Vegetable Strudel in Puff Pastry
A crisper drawer full of veggies crying to be used, puff pastry, and dinner guests, one of whom has gone vegetarian (no judgment here). What to do? I settled on making a vegetable strudel with goat cheese in puff pastry. I used this recipe from Two Kooks in the Kitchen (thanks Kooks), as a base. I left the apples out because that combo didn’t appeal to me. I also opted not to bother with the red onion and went with red pepper for colour instead. The result was delicious. I served it with a dollop of Marcella Hazan’s “internet famous tomato sauce” which added a bit of acidity to balance the sweetness of the veggies.
Note: If you are using frozen puff pasty, make sure you take it out of the freezer and defrost according to the instructions so it’s ready to use.
Ingredients
- 1 package of puff pastry (I’m lazy and my kitchen is small, but mostly I’m lazy)
- 1 Tbsp (aka healthy glug) of olive oil
- 1 Japanese sweet potato, unpeeled and diced (half the good stuff is in the peel so I left it on, plus see note about lazy)
- 1 red pepper, large dice
- 1 yellow pepper, large dice
- 1 sweet onion, medium dice
- 3 cloves garlic, minced
- 1 bunch spinach
- 1 tsp dried thyme
- 1 tsp kosher salt
- fresh ground pepper to taste
- 1 package goat cheese
- 1 egg beaten with a little water for egg wash
Method
- Preheat the oven to 400 F.
- Prep the veggies.
- Add the olive oil to a large frying pan.
- Add the onion, sweet potato, and peppers and turn the heat to medium-high.
- Saute for 15 minutes or until the potato starts to soften.
- Add the garlic, thyme, salt, and pepper and give it a good stir,
- Add the spinach and saute until the spinach wilts (a couple minutes).
- Turn off the heat and let the veggies cool for 10 minutes.
- Crumble in the goat cheese and stir well to incorporate.
- Taste and adjust the seasonings, if necessary.
- Set the veggie mixture aside and prep the puff pastry (if it needs to be rolled out, roll it out to a 12″ x 14″ rectangle). I used a frozen version which was just fine.
- Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
- Place your puff pastry on top of the paper and add a good heaping log of filling down the centre. Leave enough room on the ends to fold over the filling by about 2 inches.
- Use the parchment paper to fold the pastry over the filling on the short sides.
- Again using the parchment paper, fold over one half. Fold the other half over top and make sure you’ve got at least 1″ of overlap.
- Seal the dough and use the parchment paper to roll the pastry over so that the seam is face down. Centre it on the baking sheet.
- Beat the egg with water to make an egg wash and use a pastry brush to coat the top and sides.
- Cut 8 slashes into the top to allow the steam to escape.
- Bake in the oven 35 minutes or until the pastry is a golden brown.
- Remove from the oven and let cool for at least 5 minutes before slicing.
This can be baked ahead and then just reheated for 20 minutes in a 400 F oven.
Serves 4 as a main dish.