I’ll be honest, running a food blog can be hard work. You spend a lot of time in the kitchen, try to avoid food waste, try to be creative, try to be healthy, then try to write everything down right and then you have to do it again, realise it hasn’t worked and try to find out why. It can take a while to get a recipe together – especially if you’re also trying to create a beautiful meal which will feed your family and / or friends at the end of it as well.
Then there are the times when things just work. You fancy a snack, you know you’ve got some ingredients kicking about, you have a bit of time to hand and you just throw it together and it works. It might not be the prettiest dish, or the most complicated, but it might just be one of those days you realise you have a bunch of stuff that works really well together and you get a quick, easy and satisfying treat after throwing it all together.
Which is precisely what this puff pastry pinwheel dish is.
After our recent house move I visited all the local farm shops I could pinpoint, bringing some beautiful produce home with me in the process. So it was that I happened to have some absolutely lovely slices of smoked ham to hand which really needed using (the first pack, of course, went in a ham and mustard sandwich). So it got me thinking about other classic flavours that would work with it…mustard, again. Cheese, of course. And with cheese goes onion…but maybe a slightly spruced up, caramelised version. All thrown together in the ever convenient roll of pre-bought puff pastry I had kicking around. Surely it couldn’t really go wrong?
INGREDIENTS
120g cheddar
100g approx. smoked ham, finely chopped
2 small white onions / one medium sized, thinly sliced
25g butter to fry onions, along with fresh ground black pepper and Maldon sea salt and a drizzle of olive oil
1 x pre rolled sheet pack of puff pastry
2 tsp Dijon mustard
METHOD
- Caramelise onions in butter & a little olive oil with sprinkle of Maldon sea salt and some black pepper, gently over a low to medium heat for approx. 20 minutes – or until brown and sweetened
- Let puff pastry get to room temperature and roll out slightly lengthwise. Remove from paper and lay out on a sheet of cling film
- Brush pastry sheet with the mustard (let down a little with some olive oil if needed)
- Dice the ham, removing any particularly notable lines of fat and scatter across the pastry
- Grate cheddar and scatter across the pastry
- Drain the caramelised onions and then scatter over the pastry with the other fillings. Give a little black pepper seasoning but don’t worry about salt if you’re using smoked ham – you already have cheese and a strong flavour from the meat
- Starting lengthways, roll up the pastry. Seal in the clingfilm and put in the fridge for at least half an hour to chill
- Remove the roll from the fridge and slice approx. 1.5cm rounds, place on a baking sheet or paper in a tray. Press down with the heel of your hand gently to expand the surface space and size of each round.
- Put in a pre-heated oven at 200 degrees centigrade (fan) until puffed up and golden (roughly around 20 minutes depending on your oven – they’ll all produce different results, so just keep an eye on them)
- Enjoy warm just made or cooled later
These were just a bit of fun using up some lovely ingredients I had kicking about but they worked really well – Mr Waffle came home from a trip away, found the (few remaining) ones leftover and inquisitively dug in – and very nearly finished the lot in between making appreciative noises so they’re definitely a winner in our house! Smoked ham and cheddar are born for each other and the caramelised onions bring a little sweet yet sharp tone that cuts through the richness. They’re easy, fun and a bit more special than shoving a few handfuls of crisps in a bowl if you’ve got people around or fancy a snack, and basically it’s a versatile recipe – use the pastry as a canvas for what you have and what you like (as long as it’s not too wet or oily which may retard the rise of the pastry) and have fun with it!
The Food Waffle 