I have been humbled by something as ridiculously dainty as pastry. There's a blow to my machismo. While trying to make empanadas, I cooked up the filling with no issue, in fact, it is delicious-combined a few different recipe suggestions to come up with my own, and was feeling pretty pleased with myself-the white wine substituting for chicken broth came out very nice indeed. But then came the pastry...
Now I have had people tell me that pastry is tricky, and it's an art, and it requires a certain feel, and blah blah blah. In fact, at gourmet.com, they have this to say about pastry. "Pastry is notoriously persnickety and usually requires exact measurements and precise handing in order to turn out well." Well damn, Guess they were right. It was downright fiendishly "persnickity". One could almost say it was really f-in' persnickety. Stuck to the roller, stuck to the counter, then it was too dry and flaky, then it broke apart, then the egg wash didn't do what it was supposed to do so I could pinch the edges...I may have sworn a few times. Maybe.
Anyway, I salvaged a couple of them to bake tomorrow, but I can pretty much tell they're not going to be right. On the plus side, I have lots of filling left over, and am gonna have some kick ass burritos out of the deal-along with a cilantro/lime sour cream spread for it. And furthermore, after three or four mojitos, who's gonna care anyway?
But if anyone out there is good at pastry, and wants to give a neophyte a few pointers, I'm all ears...and flour and sticky dough.
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