When buying beets, have you ever though with happens its beautiful lush greens? The ones with the purple stem, purple veins and the leaves green as the forest at a summer dawn. Some of them may be fed to the animals, but a lot of the greens get tossed. A few weeks ago I was walking through the Kadıköy market at an early hour when the vendors are still setting their stalls. I spotted a huge box of assorted stems and leaves, and asked the greengrocer (who was peeling off very edible, but not so good looking layers from the leeks) what was going to happen with them. «We are tossing them». I recognized beet greens and black radish stems in the box. «Can I take some?» «Go for it. What are you going to do with them?» I did know make my mind, «Soup? Börek?» For me it was ridiculous he even asked: what would you not do with the greens like that? «I took a bunch of mixed greens and headed home.
The black radish stems tasted just like the radish! So you can shop them finely and add to any salad. I can imagine they would work very well in the pesto like that. Beet greens have a pleasant acidity to them, but nowhere close to that of spinach. The beet greens can be a part and even a star ingredient of a good winter pottage, but also pretty much of anything else — just like the spinach. When I think spinach the first thing that comes to my mind is börek.
My mother-in-law turns a particularly delicious börek of puff pastry filled with assorted herbs and cheese. Now, you might wonder how come the puff pastry is so Turkish. It might be not, but I can’t stop thinking about how baklava looks so similar to many puff pastry desserts. The difference in the technique is profound. With baklava and other treats made of yufka or phyllo dough you roll ultra-thin individual layers of dough and then arrange them into a neat pile often brushing each layer with sufficient amount of oil or butter. In case of the puff pastry you wrap the rolled dough around a block of butter and then flatten it in a certain way (making the real deal is not for the susceptible individuals). But the principle that creates the flaky outcome is the same: in the hot oven the butter melts and boils releasing the moisture that becomes the steam, and the steam in turn makes the pasty rise. Given that baklava is much older than mille feuille (Napoleon) I tend to think that the French took an old principle and put the bar lower in terms of the skill (not in terms of the fuss though): you don’t need to roll the painstakingly thin dough, you just need to roll the butter into the dough through a number (still painstaking) of iterations. If that is true, then puff pastry has Turkish roots.
I saw the real puff pastry done once when my friend Elena — a lawyer turned chef — spent half a day making croissants. The croissants were delicious beyond words, but they took half a day! That’s why I am a big fan of rough puff pastry, and I love the «quick and dirty» method Gordon Ramsey offers to make a pie base: it will not rise 5 folds as the real deal, but we are not making French desserts either.
I confess, I feel guilty when I dump so much butter in my food, so as an attempt to mitigate the guilt I’ve substituted part of the flour with the whole-wheat. Not 1:1, more like 1:2, so it has nothing to do with the slightly straw mouthfeel when you eat whole-wheat pastry. The whole wheat flour in this case gives a pleasant nutty note.
You can do different things in the filling department. I kept it simple and just sauteed the beets greens and stems in a bit of olive oil with some garlic, coriander, black pepper and finally, added a pinch of fragrant wild oregano from Karaburun. You can add a whole bunch of other greens, stems and leaves you happen to have in your fridge. Potentially some feta-like or crumbly goat cheese.
I wish the outcome was not so irresistible (it’s quite a bit of fat packed in each slice after all), but it is: I look at the pie and wonder how so much butter can produce this lightest-eve pastry. But forgive me the butter sin: I have saved the delicious beet greens otherwise destined to be tossed.
Whole Wheat Puff Pie with Beet Greens
Source: Rough puff pastry is a modified recipe and the exact method Gordon Ramsey suggests.
Serves: 9
Prep time: 30 min (hands on)
Cook time: 30 min
Total time: 1 hour
Ingredients:
Rough puff pastry:
165 gram all-purpose flour
85 gram whole wheat flour
6.6 gram fine sea salt
250 gram butter, cold (best out of freezer)
90 gram (6 tbsp) cold water, might need less or more depending on your flour
Beet greens filling:
2 tbsp olive oil
3 cloves garlic, minced
350 gram (about 30 leaves) beet greens (including the stalks), thoroughly washed and finely chopped
3 pinches fine sea salt
2 pinches ground coriander seeds
2 pinches dry oregano
freshly ground black pepper, to taste
Directions
Prepare puff pastry dough: Sieve the all-purpose, whole wheat flour and salt into a large mixing bowl and stir to combine. Coarsely grate the cold butter in the same mixing bowl. With your hands rub the butter into the flour mix, but don’t be so thorough: you must be able to see small pieces of butter. Gradually pour in the water (you might need less or more, depending on your flour) and bring the dough into a rough ball. Honestly, that ball hardly reassemble a dough, but don’t worry about it: wrap it in the plastic film and place in the freezer for 20 min.
Roll and fold dough twice: Place the ball of dough you took out of the freezer on a lightly floured working surface. Firmly press to flatten the ball. Use a bench scraper or a knife to push from the sides slightly and straighten the edges. Now you should have a thick square of puff pastry dough in front of you. Roll with the floured pin in one direction until 3 times the width, about 20 x 50 cm. The surface of the dough will be marbled, with visible streaks of butter — perfect! Take care to keep the edges straight with the help of the bench scrapper or the knife. Fold the upper third of the dough to the center and then fold the down third of the dough over it. Turn the dough 90 degrees: if the folding seam was parallel to you, now it is going to be perpendicular. Again, roll 3 times the width, fold as before. Wrap in the plastic film and place in the freezer for 20 min.
Prepare filling: Warm up a large saute pan, pour in the olive oil, and when the olive is hot enough, stir in the garlic. In a moment add the beet greens and stalks, cover with the lid and let cook on the medium heat for 5 minutes, or until wilted. Remove the lead, add the spices and salt. Continue cooking for 5 minutes uncovered, or until most of the moisture evaporates.
Assemble puff pie: Preheat the oven to 200C/390F. Cut the folded dough out of the freezer into 2 equal parts. Roll one part on a lightly floured surface until about 65×45 cm (and 2-3 cm thin). Place right on the baking tray, evenly distribute the filling on top leaving 1 cm margins. Roll the second part of the dough, place over the filling and pinch the edges of the dough to enclose the filling. Make a few slashes on the top with the knife to help the moisture release during the baking. Bake for 30-35 minutes and serve warm or cold.
