caramelized onion and brie puffs

One of the first things I learned how to make was a baked brie. They're always a crowd-pleaser, and they're relatively easy to put together. This weekend, I made miniature baked brie puffs, which is marginally more difficult by virtue of increased labor. I should've taken pictures. But, just between you and me, I can't find my camera.

Ingredients

1 large white or yellow onion, sliced into thin half-moons
2 tablespoons butter
1 sheet of puff pastry, thawed
1 wedge of brie, cut into 1/2 inch pieces (triple cream melts the best)
a pinch or two of salt
1 egg yolk
2 tablespoons water
a handful (or 2) of flour for your countertop


First, preheat the oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit. Then caramelize the onion slices. You want to do this over a medium heat because you do not want the onions to crisp at all. Put the butter in a skillet to melt. Once the bubbling has subsided, add the onion. Add the salt after a couple minutes. Let it cook, with relatively little stirring, until they are soft and brown. This will take some time - maybe 20 minutes. If your onions start to get a little dry, add some chicken stock (or water or vegetable stock if you're avoiding meat) to help the process along. Once the onions are lovely and brown, remove them from the heat and set aside.

Now, the hard part (and remember, hard is a relative term - nothing about this recipe is overwhelming) - the dough. Put some flour down on your work surface, and unfold the pastry dough onto it. If it doesn't unfold pretty easily, it's probably not thawed enough. Grab your rolling pin and roll out the dough from the center to the edges, making a bigger and bigger square. Pick up the dough and flip it over after every 2 - 3 rolls to keep it from sticking to the counter. Put down more flour whenever you need to, also to keep it from sticking.

This process is a little difficult if you've never handled dough before. Just remember, if it gets too sticky you can add flour to it. And if it gets too dry, you can add water to it. You can mash it back up into a ball and re-roll it as many times as you need too. Plus, it will puff up so wonderfully and taste so heavenly, that it won't matter if it wasn't rolled perfectly.

You want the dough to be about 1/8 of an inch thick. This is thin, but not so thin that it looks translucent or fragile. The dough will be about 50% bigger.

Use a pizza cutter to cut the dough into 2.5 inch squares (just eyeball it - I don't want to hear about anyone breaking out a ruler). Now, fill each individual square. I like to do this using a min-muffin tin.

Place a square of dough in each depression in the tin. Place a piece of brie into each square of dough. Place a spoonful of caramelized onions over each piece of brie. If you can't get all your dough into one muffin-tin, just cover it with a damp towel until the first batch is done.

(You don't need to have a muffin tin for this - you can just fill the dough squares while they're flat, and fold them up into little envelopes of deliciousness. Then bake 'em on a cookie sheet).

Next, whisk the egg yolk and water together. Brush this mixture onto the edges of each dough square. Then seal up the edges - this doesn't need to be perfect - by folding them over each other or pinching them together. The egg yolk will work like a glue. Finally, use any leftover yolk mixture to brush the tops of the newly sealed dough packets.

Stick the puffs in the oven. If they aren't golden brown after 10 minutes, let them cook another 5 minutes. Then check again. It won't take long.

Serve at your next fancy party and pretend you spent the whole day in the kitchen. Or serve to your close friends and give 'em the skinny on how simple they are to make. Either way, enjoy.