Pâte feuilletée, or puff pastry, is often considered one of the most challenging yet rewarding doughs to master in the culinary world. Known for its delicate layers that puff up beautifully in the oven, this dough relies on a precise technique to create the "leaves" or layers without the use of yeast. Though made with just three basic ingredients—flour, water, and butter—it demands patience and skill to perfect.

The magic behind puff pastry lies in the layers of butter trapped within the dough. As the dough bakes, the water in the butter turns to steam, causing the layers to separate and rise, creating the signature light, flaky texture. While mastering puff pastry can be tricky, with the right technique and a bit of practice, you can create this stunning dough for all kinds of delicious treats.

Puff pastry's number one enemy is heat. Working quickly, and never doing more than two turns at a time, you must keep the butter cool enough so that it doesn't leak out during rolling.

Recipe: Cheese Sticks

400 g flour
200 g water
6 g salt
300 g butter
100 g Gruyère cheese

You can find the recipe for Allumettes au fromage (Puff pastry strips with cheese) here along with more background information. It was part of Week 2 at Le Cordon Bleu in Basic Cuisine.


Links
Video (in French but shows the technique) 
Eggbeater's Puff Pastry 
50 Flaky, Crunchy, Delicious Appetizers, Entrées (affiliate link)

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Now that the turning is done, I can move onto the easier part: the cooking. I used the Court Bouillon recipe from an original Le Cordon Bleu book called Grand Diplôme Cooking Course (affiliate link) published in 1971 with Anne Willan as the editor. It looked easy. I added coriander (fresh cilantro) to the original recipe as well.

A court bouillon (which means “short broth” in French) is a poaching liquid that contains water, an acid (such as wine, vinegar, or citrus), and aromatics (such as herbs, zest, or spices). It is used to poach fish, shellfish, or vegetables.

Another term I came across when reading about court bouillon was à la nage. Cooking à la nage means poaching food in a court bouillon and serving the court bouillon and the vegetables around the food as part of the garnish. When making a court bouillon to use for cooking à la nage, cut the vegetables in a decorative manner, such as turned or julienned.

Tip on cooking vegetables in a court bouillon: Do not cover while cooking. The colour of the vegetables will be lost if covered.

Blanc de cuisson is another term I found that is described as a court bouillon. It means to cook food in a white broth, such as a "short" broth based on water, flour, lemon juice, and salt. The differentiating ingredient is flour. In Mastering the Art of French Cooking (affiliate link), Julia Child explains that a blanc is used for any food that may discolour during cooking, such as artichokes. The flour and lemon juice combination keep the food white.

Recipe: Court Bouillon 

Another basic recipe is vegetable presentation à la grèque. Here’s a good definition of à la grèque from The Elements of Cooking (affiliate link) by Michael Ruhlman:

"The term à la grèque refers to cooked vegetables that are served cold. An à la grèque salad is composed of cooked vegetables sauced with a vinaigrette. The technique is simple: cook vegetables in a court bouillon till they are almost, but not quite cooked through, and shock and store them in the chilled cooking liquid until ready to serve."


The à la grèque part sounds straight forward. Now, onto the “turned” portion of the demo: the mise en place, so to speak.

I have heard a whole class of cooking students groan when the word “turned” or “tournée” was mentioned. It’s a difficult vegetable cut that takes lots of practice. Although there are turning knives (also known as bird’s beak knives) to help, they don’t make it any easier. Only practice, practice, practice. Why turn? Because the vegetables will cook evenly and they look uniform and elegant.
A turned vegetable is one that is cut into a football-shaped piece with five or seven equal sides and blunt ends. The following vegetables can be turned: beets, carrots, celeriac, cucumber, potatoes, turnips, and zucchini. Although not mentioned, I would think parsnips could be turned too.

This is where Knife Skills Illustrated (affiliate link) left the reader cold. There is no mention of turning in this handbook. Quel dommage! I followed the three pictures in Le Cordon Bleu Complete Cooking Techniques (affiliate link). There is some instruction in On Cooking (affiliate link) as well.

Turned potatoes have different names depending on the size and shape of the cut:

Château
½ inch longer and thicker than À l’anglaise
2.5 inches long
1.5 inch thick
À l’anglaise
2 inches long
1 inch thick
Cocette
Shorter, olive shape
1 inch x .5 inch
So, I went out to buy 2 pounds each of carrots, cucumber, potatoes, turnips, and zucchini. After two hours of turning, I was what I considered a “zen master of turning”; however, I’m sure a real chef would not agree!

Before:

After:

I did find myself using some techniques to get a football shape. I looked at the vegetable about to be turned, found the best place to start cutting and started at the top. I took more flesh out of the vegetable at the top and bottom and less out of the middle. I did one cut, turned it 180°, and then did another cut. Then I would repeat this on the other “corners”. Finally, I would trim away any lines or corners.

Tip: You don’t need to peel the vegetable first since you cut the peel away as you turn.

Here are some stats: It took me 2 hours to turn 10 pounds of vegetables. After turning, the vegetables weighed 2½ pounds. That means I wasted (or should I say the art of turning wasted!) 7½ pounds. I used the trimmings for a vegetable stock, however, so I guess not all was wasted. Although my end product was not perfect, turning 10 pounds of vegetables helped improve my technique!

. . . . . . . . . .

Running total: $13.88 + $20.00 = $33.88

Butter used so far: ⅛ cup

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