It’s the holiday season, so you’ll probably find yourself entertaining (or in the mood for party food, at least). 13-13: Spinach Turnovers are a nice vegetarian option that you can bring to a party or just make for yourself.
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I made these along with 9-26: Crispy Beef Turnovers for a get-together I went to recently. The ingredients & method for both are somewhat similar, so I prepared both at the same time, which worked out pretty well. If you find yourself with extra puff pastry (and maybe a deep fryer), consider a third turnover option, 1-7: Trader Vic’s Crab Turnovers.
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I don’t know if my mom ever made these, but I think she’d like them. These were a big hit with the vegetarians at the get-together I attended.
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Ingredients. I chose to go with fresh spinach, although I was lazy and didn’t chop it down much farther than what you see here. I don’t have sesame seeds, although when I was at the store shopping for this dish I could have SWORE that I did. Oh well.
The saffron is in the glass jar in front–this is real Iranian saffron brought back for me from Iran by a student a few years ago when I was a teacher. Quite the gift.
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One of numerous onion pictures I’ve found myself taking during this project.
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First handful of spinach into the pan–this was about half of the bag.
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Down to wilted leaves. Doesn’t take much time to get the whole bag into the pan.
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Here’s the whole bag after I sautéed it down. Probably should have chopped it to reduce the probability of biting into it and having a big piece get stuck, but I was doing a lot of cooking that day, so I let it go. If I did it again, I’d just go with the pre-chopped frozen stuff–it’s the easiest for recipes like this.
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Cutting up the puff pastry sheets. Puff pastry is a fickle bitch–too cold and it breaks, too warm and it melts & sticks to everything. I lost a whole package to letting it get too warm and then having it adhere to itself, somehow absorbing the paper wrapper inside the sticky mess.
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Overstuffing the dough (a bad habit) and sealing with a quick brush of egg wash.
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After they came out. I was slightly in the weeds at this point, and so picture-taking became a lessened priority. However, I did stuff about 12 turnovers and used my silicone baking mat to ensure no sticking & no burned bottoms. If you don’t have one of those, it’s okay–you’ll probably be fine. I made turnovers at work the other day with no mat and they didn’t stick or burn at all.
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Here’s a close-up view of one-–mine look a little more bloated than the ones on the recipe card.
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Making the saffron sauce–an afterthought in all of the hustle & bustle. Here’s the vegetable stock with the saffron threads in it. I didn’t measure very well, but mine was very saffron-y, so adjust accordingly if you want less punch.
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Dollops of sour cream into the cornstarch-thickened stock. It came out a creamy yellow, and was a nice touch with the otherwise-plain turnovers (my opinion after trying them at the party).
No final picture of the sauce. Sorry about that, I’m a bad photojournalist sometimes.
Grade: B+