Puff Pastry Stuffed with Crab

Chef John Guinivere prepares Puff Pastry Stuffed with Crab

Puff Pastry, what they do is they create a butter block it’s usually like three-pound butter block. Often you do it on like a sheet pan, just give the better softness and throw it in the freezer. Then you start with a dough ball probably twice, I think it’s around six or seven pounds. And you roll that and you slap the butter block inside and fold it over and then you roll it out and just fold it over again. And you keep doing it and by the time you’re finished you’ll end up with hundreds of layers of flour, butter, flour, butter, flour, butter. And so when you baked it, it gets all nice and puffy and that’s why I call it Puff Pastry. It’s nice and light and they have the sheets that you can also use. This is 400 degree oven. They’ll be a little bit quick, the sheets are actually pretty neat as you can make little orders out of them, I make it a dessert where do I do a puff pastry in the pan. And I cover it with strawberries and any fruits you like, couple of choco bars, put the lid on and bake it. Everybody can do—it’s really, really easy. It takes about three minutes to put together. It’s something chefs likes, we can do something ahead of time like the beef wanton, you know, for a whole bunch of things. And then it’s fancy and everybody really likes it. And the first thing we’re going to do is sauté some mushrooms, I probably take the longest as far as—not how long mushroom takes but the kind of flavor we’re trying to get out in such a little bit of time. I used to spend a lot of time up in Seattle and there they have a lot of wild mushrooms in the winter time. And then you go in store and mushrooms where use to pan 25 bucks for a pound or $2.00 a pound. And so I just grab jag bags of them and everybody is like, “What are you going to do with those?” “Well, I don’t know. I guess you’re buying something to do.” And our Marcello lime, and a couple more of mushrooms. Mushrooms have a lot of liquid in them. So get the idea that sauté them a little bit longer and to get the liquid out. And then let’s start sautéing with the fat and really get that great mushroom flavor. A little salt and you hear about salt, you know, chefs talk about Kosher salt and the salt, to me salt is just—it’s enough salt if it tastes right. And these are sun dried tomatoes that I reconstituted. I use either the reconstituted ones or the ones that are in the olive oil. But they’re both good products—the dried, the ones are just straight dried actually I think are better value. Some onions, one thing I—actually another chef taught me this not too long ago, is if you’re doing a cream sauce and you want to keep your cream sauce nice and light colored, make sure you’re mushroom craps are closed, because if they’re up, I think it’s called veins or gills, the gills will actually darken your sauce. I didn’t knew that until a year ago, when I see him I having these chefs around now I get to learn a lot from them too. Where going to puff pastry, I might have to cook a little bit slower but not much. And I got this asparagus that was on sale, I pretty much cook by what’s on sale at home, I go store a couple of days and I’m always onto sales. I got to have some garlic in there. And the last of the part of it is I’m going to add some saffron, so I deglaze. Saffron is the most expensive spice in the world I think, it can go for hundreds an ounce. And it’s actually the stamen of a flower, the best saffron comes from Iran as a matter of fact. And as you see it give a yellow color to your food and it got a unique flavor as well. We get the tray for a minute, it’s cream. For a dish like this, I usually use a pasteurized crab. You could use something like Alaskan King, but I think it’s sort of a shame to take a crab that good and add a bunch of other flavor whereas the pasteurized crab and that kind of stuff is not really imitation, but it’s not—so it is in these little something, so that’s generally why we add a sauce to it or whatever. I look at my Puff Pastry and see how they’re doing. And a couple more minutes to go to pop up. Just add mayonnaise for finish and garnish. If you have been to Asian restaurant, they have the cream in there that it’s curled up, what you so is cut it on top and slice it down through the end like that. And then put it nice where for a couple of minutes and it will all curl up, it’s a nice and neat garnish. And at this point you really don’t want to mix because just the crab is going to fall apart especially if you get some of the—down in Texas, they have that beautiful lump crab and part of it is those nice big chunks. Crab, you have to put it in your mouth so it’s taste. It’s pretty good, I think you’re going to like it. I took more cream and a little bit of more salt, and a little bit of white pepper. I generally say white pepper for white sauces, black pepper for the rest. Okay, I guess we’re done, pretty gone maybe a second longer. And the center piece is where you lid—take that off, set that aside and really you can these for whether you want dessert-type stuff. Put some little cream. I just want enough sauce as you’re eating it. Sides a little bit and there we have Puff Pastries with Crabs, Sautéed Mushroom and Cream Sauce.