The recipe prepared for this week's assignment for
Whisk Wednesdays is from Class 23, Part 3:
Bouchées aux Crevettes (Puff Pastry Shells Filled with Shrimp and Mushrooms). It can be found in the cookbook
Le Cordon Bleu at Home on pages 467-468.
I knew we would all enjoy this week's recipe...shrimp and mushrooms in a creamy sauce, what's not to love about that?
Making the puff pastry shells was not my strong point, as you can see.
I think I rolled my dough too thin for starters...it was supposed to be 1/8th of an inch thick, and that just seems so thin anyway, but I might have gotten it even thinner, so next time, I would stop rolling a little sooner.
Forming the shells was interesting and I enjoyed seeing how that all came together, first cutting out a 4 inch fluted circle and then a 3 inch fluted circle and fitting them together with egg wash. With the extra dough, I cut out additional shapes just to have in case anyone wanted them on the side, and they did.
When I baked them, it took half the time specified, so I think that my dough being thin was the reason for that.
All in all, I made shells, they puffed up, they tasted fine, and it worked to put the sauce in them, so who's to say it wasn't successful? I am just considering mine the rustic version with their misshapen oval shapes instead of nice and perfect circles!
The filling was incredibly easy...saute the mushrooms, the shrimp, and then add them together. The sauce was supposed to be added to that mixture, but I have to say, this recipe makes a whole lot of sauce, and if I added ALL of that to the shrimp and mushrooms, they would have been floating. So, in the better part of calorie/fat intake judgment, I spooned the sauce over the mushrooms and shrimp once they were in their little shell nest, using a discretionary amount of sauce. It worked out just fine and everyone loved it.
Matt went back for seconds and Mark was headed in that direction, only to discover Matt thought everyone was finished and had wiped out the contents of the pan. I would say this recipe was a decided hit. (I need more practice on making those little shells, but I am counting this one a keeper and a repeater.) Oh, and CC, this is my portion...the guys' portions had filling and sauce spilling out over the sides of the shell, and pretty much covering the plate, so relax, I am not serving them "Barbie" portions over here...they ate plenty of this...a pound and a half of shrimp and 8 ounces of mushrooms totally disappeared!
If you would like to see how the other
Whisk Wednesday members fared in this class,
click here, and then on the Whisk Wednesdays connect to individual bloggers, or better yet, come and join us! Shari has the ingredients posted on her site at the click, so while we can't post the recipe instructions, you can at least look at the ingredients, and I bet you can figure out a lot of it from there.
Next Week's Assignment:
• Class 23, Part 4:
Mouclade (Mussels with Wine and Cream Sauce) pages 39-40