Chicken + Brie Puff Pastry Pockets

It's been a rainy week so there's been more cooking in the kitchen as opposed to the garage for now. I came across this recipe from Orgasmic Chef and made a couple modifications to it to fit our liking. First off, I'm not a huge fan of sweetness mixed with meats so I decided to sub some milk and herbs instead of nutmeg and apple juice. More on this in a bit.

So to start, cook those chicken breasts. I just cooked them in a light amount of olive oil over the stove in a skillet. I then set Jason to work cutting them into tiny pieces:

cuttin' that chicken like a boss

Then for skillet cooking the onion and garlic in butter, YUM. Once you add the basil, flour, and milk you'll get a bit of a gooey, porridge looking consistency:

mmmm butter

weird soupy mixture (it will thicken though!)

with the chicken added it started to look a bit more like filling

Now comes time to cut the cheese HA...literally. We love cheese in this house, especially Brie, so although the original recipe called for only 8 oz of the delectable creamy goodness, I opted for a lot more, like Costco sized a lot more:

now that's what I'm talkin' bout!

Yeah, I basically almost doubled the amount of cheese in these things but omg it was so good in the end. If you like Brie, trust me, just add more. Now that being said, I'm picky about Brie pieces and I don't like the edging. Most people eat the white skin-like part but not I said the fly. So cutting the Brie wheel is up to you. I chopped of the rind and ended up just doing small triangular wedges of the cheese to put on top of the chicken mixture inside the pastry pockets.

Ok so now comes the messy, creative part. I'm not going to pretend that my pockets came out all beautiful and perfect, they were pretty ugly as you'll see soon. I didn't get the puff pastry to cut super evenly because I accidently stretched parts of it out too much which ended up yielding oddly shaped and sized pockets. To the best of his ability Jason closed them up but wasn't worrying too much about making them perfect (this is what happens when you're both starving, and are already into a bottle of wine). 

After rolling the dough out, I cut it sporadically with a pizza cutter, brushed the edges with the egg bath, loaded them up with the chicken mixture, topped them with Brie and left Jason to closing the suckers up. He was neither delicate nor artistic about it, we were just too hungry (we even forgot to close the edges with fork tines! GASP!)

they see me rollin' and egg bathin'

just because it's ugly doesn't mean it's not delicious

The hard part really was waiting the 30 mins while those babies froze in the freezer. It's a pretty important part though because you don't want the cheese to be any warmer than it's going to be in the oven otherwise you'll have maximum cheese oozing all over the baking sheets. But once they are out of the oven, all that wait is so worth it! We feasted well that night and had more than plenty to have the next night for dinner as well. Just pop them in the microwave for a couple mins and you can relive the magic.

golden and crispy

yes please!!!

Chicken & Brie Puff Pastry Pockets              print recipe

2 T butter 1/2 onion, diced 2 garlic cloves,, minced 1 T basil OR 3/4 T rosemary salt + pepper to taste 1 T flour 3/4 C milk 2 chicken breasts, cooked and finely diced 1 lb store-bought puff pastry sheets, thawed 1 egg, lightly beaten with 1 T of water 10-14 oz soft Brie, sliced 1. Cook chicken breasts with light cooking oil in a skillet over the stove top. Once cooked, finely dice into smaller than bite-sized pieces 2. In a skillet, melt butter over medium heat and add onion and garlic. Saute until soft, about 4-5 mins. Add your basil or rosemary at this time. Salt and pepper to taste 3. Sprinkle flour over the mixture and mix well. Whisk in milk and reduce heat. If mixture is too thick, add more milk 4. Add the chicken to the onion mixture and stir to combine. Simmer on low for 2 mins. Remove from heat and set aside 5. Roll the thawed pastry out if required. Using a pizza cutter, cut into 5" X 5" squares until you've used all the dough 6. Brush edges of each pastry square with the egg wash 7. Spoon in the chicken mixture till you have enough to fill the center of half the square, into each square. Place a slice of Brie on top of each pastry center 8. Either fold squares in half diagonally to enclose the filling or use two pieces of puff pastry. Pinch together edges to seal and crimp with the tines of a fork 9. Brush tops with egg wash 10. Place pies on parchment-lined baking sheets and place in freezer for 30 mins 11. Preheat oven to 375 degrees 12. Position oven racks in upper and lower two thirds of the oven 13. Bake the pies for 25 mins, switching positions of baking sheets halfway through, until puffed and golden brown 14. Let pies settle and cool for 5 mins before serving