My sister from Australia would sometimes call us on Facetime while she’s cooking dinner for her family. One time she was kneading dough on her kitchen table. Now I’m a kitchen novice so what she was doing was a little intimidating. When she explained that she was simply rolling out the store-bought dough to prep it for the fillings, I felt a little more confident. Plus, it looked really yummy.
I found a recipe online for tuna turnover using puff pastry and followed that (sorry I couldn’t find the link anymore!). I had a hard time sourcing frozen puff pastry in any grocery store until Santi’s opened up in nearby Capitol Commons. They had the dough in large and small blocks. I opted for the latter. It would look like a small rectangular block at first but a few long turns of the rolling pin and you will have a large flat dough that is about 3mm thick. I can make around 10 medium rectangular pieces of pastry out of it. One small block is around 280+ pesos. Keep it frozen until the day before you need it, then just place it in the fridge. Take it out of the fridge an hour before rolling it out.
You can use any type of filling – go crazy! I have been using tuna so far because that’s the easiest to prepare.
For the tuna turnovers you will need:
1 cup of tuna flakes in water (drained)
2 tbsps mayonnaise
1 tsp Dijon mustard
1/2 medium white onion, minced
Salt and pepper to taste
Preheat oven to 400F. Mix the ingredients together for the filling. Sprinkle flour on your workboard and dough to prevent them from sticking together. I like to brush some flour on my rolling pin too. Proceed to knead the dough from the center going out. Cut it into squares and put the filling in. Fold the pastry over. Baste pastry top with egg and press the sides with a fork to seal. Line tray with parchment paper and place pastry in. Bake for about 20 minutes until golden.
Take care when serving because the filling can be really hot! Enjoy!
