She loves the Pesto Knots and Curry Pockets from the Potsdam Food Co-op's Bakery and often wishes that she had one of those to take to school. Well, I can't get to Potsdam very often so I decided to try to make some curry pockets at home. I did a lot of research and didn't find anything definitive about how to go about it. I probably should have just called Chris at the bakery.
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| Curry Pockets and Roll |
They are a hit! I've never gotten cinnamon roll dough to come out right - it is always too dry and tough but this bread machine recipe was just right. The dough isn't too sweet and Svenya's homemade milk and butter add a slightly heartier taste to the bread. Everyone is hoping that I will make another batch tonight for actual cinnamon rolls and now I'm looking forward to trying different fillings - spinach curry, spinach & cheese, some chutneys - anything that would be good wrapped in bread! If we didn't have Mr. Death-by-Anaphylactic-Shock-when-you-shove-a-Walnut-in-his-Mouth-Maxxwell in the house, I'd be making nut chutneys right now!
The dough (a very large batch!):
From The Bread Machine Cookbook by Donna Rathmell German
1 1/3 cup Milk
2 1/2 Tbs. Butter
2 eggs
2 2/3 Tbs. Sugar
2/3 tsp. Salt
4 cups all purpose Flour
2 1/2 tsp. yeast
Put everything in your bread machine (or Kitchen Aide if you're lucky enough to have one) and set it to the dough cycle. The dough ends up being pretty darn close to a batter, very wet and gooey but it rises and bakes wonderfully.
About 20 minutes before the end of the dough cycle, get your curry or chutney or cinnamon goo ready. (I sauteed half of a large, finely chopped onion in Olive oil, stirred in some Garam Masala and mild curry powder and added 1 cup of red lentils & 2 cups of water after the onions were soft and starting to caramelize. Bring the lentils to a boil and then simmer for about 10-15 minutes. Make sure the pot doesn't go dry!)
When your dough & curry are ready, grease up your hands with Olive oil or Butter and turn the dough out onto a heavily floured surface. Pat, stretch and roll it (gently - don't overwork this soft dough because you want it to rise well again!) into a large square or rectangle. You'll need a lot of counter space for this.
I cut half of my dough into 5 inch squares, dropped a bit of curry onto the middle of each one and pinched the edges up over the top to seal. The dough was so gooey that getting it to seal was easy. Transfer the pockets to a greased cookie sheet with a well floured, metal spatula. (You could put the pockets on parchment paper if you wanted but I was all out.) Cover them with a damp towel or plastic wrap and let them rise in a warm place for 30-40 more minutes. Bake in a 400 F oven for about 18-22 minutes - until they are golden brown on top. Refrain from biting them until they cool down just a bit.
For the other half of my dough, I stirred some cottage cheese into the remaining lentil curry and mashed the stuff up a bit with a big spoon. I spread the cheese-curry paste over most of the surface of the dough rectangle and then rolled it up into a large loaf. Again, I used a well floured metal spatula to ease the dough off my counter top and prevent it from ripping. I placed the large loaf on another greased baking sheet, let it rise for about 40 minutes and baked it at 400 degrees F for about 20 minutes.
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| Curry Roll |
I have two of Donna German's Bread Machine cookbooks and LOVE them. I got mine at a garage sale for 50 cents a piece but I see that they are still available at Amazon, along with some other books of hers that I may have to invest in. I cook everything from the recipes on my machines regular bread cycle. Most recipes rise well (as long as my kitchen is above 20 degrees!) and have good texture. She does use a lot of nuts so I've had to modify some or just not make those breads.
You can see that there is flour coating parts of my pockets and loaf. If I were into being fancy, I would use cornmeal instead of flour to coat my work surface and then they would have nice, crumbly texture where the flour is.
You want to be careful that your plastic or towel does not stick to the dough while it is rising. Brushing it with butter would help (and would give a pretty toasted gloss to the finished bread) but I just made sure I lifted the paper towel occasionally and kept it very slightly damp.
This dough recipe does not make the healthiest bread in the universe. It is NOT low cal, low fat or low carb! If you want to eat pastry but don't want to look like one, you have to make room for it in your daily calorie & fat allowance. That's not a problem for Molly - she needs more calories and her brain & endocrine system still like fat - especially the healthy fats that Svenya makes for her in her milk. However, I will have to either cut back somewhere else or spend more time moving around in order to keep losing weight with these laying around!
When you make yours, you could make sure you use skim milk (which is great because it has more protein per cup than whole milk and that is what the dough wants) and you could try substituting up to half of the white flour with very finely ground whole wheat pastry flour. Regular WW flour will be too coarse and result in a heavy loaf that does not rise as well. Don't try to substitute anything for the butter, margarine or oil simply won't do the trick when it comes to pastry. If you are concerned about cholesterol in the butter & eggs, see if you can find a local farmer who sells unpasteurized, non-homogenized butter or cream from pasture fed cows and eggs from free range hens. The nutritional content of these more naturally produced foods are significantly healthier than those of factory-farm produced food.
Happy eating!!
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