Basic Savory Pastry
This is another in a series of basic pastry doughs. It is used mainly in savory dishes like quiche, the rice and vegetable tart and meat or chicken pot pies. The dough can be made ahead, refrigerated for up to 3 days, or frozen for up to a month, or several months if you use a food saver vacuum sealer. As with most pastry doughs of this type, it is best when worked as little as possible, and that all ingredients be very cold. When rolling out the dough, you should be able to see small pieces of butter. This will ensure that it will be tender and flakey when baked.
Equipment
- A Food Processor Not necessary, but makes this much easier
Ingredients
- 2 1/4 cup all purpose flour (270g)
- 1 tsp salt (6g)
- 1 cup unsalted butter (228g)
- 1 egg yolk
- 1/4 cup ice water
Instructions
- Place the flour and salt in the bowl of your food processor and pulse once to mix.
- Cut the very cold butter into cubes, place in your food processor bowl and pulse a few times until the butter pieces are about the size of peas.
- Mix the egg yolk with the ice water, pour evenly over the the flour/butter mixture. Turn the food processor on and pulse a few more times until the dough starts to come together.
- Dump the dough out on to a lightly floured work surface. Using your hand press the dough into a cylinder. Wrap the cough in plastic wrap and allow to cool at least one hour before using. This will allow the glutens to rest, and the dough will be easier to roll out, as well as being tender and flakey.
- The dough may also be frozen. I often seal the dough using my food vacuum sealer system. This works very well and the dough may be kept frozen for several months without any problem.