Don't Try This At Home

This post, and the previous entry about my failed potato spoon bread, have been something of a departure from the traditional food blog format. For some reason, people feel that anything less than perfect isn't worth blogging about. They don't make mention of their mistakes or of how many times they had to make the same recipe before they got it right. And I get it. No one really wants to cook a recipe that almost works. What's the point, when generally, much better, more reliable versions are available at blog down the street?

But it's false advertising. Cooking takes work, and blogging takes work, and if I have to cook everything 3 or 4 times before I get a blog entry out of it, I'm going to waste a lot of time, money, and food. I'll revisit recipes that didn't work the first time, but I'm not going to spend the weekend making 5 loaves of bread so that on Monday morning, I can claim perfection. For now, "almost" is just fine with me.

This almost worked. It was a great plan in theory. Make a savory pate a choux, fill with sandwich stuff, and have cute little tea sandwiches for dinner. "Almost" covers a lot of ground. I almost got the pate a choux right. But then they didn't puff in the oven, and they didn't have the big pocket in the center that characterizes a good pate a choux. I almost came up with a great marinated beef sandwich filling. Then I grilled it a bit too long and it dried out. I almost had some amazing grilled marinated veggies to go along with the beef, but I ran out of room on the grill, threw them in a pan on the stove, and watched them drown in their own moisture as they steamed to death, instead of picking up the proper char I was looking for. I almost had a really great sandwich concept, but the pate a choux dough, which I've never had before, has some serious egg overtones that I hadn't counted on.

But the principle is sound.

On the off chance that you've neglected your pastry studies, pate a choux is a very strange pastry dough that starts out by being boiled, and turns into cream puffs, eclairs, and theoretically some savory dishes of which I've only heard rumors (I've heard rumors that savory dishes with pate a choux exist. I have no idea what they actually might be.). This dough is characterized by its texture: instead of having small bubbles dispersed throughout, it ends up with one big center bubble, which is usually filled with stuff of your choice. It also has no yeast or baking soda. The size increase is due solely to the expansion of water vapor that occurs during cooking.

I wanted to try pate a choux because it's the only pastry I've ever heard of that is piped through an icing bag. I did my research here, at the repository of "Good Eats" transcripts, where there is a whole show devoted to pate a choux. I followed the recipe pretty much to the letter, except I mixed by hand instead of with a stand mixer. Also, the recipe doesn't mention it, but when you're piping out the dough, I think you're supposed to use the circular non-froufrou tip that you might or might not own. And failing that, I believe the next best thing is piping without a tip entirely and not using the widest florette tip you have. The florette tip doesn't allow enough dough throughput. I theorize that the ratio of dough volume to cookie sheet surface area is important. My cream puffs, which were taller than my eclairs, seemed to turn out really well, where as the eclair shells remained mostly flat.

I'm not really going to talk about the filling much, because I know where that all went wrong. No big mystery there. Moving on.

Like I said, this recipe almost works, from a perfectionist food blog perspective. In practice, it was a really good dinner. Also, in practice, the pate a choux tastes a lot better as a pumpkin mousse-filled cream puff.

Grilled Beef and Vegetable Pate a Choux Pockets

Ingredients:
4 savory pate a choux shells, recipe here
1/2 zucchini, cut into 1/2 inch strips
1/2 red bell pepper, cut into strips
1/2 green bell pepper, cut into strips
1 lb beef steak, for braising, cut into strips
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Marinade: makes 3 cups
1 1/2 c. vegetable oil
1/2 c. soy sauce
1/4 c. Worcestershire sauce
2 tbsp. dry mustard
1/2 c. red wine vinegar
1/3 c. freshly squeezed lemon juice
1 clove garlic
1 tbsp. freshly ground pepper

Combine all marinade ingredients, and blend or whisk vigorously until thoroughly incorporated. Divide the marinade in half. Marinate beef strips as long as you can, in half the marinade. Ideally, 4 hours is a good number. In practice, if you can only do 30 minutes, it will still work out. Just baste the beef with extra marinade during cooking. About 30 minutes before cooking, drop the veggies in the other half of the marinade.

If you've got a grill, now would be a good time to pull it out. I use a counter top model with no temperature settings, so I can't give cooking instructions. If you're in the same boat, cook the beef and veggies for about 5 minutes. You might go a bit longer with the beef if you want well done. Or, sear the vegetables on the stove over high heat until they char a bit.

If you are actually looking for practical sandwich advice, cut the pate a choux shells lengthwise like a hoagie roll. If you want cute tea sandwiches, cut them widthwise. Fill with beef and vegetables. Serve hot.