Whisk Wednesdays—Bouchées aux Crevettes (Puff Pastry Shells Filled with Shrimp and Mushrooms)

Before I set out to work through Le Cordon Bleu's cooking school curriculum, I would buy a box of frozen patty shells, or vol-au-vent, to make fancy appetizers for a special dinner. Now, I'm making puff pastry at home and finding satisfaction in seeing all those layers in something I created from flour, water and butter. Although my home versions aren't hexagonal and have a bit of a rustic look, they don't have the hydrogenated soybean and palm oils that are in the store-bought version either.

I haven't made puff pastry very often…actually only twice before. The technique came back to me as I worked with it, but I still need some practice to avoid the butter seeping through the layers. It really didn't take that much hands-on time either. In-between, while it rested in the refrigerator, I had enough time to check on Twitter, email and catch up a bit on reading blogs.

After baking the puff pastry, I turned to the filling. This was another recipe review and came together easily. The sauce is a béchamel with both milk and crème fraîche. It is poured over cooked shrimp and chopped mushrooms with a flambé thrown in for extra fun and flavor. A sprinkle of paprika, salt and pepper, a garnish of common parsley, and it was ready for service.

Confession time: I just finished reading Mark Bittman's post, "TV Cooking vs. Real Cooking" and thought that there's Blog Cooking vs. Real Cooking too. I try to keep it real on this blog. I make things from scratch for the most part and tell you when I haven't actually filleted the fish or butchered the cow, and when I've used Cognac instead of Armagnac. Well, for this post I didn't have Cognac. In fact, I didn't have any alcohol that could be substituted. All I had was vodka. So, for my mise en place photo, I added a bit of vanilla to make it look like Cognac, and I'm sure it doesn't even achieve that. (shameful, I know) Then I forgot about it. When the recipe said to flambé, I poured in my "doctored" vodka and lit it up. A lovely vanilla scent wafted up, and a few expletives were said. Vanilla in this savory dish does not work. I should have used vodka or skipped the flambé step altogether, but lighting food is so much fun. That will teach me for not being real. I hope you'll forgive my madness and continue reading my blog!

Recipe

Serves 6 (I halved the recipe.)


For the Puff Pastry:
3 cups all-purpose flour
1½ cups cake flour
2 teaspoons salt
1 1/3 to 1 ½ cups cold water
4 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
28 ounces unsalted butter
1 egg, slightly beaten, for glazing

For the Shrimp and Mushroom Sauce:
3 tablespoons unsalted butter
3 tablespoons all-purpose flour
1¾ cups cold milk
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
2/3 cup crème fraîche or heavy cream (I would use sour cream instead.)
5 ounces mushrooms, trimmed, rinsed, dried, and chopped fine
1¾ pounds small cooked shrimp
3 tablespoons Cognac
Pinch of paprika

Chervil or parsley for garnish

Unsalted butter, softened, for baking sheet
You can find the recipe for Bouchées aux Crevettes (Puff Pastry Shells Filled with Shrimp and Mushrooms) in the book Le Cordon Bleu at Home. To see how the rest of the Whisk Wednesdays group fared with their recipe, click here (or check out the sidebar) and then click on each blogger!

Tasting Notes
I loved the buttery crunch of the pastry, the creaminess of the sauce, the nuttiness from the mushrooms and the chew of the shrimp all in one bite. This was a very satisfying appetizer to make from scratch. If only it didn't have that hint of vanilla!

Next Class
• Mouclade (Mussels with Wine and Cream Sauce) pages 39-40

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Running total: $1,230.06 + $6.14 (puff pastry) + $8.06 (shrimp and mushroom sauce) = $1,244.26
($ 4.73 per serving)

Butter used so far: 11 pounds, 8.5 tablespoons

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::Whisk Wednesdays::
We're cooking our way through a cooking school curriculum using the Le Cordon Bleu at Home cookbook. The "classes" are based on the Le Cordon Bleu curriculum found online and used as a guideline. Not all the items in the curriculum are in the cookbook, but most are. Where the items are not in the book, we try to find a suitable substitution. Find out more here.