Comments on: Chicken and Spinach Pastry Pocket

By: Geoff

Geoff — Mon, 29 Jul 2013 10:39:13 +0000

Hi Evenheart,
Rest assured that if you did make pastry on your table top any bacteria unfortunate enough to cling to the dough is destined to be totally destroyed in the cooking process.
If you saw how pastry, or many other products are made in factories, you would not be assured of sterility at all and you would neither buy or eat them! Even raw flour itself contains bacteria, dirt and other “organic bits”.
Your table top if it does have bacteria on it is probably benign or harmless and probably you are immune to it being from your house or person (s).
Remember that pasteurisation of milk is at 78degrees C. Boiling items (100C) sterilises them sufficient for surgery. You would be cooking pastry at 150-180C and nothing would survive that!

Make your pastry. It is a very rewarding process and once you start, you will want to practice. In Singapore you must watch the temperature of the dough and keep it cool for shortcrust. Choose your flour carefully, avoid high gluten or strong flours for pastries.

As for Borgs pastry….I am pleased and surprised that you have it. That was most unexpected! I have found sometimes that Borg’s pastry, both shortcrust and puff pastry can be too moist, the opposite of your experience. Maybe it is your oven, temperature and maybe timing. It could be that you are baking too low a temperature for too long. is that possible?
I use a Bosch fan forced oven and shortcrust cooks quickly at 160-170C. But if you are not using fan forced it would be different
Happy baking. Geoff

By: evenheart

evenheart — Mon, 29 Jul 2013 10:15:38 +0000

In reply to Geoff Cartridge. Hi Geoff, thanks for your tip about adding balsamic vinegar to onions.. I would prefer to splash it straight to the onions too! As a matter of fact I bought BORGS pastry from the supermarket! The shortcrust is not as "shortcrust" as I would have liked and it turns out a little bit dry. I'm wondering if it's something to do with my oven temperature. It's a great alternative than having to roll out pastry dough on my tabletop though.. I always imagine all kinds of bacteria sticking to the dough so I've never got around to making any pastry from scratch!

By: Geoff Cartridge

Geoff Cartridge — Mon, 29 Jul 2013 03:46:39 +0000

Caramelising onions is an important part of enriching the taste of savouries, Whenever I caramlise onions I usually put a spoonful or so of balsamic vinegar with them. The sharpness of the vinegar balances the sweetness of the onions, the balsam gives a beautiful complimentary aroma and flavour. You de glaze with white wine. You could also add balsamic vinegar to the wine, but I prefer to splash it onto the onions….(it is a bit of a treat for my nose!) I know what you mean about the shop bought pastry, it is rarely satisfactory. Too often there is no butter in either the puff pastry or shortcrust but some combination of cheap margarine or hydrogenated fats. But there is one here called BORGS. It is only available in Australia in a few stores (Woolworths and Safeway). You might be able to find it in Singapore if you are lucky. It produces superior results always.
For children (and elderly parents!) I have a Breville pie maker which makes 4 pies perfectly and very quickly every time with crisp well cooked pastry and it keeps the flavours in. Usually I make about 20 at a time.
I know a pie maker is cheating :-) but if you want to make some pies quickly and without the fuss of a lot of pastry prep it is ideal.
Best wishes. Geoff (Adelaide)