Crabby Puffs

You know, puff pastry really does make everything taste better!

Any filling you put in a butter and flaky puff pastry crust is automatically elevated to "fancy" status.

I've done numerous puff pastry turnovers or meat pies or whatever you want to call them, but this is the first time I've used seafood...

Here's what you will need...

I bought these puff pastry squares (10 for $3.99) at Vine Ripe Market in La Mesa. You can probably find something similar at other Middle Eastern-type markets. This recipe was made on the fly as well. I was looking online for a crab cakes recipe but didn't have bread crumbs so I thought it would be better to put it all in a puff pastry square instead!

Ingredients:

• a few tbsp of olive oil
• 1 cup chopped celery (about two medium length ribs)
• one small chopped onion
• one chopped green bell pepper 
• Puff pastry squares
• 1 lb can of REAL lump crab meat
• Old Bay Seasoning (you can use other seasoning if you want)
• mustard
• Worcestershire (I didn't have any so I used a tiny splash of soy sauce
• corn
• 1 beaten egg (used to seal the puffs and to brush on top)

Directions: 
Saute the onions in the oil, then add the chopped celery and green bell pepper until slightly wilted and fragrant.

• Add the crab meat, season with a tiny splash of soy sauce (I was supposed to use Worcestershire but didn't have any), and the Old Bay seasoning. 
• I added the corn kernels at the very end. You can add however much you want. I wanted to have some "color" in the filling. 
• Spoon the filling into the centers of the puff pastry squares. Brush the edges with the beaten egg and seal. 

• I used a fork to seal the edges...

• Make two slits on top of each puff and brush the tops and edges with the remaining beaten egg.  
• Bake at 350 F for 45 minutes.

They will smell so good when you take them out of the oven!

You can let it cool down before eating or you can snarf one right away like I did.

Pretty easy, eh! It's perfect by itself or with a side salad.

Repeat with different fillings such as:

Pulled Pork
Picadillo
Shredded chicken adobo
Short ribs stew, and so on and so on.

The one pound of crab meat can be stretched to make a little over 20 pastries. It depends how little or how much you put into the squares. You don't want to over fill it either. I still have a bit of leftover filling left and I just plan to use it in an omelet. Real crab tastes so much better than that fake Krab shit too so make sure to use the real thing!