I was in a creative mood today. After 4 days of being in bed with a cold, snotty and cranky, this morning I woke up full of energy, ready to tear the cat in two, turn the house upside down… but I said still not to exaggerate, so I content to tidy up just a bit and then went into the kitchen. I wanted something miraculous, unprecedented, super tasty, but meatless and eggless, because it’s Friday. So I thought I’d make a puff pastry, replacing the egg with soaked flaxseed, which I’d fill with… something. After a quick inspection through the pantry and refrigerator, I put out on the table what I found there. What came out I present to you below.
Ingredients
Pastry
- 2 tablespoons of psyllium bran
- 300 grams of warm water
- 2 tablespoons of flax seeds soaked in a little warm water
- 5 tablespoons of oil
- A teaspoon of yeast
- Salt to taste
- Millet flour as much as necessary (400-500 grams)
Filling
- One cup of black lentils
- A large onion
- A handful of dried wood ears mushrooms
- 2-3 hands of green spinach
- 2 tablespoons of tomato juice
- A hot pepper
- Salt to taste
- A grated teaspoon of curry
Method of preparation
To begin with, soak the flax seeds in warm water just enough to cover them, not too much. They need a good few minutes to soften and the water to turn into a sticky mucilage. We’re going to use the seeds with all that mucilage that will bind the dough together. Boil some water with salt. When it boils, add the washed black lentils and boil for about 10 minutes, then drain the water. We put the wooden ears mushrooms to hydrate. While the lentils are boiling and the wood ears are hydrating, clean the spinach, wash it and set it aside. We clean the onion, cut it julienne, then heat 2 tablespoons of oil in a pan, put the onion, then after a minute, the wood ears mushrooms. After another 5 minutes, add the lentils, tomato juice and spinach. We homogenize and put the lid on. After the spinach is not stiff anymore, add the finely chopped hot pepper, salt and curry, mix a little more, put the lid on and close the stove. The filling is ready, let it cool and proceed to make the dough.
Dissolve the yeast in the warm water, then add the psyllium bran and the flax seeds, mix well and leave for about 10 minutes, during which we put some order in the chaos in the kitchen, wipe the tray in which we will place the wonders we are about to make, we cover it with baking paper, put it aside and return to our dough. We start to put the flour, mixing with the spoon. When the spoon starts to protest, add the salt, then the oil and continue mixing until everything is incorporated. We continue to add flour, little by little, abandoning the spoon and continuing with our hands, until the dough comes away nicely from our hands. We dust the work surface with flour and continue kneading there, using the “stretch and fold” technique, that is, we fold the dough in thirds, successively. If you don’t know what this “stretch and fold” is, do a google search, there are video tutorials that explain what and how, because I didn’t understand it at first either. This technique is very useful for puff pastry, believe me. So I “stretch and fold” about 10 times, until I got bored. I spread the dough on the board and cut it into large squares. They can also be made round, but they should be made individually, and I was starting to lose my nerves and energy, so I preferred the squares, because I made them all at once. I put 2 tablespoons of the filling on each square and folded them, resulting in triangles that I sealed, first with my hand, then with a fork. I transferred them nicely with the spatula to the tray, smeared them with tomato juice and gave them 30 minutes in the oven preheated to 200 degrees Celsius. Some wonders came out that I ate simply that I didn’t have the energy to make a salad. Update: in the images you have squares, because originally they were rectangles.
