Puff Pastry Appetizer with Kale Pesto, Fromage Blanc and Watermelon Radishes

| Valerie Rice
Serving size:8
Puff Pastry Appetizer with Kale Pesto, Fromage Blanc and Watermelon Radishes

Paired with crisp puff pastry, creamy fromage blanc and gorgeous watermelon radishes, the kale pesto easily made the jump to elegant. The result was festive, beautiful and, I gotta say, completely delicious.

If kale isn’t your thing, then use the puff pastry with the fromage blanc as a base for other toppings. You can substiute arugula pesto, sautéed mushrooms or even sautéed Swiss chard.

Ingredients

  • 1 White Toque Butter Puff Pastry cut into eight 4 inch round circles (or use your puff pastry of choice)
  • 8 tsp fromage blanc
  • 1 egg
  • cracked pepper
  • sea salt
  • 8 tsp kale pesto
  • 2 watermelon radishes, sliced thin or 6 lollypop radishes of your choice
  • sprig of thyme

Directions

  1. Remove puff pastry from the freezer and let thaw at room temperature. Preheat oven to 375.
  2. Once pastry dough is at room temperature, toss some flour on your workspace (no sticky dough, here). Take a 4-inch round cutter and cut out eight circles from the dough. Place the dough on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper.
  3. Score the dough with a pairing knife about a ¼ in from the edge. This helps the puff pastry to create a border for your ingredients — a trick my friend Julie Robles taught me. Drop one teaspoon of fromage blanc into the middle of the circle and spread with an offset spatula.
  4. Beat one egg and then brush around the edges of the pastry dough. Crack some fresh pepper on top and sprinkle sea salt. Bake on a silpat or parchment for about 18 minutes or until the edges of your pastry turn a beautiful golden color.
  5. Drop one teaspoon of the kale pesto and spread with an offset spatula. Top with two slices of watermelon radish. Sprinkle with fresh thyme and drizzle with a little olive oil. Serve.

A note about the kale pesto: A helpful reader (thanks, Tricia!) commented that when she made the pesto it was a tad salty. I thought I would take a minute to reiterate a couple of notes about the ingredients: 1) use unsalted blanched almonds, if you only have salted blanched almonds, such as Marcona almonds- wait to add any salt until you’ve buzzed it together and then give it a taste. 2) Be sure to rinse your capers before adding them to the processor.

For the full post, visit Eat Drink Garden.