% vinegar;
- 350 grams of cold water;
- 1 teaspoon of salt.
Everything is ready? Now be patient - you will need it when cooking.
- Break the eggs into a bowl, pour salt in and pour in the vinegar. Mix well.
- Pour in a thin stream of water (always cold!) And mix again so that the liquid becomes homogeneous. Put the bowl in the refrigerator.
- Pour the sifted flour onto the table. Dip a piece of margarine or butter in it and grate it on a coarse grater. Remember to dip the butter periodically into flour so that they mix better. Now mix them well by hand.
- Form a slide with a recess from the resulting mass and pour in the cooled liquid here. Mix everything again. Remember that you do not need to knead the dough - just lift it from the edges and move it to the center, repeating the procedure several times.
- Put the almost finished dough in the refrigerator for an hour and a half.
- Take out the dough and roll out as thinly as possible. Fold it several times and roll it out again, then return it to the refrigerator to allow it to cool.
- Repeat the procedure five times, so it will take a lot of time to cook. But as a result, you get the perfect dough. The main thing - do not forget to cool it in the refrigerator so that the layers do not stick together.
When all the ingredients are ready, you can tell the recipe for puff pastry with meat.
Cooking pies
The cooking procedure itself is quite simple:
- Take out a piece of dough (about a quarter) and roll it into a cake. Divide into several rectangles.
- Add a little stuffing to the edge of each rectangle and cover with the second free half. It is desirable to press the edges with a fork to prevent the juice from leaking out during cooking.
- Lubricate the patties with a beaten egg and put in an oven preheated to 200 degrees. Bake for 35-40 minutes.
That's all. Pies with meat from puff pastry are ready! You can call guests or household to the table.
Counting calories
However, leaning on a gourmet dish, as mentioned above, should not be. Do not forget that the puff pie with meat has a very high calorie content. One hundred grams of the product prepared according to the recipe listed here contains about 350 kilocalories.
A couple of pies is enough to get enough. But it’s very difficult to resist and not eat a couple more of these pieces melting in your mouth. It is only subsequently to get rid of the excess calories deposited on the waist and hips will be even more difficult.