Have you met Matthew? Today we're looking for Epiphany in chippy boats, laminated layers and soggy shards. We ask 'what this stuff is?' as we endure another Mr. Etymology drop by and WAY too much math. We end by declaring our legacy and our intentions to buy a sheeter before receiving a very pithy Spilled Mail.
Dressler Parsons two part series on puff pastry
Molly Wizenberg's wikipedia page
Matthew's Now but Wow: The Divine Comedy, Rainy Sunday Afternoon.
Matthew Amster-Burton 0:00
Hi, I'm Molly, and I'm Matthew, and this is spilled milk, the show where we cook something delicious, eat it all, and you can't have any. And today we are talking about puff pastry. That's right. This episode was suggested by host Matthew. Have you ever met him? I'm hoping to someday. He is a real legend. I'll tell you. Actually, let me tell you this. So I was teaching, well, at the time that we're recording this, I was teaching last week in California. Oh, wow. I think this is gonna be a real story. Not a bit. This is a real story. And it just in talking with my students over the course of a week, I mentioned you a number of times, and I didn't give you permission. All of my students were like, God, Matthew, sounds like such a good friend. Oh, I know. Isn't that sweet? That's not funny at all, but I appreciate it. Yeah, no, it makes me, it makes me feel like I'm like Big Bird, or like someone from Sesame Street who's fuzzy and a good friend. Oh, okay, okay. Like Elmo. Like Elmo. Yeah, yeah. Like, almost kind of, kind of high strung, but yeah, I get that big bird has a calmer energy, yeah, more of, kind of like a doop de doo, kind of, I do remember that time that Big Bird didn't understand how a bus stop worked, and was like, standing out there yelling for the bus to stop, even though he didn't want to get on the bus. And then later, after it was explained to him how the bus stop works, then he went back to, like, flag all the drivers down to apologize. Oh, sweetheart. What an idiot. Anyway, we're talking about puff pastry today, and this was suggested by me because, as I'm sure I'll mention like, 1000 times now, I recently went to Scotland. And if you'd asked me, like, a few days in, like, so Matthew, what are you eating on your trip to Scotland? I would have said mostly puff pastry. Oh, yeah, yeah. Like pies, sausage rolls, croissants and other Vienna waseries. I know croissant is not quite puff pastry. We'll get to that. Was that your memory lane? Oh, right, so that was, that was the beginning of my memory lane. I guess I've always liked puff pastry. Like, I don't have any, like, specific earlier memories of it. I don't think, God, I've never had a particular opinion about puff pastry. You know, I would say sometimes I've associated puff pastry, like, with bad like, airport pastries, yeah, for sure, like puff pastry is not always good. That's right for by any means. Yeah, I think the first time that I experienced it and really understood that it was puff pastry as opposed to something else, and really liked it, I was in my early 20s, living in my first apartment in Seattle and doing baking projects that I just can't I can't believe I ever had time for I remember having Dory Greenspan's cookbook Paris sweets, yeah, and I made her galette de hoy, or like epiphany cake out of that, which is basically two discs of puff pastry, and you put, like a pastry cream, sort of folded With a frangipane in the middle and hide a little little baby in there, or a little gem or whatever. And since then, you've been hiding a little baby in all of your baked goods. That's exactly right. Where do you think Ames came from? Exactly anyway, that was my first time working with puff pastry, and I bought do four. Yes, of course, which we'll talk about for sure. And, yeah, and it was, oh my God. What a fan. For one thing, I'm a big galette de ROI fan. I don't know if I've ever had it. If you like the flavor of almond paste, I do, then you are going to be all about No, like, like a crispy puff pastry and almond paste. Yeah, eat a baby. It seems to me that it's unfortunate. So this episode is airing in January. I think January is when epiphany happens. I don't know, I believe after Christmas, but, I mean, you can probably make it anytime. Okay, well, maybe we'll do a galette Dino episode, and I'll go buy some very expensive puff pastry and make frangipane from scratch and make pastry cream and revisit my youth. Oh, I would love my early 20s. Yeah, that's that is youth. Yeah, I used du for today. We'll talk later about what I made today, which, that's a little teaser for you. It was pretty tasty. Oh, yeah. So in Scotland, I had maybe the single best piece of puff pastry I've ever had in a very unexpected place. Okay, so I had in preparation. So Watts and I went to Glasgow, Scotland, and stayed there for about a week. In preparation for that, we watched our favorite movie set in Glasgow. God help the girl, a movie Written and directed by the guy from Bell and Sebastian. Throughout the music, it's a musical, and at one point, the three kids who are the main characters of the movie, take a canoe down the fourth and Clyde canal, and as far as Clyde bank, a neighborhood outside on the outskirts of Glasgow, where there is a chip shop, like vision chips place in a boat called mcmonagles. I know I knew all of this only. From the movie, from watching the movie, and like looking at like, did they like make like a boat into a chip shop for the movie? No, this is probably real. So we looked it up. And so one day, Watson, I, like, split up and went our own ways, not permanently. We got back together at the end of the day, good, okay, and I headed out to Clydebank, to mcmonagles, which is, which is delightful, the the accents in Clydebank much thicker than in central Glasgow, and it's like 20 minutes away. And like, when I told people this, they were like, Oh yeah, of course, the Clydebank accent. So I just had fish and chips, like the previous night. And so I was like, What do I want from this menu? And I they had steak pie, or homemade steak pie. So I'm like, I want homemade steak pie. I have no idea what the difference is, and I didn't even ask, but I was delighted with what I received, which was like one plastic container full of, like hot beef stew, and then in a in a like vented clam shell, a freshly baked puff pastry top. Whoa, just like a slab of the flakiest, most layered puff pastry you've ever seen. Like, I doubt it was, like, I it might have been homemade. Like, I doubt it, yeah, but like, it was, like, you know, perfectly baked to the point where, like, some of the layers were like an inch apart, hold up. And so wait, they served it, not on top of the beef stock, not on top. So I got to assemble it myself, and, like, dig in with a spoon. It was messy. It was so delicious, so hot, so delicious, so delicious. And I ate it, yeah, just outside, like, by the banks of the fourth and Clyde canal, and then walked down the canal for a while. Wow. Yeah, oh my god, I love that. So, okay, yeah, let's talk about what this stuff is and how it gets made, because I do find it difficult to imagine, just like your average pub, especially a pub in a boat, yeah, just making puff pastry from scratch, yeah? Okay, so yeah, let's, let's do our usual segment, what this stuff is, what this stuff is, what this stuff is, what this stuff is. Have I mentioned? Like, I don't think this will translate. Is just like a family inside joke thing. But a while back on Jeopardy, there was a category about, like, Internet slang abbreviations. And we were like, Oh boy, here we go. Because, like, like, Jeopardy is like, the least cool show in the world, which is part of why we love it, of course. But like, they are not going to be off on the latest slang. One of them was that the players were asked to identify was D, H, y, b, which I've never heard anyone say, hold on. Give me a second. I can tell you what they claimed it was, but, but my, my immediate guess was, do have you bones? So? So we have been saying to each other, do have you bones ever since, it was, like two years ago. Hold on, okay, but wait, what does it mean? Don't hold your breath. But no one's ever said that right as an abbreviation. Why would is it is that said so commonly that we that it gets abbreviated? I don't think so. But, but do have you bones is, did anybody get it right? I don't think so. Okay, okay, so puff pastry does not have you bones. It is a laminated dough my bones. It me bones. I mean, it depends, like, how much elbow you put into it, not just elbow grease, but like, your actual elbow. Yeah, I mean, you it's, it is? It is a, you know, an enriched dough. So, like you do, put in Grease elbow or otherwise, but usually butter. So it's a laminated dough with no leavening ingredients. So laminated means that layers of hydrated flour, like dough, are separated by layers of fat, and the layers are increased and thinned out by folding and rolling repeatedly, okay? And any puff that happens is going to happen because of the water in the fat, exactly, you know, evaporating or turning to vapor. That's right, yeah. So butter has some water in it. The water boils, and that pushes the layers apart, and then the butter fat gets hot and browns the layers. Okay, okay, so that's, that's what happens. Ideally, a lot of things can go wrong. And so, okay, so I guess I always forget that things like croissant for example, or just sort of Viennoiserie as a category, those contain yeast, yeah. So, so this, the terminology here is very like scattered and all over the place in English. It's very systematic in French. Okay, so, okay, so let's so should we? Should we even invite Mr. Etymology In? Oh, yes, hang on. It's me, come in. Somehow, I have to remember it every time, I guess, because it's a nonsensical thing to say.
Matthew Amster-Burton 9:53
Does anybody but us like this? I. Yeah, okay. I think they love it. Yeah. I think Mr. Etymology is one of, one of the world's most beloved characters, right up there with Mrs. Cubbison. I wonder if she'll come by today. Yeah, and Cookie Monster, yeah, it's a good question. Like, I mean, if we make, you can make, like, puff pastry croutons. I think cool. It's Mrs. Cumplissing only appears when people talk about croutons. She's like the spirit of croutons. Okay, so Mr. Etymology would like you to know that via noisy a word that Molly just said, refers to products made with a dough that is a laminated dough that has yeast. When you eat a croissant, that's a that's a Viennoiserie, but the dough itself is not called via noisy it's the stuff made with the dough. Okay, so, okay, the and, like, you know what? What's the difference between that and puff pastry? It just has, like, a somewhat different texture, and if and a yeasted flavor. Wait a minute, I've never made croissant? Me, neither would that be. So would you make like a risen dough, like a yeasted dough, and then laminate it? So have we done a croissant episode? I think maybe we haven't because we were afraid that someone would have to make it. Let's do a croissant episode. But like, have, like a packed, like a blood oath that no one has to actually make croissants. We'll buy some, okay, and then we can talk about how they're made, because I don't know the answer, okay, but here's what, but I'm I, Mr. Etymology, can tell you that in French, puff pastry is pot fouette. So, so like flaky pastry, yeah, so the croissant dough is pot, live a fouette. Oh, okay, like risen or like leavened puff pastry, okay? And then we're going to talk about rough puff in a minute. And that's hot to me for a day. Okay, it's like half flaky, flaky. Okay, great, wow, whoa, okay. Hold up, Matthew. I am looking at the agenda, and there is an algebraic equation. I'm so excited to get to this. Three variables, yeah, but should we do the history first? They won't take long because so we're gonna link to, there's a there's a baker named Dressler Parsons, very cool name, who has a blog called The bitter butter blog, and did a two part series of like, the history of puff pastry. There, there are some really goofball, apocryphal origin stories, including that it was attributed to the invention of popfacery was attributed to a French painter and then to the same guy, but under his birth name, rather than the name he used as a painter. And like Some sources say, these are two different guys, which they're the same guy who had nothing to do with inventing puff pastry. So this made me realize, like, you know, after, after I'm dead, how would I like to be remembered? I'd like to be remembered as two separate guys. Like, okay, just like, like, put, like, yeah. Like, like, put mine. I mean, like, like, Man in the streets, freak in the sheets, yes. But I mean, like, that's, that's more like, two sides of my personality. Like, I want you to put, like, my name and like, What's Mr. Etymology, his first name. They're like, Elmer. Let's go. Let's say Elmer, put my name and Elmer etymology, like, both on the same tombstone. Or like, or like, I don't want a tombstone, but like, like, get out your, your, like, diamond label maker and put the put them both on my urn. What about Wikipedia? We could put them both on Wikipedia. Do you have a Wikipedia page? No, you do, right? I don't think so. I've never looked because I'm terrified of what would be written there. No, but I have some, I have some citations on Wikipedia. You should go in and find a way to, like, put in parentheses, like, Elmer, okay, all right, sure. Mr. Elmer, yes. So puff pastry, it's more than 100 years old, and so, like, the history gets murky, but what we can say for sure is that it originates in Arab and North African baking traditions. It is related to Philo and the first written recipe for something approximating puff pastry was from Moorish Spain in the 13th century, and it was a layered bread called Musa mana. Does Moorish Spain mean? Basically Arab Spain? Yes, okay. And then it reached its fully modern form with like, you know, a butter slab, cold butter slab in France in the 17th century. Okay, and so, how is this it was not invented by a painter. And how is this stuff made? So glad you asked. Okay, so to make, like, classic full puff pastry, you make a very simple flour and water dough, and then you put a slab of butter on it, and you keep folding it over and over and rolling it out until you have many thin layers of dough and butter. And most bakeries that do this today use a piece of cookie called a sheeter, yes, which is very, very fun to watch, I'm sure, like if you, if you put your arm in it, it's going to be. Be the worst day of your life. Farewell, arm, farewell. Arm a farewell. Yes, that's if you put both arms in. That's what that book is about. I've never read it, but Me neither. It's for sure about a sheeter accident, yeah, Hemingway, he started out as a baker, that's true, and and had an unfortunate accident. He wrote always with his with a pencil in his teeth, actually, yep. Oh, I thought he was the star of that movie my left foot. Oh, that guy, too. Okay, so, yeah, so use a sheeter. The challenge with puff pastry is the butter has to stay quite cold, because if it gets too warm, it will start to melt and mix into the dough, and then, instead of having flaky layers, you have, like, flat, fused layers, and the butter runs out, and it's like, simultaneously dry and greasy and like this is, like, if you ever watch bake off like this is, this is the worst thing that Paul Hollywood can scold you for, like, butter running Out of your puff pastry like that is that is a capital crime. Wow. You've been warned. So you may wonder, how many layers do you get when you make puff pastry? Okay, so there is a formula for this. Okay, okay. You ready? Yeah. So it's L equals the quantity of f plus one to the n, where L is the number of finished layers. F is the number of folds in a single folding move. And we'll get into that in a minute. And n is how many times you repeat the folding move. Okay, so for example, like twice folding, which means, like folding it into three. So like a tri fold, yeah, exactly, yeah. Like a business letter, so you fold one side over you fold the other side over on top of that. So you got three layers. So that gives you three for the value of f, gives 81 layers. Wow, that's why wait, if you do that three, if you do that four times, if you do it like a trifle, yeah, I think they I think the the the like filled in equation I gave here is incorrect. I think 81 may be wrong. Well, let's take a minute and let's get to the bottom of this. Matthew, so, so how many times the folding move is repeated? So, so folds three. So wouldn't it be four to the fourth power? I think it would be four to the fourth. So we can do that in our heads. So that's 1664, 256, I think that's 256 No, that's why is it plus one? I don't know why it's plus one. You wrote the equation. I wrote the equation. We might need. Do we have any mathematicians listening, topologists, people who like workers, yeah? Like, okay, yeah. We may need to come back around to this when we do the croissant episode. Okay? But anyway, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So, so that's the tour sample fold. Is the one we just described. It's like a business letter, and there's a tour double where you fold like both sides toward the middle, and so there's like a, like a crease in the middle, and then you fold over on the middle crease, and that creates four layers. This is giving me origami memories. It is, yeah, there was a lot of Tor doubla ing in origami, absolutely, yeah, and yeah. So you fold, and then you have to chill between folds, or the butter will get too warm and you'll cry, and the butter will weep, and so will you Okay, so the dough that you're starting out with, though, is that just flour and water? It's just flour and water. Yeah, wow. Okay, so you're starting out with a flour and water dough, baby, salt, okay, and then you're folding that with the butter, yes. And I know Julia Child's recipe results in 729, layers. According to some source, seems like it wouldn't take you very long to get there, yeah, although, when you're working with chilled butter, it's gonna be brutal, yeah, oh yeah. The flour and water dough is called the day Trump. Okay, the block of butter is the barrage, okay? And to do, like, all this folding, chilling, repeating. I mean, like, how long are we letting it chill? I know that it's all like, depends on your fridge, 30 minutes to an hour between folds. Wow, that is serious business. It's serious business. Yeah. So a sheeter? Does a sheeter have a chilling mechanism? That's a good question. Are the surfaces of it chilled? It seems like they must be, right. It seems like they must be because, I mean, bakeries often are, like, hot back there too. Bakeries hot? Is, I mean, hot in here, or is it just my bakery? Well, well, yeah. So, so, yeah. Like, I didn't, I didn't go into, like, how a sheeter, like, I should have bought a sheet or for the research instead, like, set it up in the dining room here. You know what? Maybe for our next pledge drive, we'll see, if we get, if we can get to a certain threshold, we'll buy a sheeter well, and we'll, and we'll say farewell to those arms.
Matthew Amster-Burton 19:50
So what's rough puff? Okay, so rough puff is a simpler way to get almost as good a result. Okay, so first of all, again, rough puff pastry is puffed. De mi fuite in French, because it was invented by Demi Moore. It is simpler than full puff for two reasons. First of all, use grated or cubed butter or the food processor. You don't have to, like, create a slab of butter, okay? And then you do fewer turns, so it can be done in like, two hours, okay, okay, maybe even an hour and a half. I mean, I have to say, I imagine that unless you're trying to win some sort of like a European baking challenge, you probably can get away with Russia. I want to win, like the coup or something. Do you want to be like a mayor de France? Yes, I want to be the mayor of France. It's not what I said. So and the result, like, I've made rough puff several times, the result is really good. You're absolutely right. Like, the only when you when you, like, look up, like, you know, when do you have to use, like, full puff pastry versus getting rough puff? Like, the example that people always give is, if you're baking a vol au vent and you want it to, like, rise evenly, you have to use real puff like classic puff pastry. How often? How often do you make a vol au vent these days? Oh, you know, for me, it's kind of like every Sunday kind of thing, Sunday roast. Yeah, Sunday roast with a homemade vol au vent. Ptva is the other is the other example. I don't know what this is. I think. Okay, it's been a long time since I thought about this word. But isn't it that pastry that is almost kind of heart shaped, yeah, no, wait, that's a palmier. No, palmier. We'll talk about that. That's a palmier. Ptva, what is that? I don't remember. We're gonna look up. Ptva here. It's spelled pith of ears. Ptva, it's a round, enclosed pie made from two layers of puff pastry with a filling sandwich between them. It's known for its dome shape and decorative spiral on top, which is traditionally created with a knife. It can be sweet or savory with classic sweet fillings, including frangipani, yep, or meat, mushroom or vegetables. It's named after the French town of petitvier. So it sounds like it's not totally different in some versions from the galette de Roy. Yeah, it sounds to me like the galette de Roy is a version of a piti VA, yeah, I think I've had vol au vent one time. Vol le von is like a it's like sort of a puff pastry cup, bowl. No, it's just one of those things that you read about in like, old cookbooks. It's just like a little piece of puff pastry, and then that's with some sort of stew. Or am I correct that this that it's called, like, flight in the wind. It's called flight in the wind because, because it's so light and airy, I guess, I guess. But it's a chicken dish, right? I think it, yeah, I think it's sort of like a, like a creamy chicken stew. Maybe vol is short for volai, maybe. But I think chicken in the wind, I think it's fly because, like, a chicken, a chicken doesn't fly very far, even in the wind. I mean, I guess in, like, a really high wind, you know, in the in the original Wizard of Oz, when, when the tornado comes to Kansas, I'm pretty about the movie Twister. I'm pretty sure that there's some chickens flying around. Yeah, you're right. Okay, that it was named after by someone who watched the French the French Wizard of Oz. Her name was Dorothy. What was the Wicked Witch's name? Oh, I was laughing because the person watching the movie. Just happened to also be named Dorothy. Okay, all right, okay, what about commercial puff pastry? That's the only kind I've ever used. Yeah, same. That is certainly what I use today. So typically, there are two main brands. There's Pepperidge Farm, or do four. Pepperidge Farm is less expensive, available more places, and it's less expensive because it uses vegetable oil and shortening. It does not contain butter. Does Dufour still come in like a foil sort of baking dish with a paper thing on top? It does not it comes in a in a cardboard box with sheets separated by parchment paper. I remember the first time I bought Dufour, which was so expensive, it's like 16 bucks a package or something. Yeah, I think I paid like $14 anyway. I remember when I took the puff pastry out of the box, it was kind of gray, hmm, I can, I can grab it. Could you grab it? Because I have noticed this. I mean, admittedly, I think I've only worked with it maybe three or four times in the past two decades. But I could swear that it was a little bit gray. I would not say that looks No, I would not say that looks gray. But I have worked with it and it looked gray. Matthew, do you think it was like spoiled? It tasted fine. I mean, it like dough does get gray after straight up gray. Yeah, I mean, if it tasted fine, it tasted fine, like flour. It's a natural product. It varies. I don't know. I've never, I've never noticed it to be gray. And I've bought it a few. No, it was very distinctive to me, because I was like, Is this normal? I did not know. So, so do you know where Dufour is made? Do? My guess was Canada. Okay, I'm gonna just to, you know, sort of mix things up. I'm gonna guess Pennsylvania. You're very close the Bronx, really? Yeah, it's, that is where they were founded, and still and still based. And it, does it have any relationship to, like, French Canadian or French that I don't know, culture? No. I mean, it could, it could have been founded by French Canadians in the Bronx that I'm not sure. Yeah, okay, but it's very good. It is better than the Pepperidge Farm, but the Pepperidge Farm is also very good. Like, I would never, like skip making something with puff pastry, just because you can't get the more expensive and slightly better do for also, it's so easy to work with. I mean, I think, I think that I don't know. I think does in general, you know, short doughs or enriched pastry does like this. What am I even saying? I'm talking in circles. I think you're talking about does in general, does in general? Everybody talks about them as being so difficult, but there are so many ways to make a dough, like so many ways to make it, to make a dough and have it be perfectly easy to handle. I know we've done an episode on Pat breezy, not even that long ago, but yeah, I just want to say, if anybody out there is nervous about using puff pastry, so easy, commercial puff pastry, super easy. Making homemade puff pastry, not as easy like, I mean, it's something certainly I learned to do with practice, but like, it's one of those things that's not going to be great. Your your first time out? Yeah, no, no. But I think that I don't know, whenever anything calls for puff pastry, it seems like it's going to be so fiddly or whatever. Oh no, it's fine. It's fine. Let's see. So you, you have not ever made a homemade puff pastry, rough or otherwise? No, okay, yeah, I, I think you, I think you should. I don't know why. Okay, the commercials. Maybe, if I do, maybe, if I do a galette de hoy, maybe I'll make a rough puff that sounds good. So, so commercial puff pastry. What? What do you like to use it for? Or, like, what have you had it in? So I have used it only for two things. One is that Dory Greenspan recipe for galette de hoy. And then the other is, oh my gosh. This was around the same era in my cooking life. I made it for a salt cod pie. Oh, wow, yeah. I, like, bought salt cod and, like, rehydrate I bought salt cod one time. Yes, I rehydrated. What do you call, like, the mousse that you make from it? Brand dad, yes, yes. Anyway, I made brand dad and then made it was a recipe that I think was in sever magazine, that was also your ex husband, brand dad, Brandon, that's right, anyway, brand dad, petite. Anyway, yeah, I made this delicious, like puff pastry pie with brown dad. That sounds good. I know. Can you believe I used to do stuff? No, okay, so we haven't done a sausage roll episode, right? But I served you sausage rolls. That's right. And I'm most familiar with sausage rolls as a South African thing. Oh, okay, we should do a sausage roll episode. I ate a bunch of sausage rolls in Scotland. Oh, yeah, and they're very good, yeah, let's do it. Cheese straws. You ever made those? Oh, those are great. And so easy. Sorry, I was drinking water. So for that, would you just like buy some puff pastry, slice it, cut it into into straw, you twist them, and you put cheese on. It. Couldn't be easier. Amazing. So good. Okay, like a topping for savory pie. We'll, we'll get to that in a minute. That's what I did today, a Napoleon or meal free. I've never made that scratch. Oh my god, but I liked it. Like, when they're good, they're really good. Remember when we got the pier amaze de mielfory and ate it on the roof of Isa tan in Shinjuku, I think that's right, that was, that was in the fall of 2017 yep, yep. And that was when we first identified jungle crows, yes, which now I have on my life list, yep, tarts and galette shells or crusts, like I used to again. This was like a back in the like, probably before I had kids. Days I used to make these little tomato tarts from Tamas and day Lewis's book art of the tart. I think that's where the recipe is from. And like, and like, I think they had prosciutto and like, you put some little halved cherry tomatoes on there, and they're very precious. Would you ever use puff pastry for a quiche? I mean, I think I'm sure it would be good. Like, I would be nervous about using puff pastry as, like, a bottom crust for a big, a big wet pie like that, because, like, if it didn't, because, like, it really, like, puff pastry, like, what needs to be able to puff, it needs to be able to puff. And so if you're putting stuff on top of it, like, you can't put a lot of stuff if you want to, like, I don't know, what happens if you were to make a regular kind of quiche, free crust, does it? I don't know. I mean, I wonder if it would just be like, okay, because, like,
Matthew Amster-Burton 29:50
a way, like those just had a bunch of them, the pasta Stan Nata, that's, that's a puff pastry crust, right? Certainly, like a crust. Just be layery crust. I haven't had one in a while, but the like, Portuguese egg tarts, those are so good. Those are so good. Yeah, I mean, it's, I mean, I had one, like, within the last couple of weeks, and it was, and it was definitely like a flaky, thin, layered pastry crust. So I think, I think it was a puff pastry crust. But those are small. It's interesting to think about this, because I think what I'm realizing is that at least in in French, in the French pastry world, seems to me that most applications for puff pastry that you and I are thinking of are savory applications, whereas this other like Pat levy for yet a is more like, sweet applications, or they use, like, pot breezy, yeah, that's, that's interesting. Like, I don't know. I mean, I think probably there is a lot of use of, like, unleavened, like, like, regular pot Fe in desserts, patisserie that we just, like, aren't thinking of, yeah, you're probably right. I think so, yeah, palmier, for example, which you, which you just mentioned earlier, is, like, you know, the heart shaped cookie, that's like, it's, it's like, cross cut, that's right, puff pastry. So, like, the layers are exposed, like on the surface of the cookie. I would not say this is one of my favorite cookies. There is, like, a little mini version sold in Japan called Genji pie. That is, that is a nice little snack. You just eat them, like, like chips from a bag. I would never, I never see a palmier, like, in a bakery case and think, oh, that that's what I'm gonna get. But if I were to be invited, let's say, let's set the scene, Matthew, if we were to have me over for, like, an afternoon tea, okay, and you were to have gone to your local Boulangerie and bought a couple of palmier that would be delicious, yeah? No, of course, but I would never choose it over. This would be at my Paris pied a terre. That's right, that's right. Yeah, I need to dust my pie. And so today I made, I did make a savory pie. It was a chicken and leek pie inspired by one that Watson and I had at the curlers rest pub in Glasgow. Wow, isn't it, does curler there is that, like the sport curling, the sport curling, which was invented in Scotland. Ah, okay. And yeah, this was a, this is a very, very nice pub. Like it was a chain, chain pub, which there are a lot of, but like and many of them are quite good. One night we were there, people started, started assembling with instruments and playing Trad music. But yeah, we got sorry, Trad music. Trad music is traditional, Celtic music. Wait, do we just use Trad for every instance of the word traditional? Now, I guess I think this predates Trad wives, but I'm not sure. So would you call this like a Trad pie? It's a Trad pie. Yeah. Okay, so I, I was pretty pleased with myself, like, so, so let's talk about the pastry texture. So I basically, I didn't use a recipe. I improvised this pie. It was delicious. So, like, I browned some chunks of chicken thigh, then I cooked a whole bunch of sliced leeks in the pan with some butter. I deglaze with white wine, then chicken stock, put the chicken back in, cooked the chicken through, added a little cream, yeah, and lots of fresh thyme. Okay, that was the filling. It was really good. I made that yesterday, and then today, I just like, put a sheet of two, four puff pastry over the top. So when you bake puff pastry on top of a pie like this, there is gonna be, like, an interface between the pie filling and the puff pastry that is going to be doughy, kind of doughy and soggy. I gotta say, I kind of like that. I think, I guess I don't. I wouldn't say I like it, but I can't imagine not having it, because then you would just have shards and wetness. Well, because the other thing you can do, which is what I got at mcmonagles Chippy chippy boat, is, is bake this. Sorry, mcmonagle's Chippy boat. Go on. Yes, I what I was I met up with some, some co workers who live in Glasgow and and I was keeping them apprised on the WhatsApp group. You know what I was doing, like after we met up, and I said, a picture of mcmonagles. And one of them said, Oh, the chippy on the boat. Perfect. Also, people, from people who live in Glasgow, are called ouijas because they're sharp for Glaswegians, that's still and so the name of the WhatsApp group was like, like, name of my company, Ouija, meetup. Adorable. Anyway, where was I going? So, yes, I could have baked the pastry on the side and then just plopped it on top of the pie. This is a legitimate thing to do, but it just doesn't seem right somehow, like the overall pastry texture. I think would be better doing it that way, but it's not right. Somehow it just doesn't sit right with it doesn't sit right, and it would look like I dropped a pastry hunk on top of a pie. I do think it's important the way that when you bake it with the pie filling. Making the two of them. I don't know. It fits perfectly within the baking dish. Yeah, it really looks like they baked together, yeah, whereas otherwise you are going to wind up looking like you've got like a hat on top of yourself, yes, which is, yeah, that is what my pie from mcmont, mcmonacles looked like, the chippy boat, the chippy boat. It was extremely delicious. No, I think that if you're going purely for texture, that's the way to go. Yes, wow. Okay, well, Matthew, what have we learned? What have we learned? Like, it's all about layers, but no one has yet come up with a formula to count the layers. It's mathematically. It's like a Fermat's Last Theorem. Let's Okay, can I do Fermat's Last Theorem? Off the top of my head, Fermat's last theorem, which says, I believe, is from the 17th century. If I, if I get this right, I want, I want to receive, like, the Fields Medal, okay, okay. Is that the mathematics, the mathematics medal that I only know about because it appeared in the movie A Beautiful Mind. Oh, wow, Matthew. Hold on. Look out. There are numbers. Wait till you, wait till you see, do you feel that? Look, look behind you. There's my bulletin board. It's got lots of lots of yarn and stuff. I'm at the center of a vast conspiracy. Okay? Vermont's last, last theorem holds that for the equation x to the n plus y to the n equals z to the n, there are no it can't be if X, Y and Z are integers, there's no there's no integer solution for this with n greater than three, I think yes. So so it's like, if you try and extend the Pythagorean Theorem to like, like things larger than squares, like you get Pythagorean A squared plus B squared equals C squared. Yes. Okay, yes. So, so, like, if you So, there are integer solutions for a cubed, but not for anything larger than a cube. It was unknown whether this was correct. It was unsolved until the 1990s I believe when a mathematician named Andrew Wiles proved that Fermat was correct. Is this like, what is called pure math? It sure is okay, yeah, which is very like, I don't know. There's almost a, like, a philosophical element, yeah, absolutely right. There's a good book about Fermat's last theorem by Simon Singh, the English science writer, okay, this is, let's, yeah, let's, let's definitely make this a regular segment next time, we'll talk about, like, one car is conjecture. Okay, all right, well, does p equal NP? Let's find out next week. Stay tuned. One, one listener is gonna like, be like, yeah, he mentioned people, okay, Matthew, hey, but we have, we have some spilled mail. Oh, yes.
Matthew Amster-Burton 37:55
Why do you hate us with this one? Okay, I really like this one. This one comes from listener, Ken albala, who it seems that we may have tossed a question his way during the chocolate the recent chocolate milk episode, where we were wondering like we found that some sources allege that the quick mascot, the rabbit, is named Quickie, the rabbit. Okay, and here's our reply from Ken. Hi folks. I really regret being unable to answer your question about quickie the Nestle quick rabbit. Ken albala, this is, this is like, of like, 17 times that we've asked for Ken's help on some food history question. This is the only time he hasn't been able to answer it. I'm disappointed. Yeah, me too. Yeah. So he's dead to us. Do you have an Albert? Wow, I sure do.
Matthew Amster-Burton 38:50
This one made me so happy. So I was in Glasgow on a rainy Sunday afternoon riding the Glasgow subway, which is this adorable little train that goes around in a circle. And there were ads in the subway station for the new album by the Northern Irish band The Divine Comedy. And the title of the album was rainy Sunday afternoon, so I'm like, I need to put this on immediately. And it is such a beautiful album. It's kind of like orchestral, British, you know, pop okay, I don't know if it's right to call Northern Irish British. That's why I hesitated. But, you know, of, sort of, sort of the the folk tradition of that region of Europe. This is a band that's made many, many albums before, and the songs are about, like, you know, growing older and, like, easing, or not easing into middle age and, like, it's like, snarky and kind of a, you know, British, Irish sort of way, but also very heartfelt. Like the the closing song is probably the best. One is called invisible thread. And it's really just about like, you know, you can, you can go anywhere you need to go, and do anything you want to do, but there'll always be an invisible thread between you and. Me like it's not, not a new sentiment, but it like, it's beautifully put. So I cannot recommend more highly The Divine Comedy. Rainy Sunday afternoon. Oh my gosh, Matthew, it sounds like you had a really, I don't know, very you kind of trip. I think so, yeah, I mostly, mostly like, did a lot of walking and eating snacks, right? I like that. Okay, our producer is Abby cercatella. She also likes walking and eating snacks, yeah. Oh, believe it or not, my band, Twilight diners has a couple has a couple of new songs out, like we've decided that's our cover band, me and my friend Meredith. And so if you go to Twilight diners.bandcamp.com, we covered the song, Wicked Game by Chris Isaac and a obscure 90s indie song that we both really like, amazing. You can rate and review us wherever you get your podcasts, and you can talk puff pastry formulas with other spilled milk listeners at reddit.com/r/everything, spilled milk. Thanks for listening to spilled milk, the show that will be remembered by both of our names, Matthew Amster-Burton, Molly Weisen, because we're gonna get put in the same urn and like someone's gonna label it with both of our Yeah, sorry. You can't be, you can't be buried with your spouse. You have to. You're stuck with me, your fake spouse, together forever. Invisible threat, bye,
Matthew Amster-Burton 41:27
the show that's got layers the show I.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai