How to make puff pastry dough (the easy way)

I love puff pastry, and it makes a lot of baking projects more delicious and glorious. But most people view it either as something to be purchased from an expensive store, or something that takes monumental effort and talent. This recipe, adapted from River Cottage Every Day, proves that to be wrong! This takes about 15 minutes to prepare, and then rests for (at least) 30 minutes, giving you easy puff pastry dough in well under an hour. Pretty awesome. Use this dough for french fruit tarts (entry forthcoming), pasties (where this recipe first appeared on this blog), as a pot pie topper, or any of a thousand other excellent ideas. 

Puff pastry 
2 cups flour
1 teaspoon  salt
2/3 cup butter, chilled and chopped into small cubes
ice water

Procedure
Sift the flour and salt together in a large bowl. Throw in the cold chopped up butter and toss until all the butter chunks are covered with flour. You can use a pastry cutter if you want, but if you do, make sure you don't over-chop the butter. This is important if you want that delicious flakiness in the pastry! The butter cubes shouldn't be smaller than 1 cubic cm (not that I measured). Definitely don't use a food processor---I've made that mistake.

Add the water a couple of tablespoons at a time, mixing it in with a wooden spoon, until you have just enough liquid to make a firm dough. The butter is still in chunks at this point.

Shape the dough roughly into a rectangular prism with your hands and put it on a well-floured surface. Flour a rolling pin and roll the dough out in just one direction (away from you is easiest) until it makes a long, flat rectangle -- about 1/4" thick. Fold the top third down and the bottom third up over that (like a letter) so that you have a rectangle that's three layers thick. Rotate 90 degrees and repeat the process. Roll out, fold, and rotate a total of six times. Then cover the dough with plastic wrap and put it in the fridge to rest for at least 30 minutes. You can also freeze it, and it should keep for a good long while.

Pork chops and fried egg brunch

Crucial Rule #1 when it comes to doing just about anything with a pork chop: make sure that you get the thickest possible cut of pork chop! Just about all of us pig-eaters have at some point encountered the jaw-straining treachery of the overcooked skinny pork chop, and it gives a bad name to this potentially delicious cut of meaty goodness. Crucial Rule #2---and this applies to most meats you'll want to cook---is that you should have a meat thermometer. If you get a nice, chunky pork chop and cook it to 145F, there's almost no way you can go wrong. I mean, seriously, a pork chop is gonna be delicious with no marinade, rub, or glaze at all. It's that good.

That said, here's a recipe for a brunchy pork chop presentation that does involve a (super quick and easy) rub/glaze, largely inspired by this recipe.

Ingredients [for 2 pork chops]
2 Tablespoons brown sugar
2 teaspoons paprika
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon black pepper
2 Tablespoons butter
2 thick-cut pork chops
3 Tablespoons bourbon*
2 eggs
2 teaspoons chives or scallions or garlic scapes

Procedure
Heat the butter on a (preferably cast-iron) skillet over medium heat. Mix brown sugar, paprika, salt, and pepper together. Rub the mixture onto the pork chops, making sure to get the whole surface. When the butter has melted completely, throw the pork chops on to the skillet. Lower heat to medium-low. Cook for about 5 minutes on the first side. Flip the pork chops, and then pour the bourbon. Cook for another 5 minutes. If your pork chop is really thick, the internal temperature is probably only around 100F by this point. If this is the case for you, finish the rest of the cooking in the oven: put the pork chops onto a foil-lined baking sheet, pour any glaze remaining in the pan on top, and bake at 400F until the internal temperature of the pork chops reaches the desired 145F. Transfer the pork chops to a warm plate when they're ready.

Meanwhile, fry up a couple of eggs (letting the whites cook through but leaving the yolks runny). Mince up the garlic scapes (or whatever green thing you're using). Put the eggs on top of the pork chops, and sprinkle the green stuff on top of the eggs. Serve with some delicious biscuits!

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* When I was making this recipe this morning, a disaster occurred, in which I grabbed what I thought was a little Christmas-stocking-stuffer-size bottle of bourbon, only to discover it was a Christmas-stocking-stuffer-size bottle of bourbon maple syrup. I was saved only by the fact that it is humanly impossible to screw up a pork chop and literally any delicious thing tastes good on it.

Cheesy buttermilk biscuits

I love biscuits. I mean, to an unhealthy degree. Someone mentioned the word "biscuits" 3 days ago, and this ravenous part of my brain turned on and wouldn't shut up about how badly I need to bake and eat some biscuits right this second. And it wasn't even the relevant context: they were asking if they could give my dogs biscuits.  

I don't know how I waited 3 days before making them, but it happened, and it made the biscuits that much more delicious. No wait. It didn't. Because biscuits are the maximum amount of delicious already. 

Now that we're clear, here's a biscuit recipe. It is mostly adapted from the classic Joy of Cooking, with the addition of some cheese.

Ingredients
1 3/4 cups flour
3/4 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon sugar
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
5 Tablespoons butter
3/4 cup buttermilk (or just put about a tablespoon of lemon juice into 3/4 cup milk)
1/4 cup grated parmesan
1/4 cup grated cheddar

Procedure
Preheat oven to 450F. Combine the flour, salt, baking powder, sugar, and baking soda in a large bowl. Cut in the butter (either with a pastry cutter or just with a knife). Keep chopping the butter up until it's as small as you're willing to get it. Pour in the buttermilk and the parmesan and mix lightly, just until you more or less have something you can call dough.

Turn the dough out onto a floured work surface. Knead gently for 20-30 seconds. Using your knuckles, pat the dough down to about 1/4 - 1/2 inch thickness. (Obviously the thicker the dough, the thicker the biscuit. I like mine pretty thick, but you may not. Play around with it if you're not sure.) Cut circles into the dough (I used the small end of a plastic funnel for canning; I've also used the rims from Ball jar lids). Place onto a foil-lined baking sheet. If you want a little cheesy crust on top, sprinkle the cheddar on top. Bake for 8-12 minutes, or until the biscuits are just starting to get golden on top.

Cut them in half, lengthwise, and add a thin pat of butter in the middle. Enjoy with some pork chops, tea and jam, or literally every other thing.