Feb 14, 20216 min read

The Turnovers, takeover | Puffed Pastry stuffed with Potatoes

Updated: Jul 29, 2023

If you're from India, like me, you know this after school snack for sure!

The tiny bakery right outside my school gate, used to sell these incredibly crispy, flaky and perfectly stuffed puffed pastry, which were known as "aloo patties". Well now I know, the correct term is actually turnover, or portable pies or puffed pastry, thanks to GBBO!

This little bakery used to be my first stop, after school, before heading for home. Such was it's charm. When I was kid, I never thought about how that pastry was made, or how the guy selling them, was flavoring the stuffing, you know all those things that actually made it a good dish. I was only focused on finishing mine first, before it gets snatched away by my friends. Now that I think about it, I'm amazed, how that guy used to achieve such excellence, with all the rolling and folding, in the small open kitchen of his pocket-sized bakery. Well, I am far away from home, and from that ridiculously amazing bakery, and I crave for a good "aloo patties". So I decided to make my own.

So I could've bought a pastry sheet from store, but hey, that's no fun. Also I am all about everything home-made, I mean we brew our own beer at home, so, yeah!

Also these are super easy to make, and all you need are four ingredients!

All purpose flour or Maida
Salt
Water
Butter

That's it!! Yes!! And for the stuffing, you can make it as simple as a store bought jam, or make your own. Make anything that you fancy inside a pastry !!

So I'm gonna start now! This was my very first time, at making this, and they turned out, pretty decent. So there is no rocket science really, you just need some motivation! May be my pictures, and the way I went about it, could motivate you. May be.

Step 1 : Gather your ingredients

All purpose flour/Maida - 320 gm / 2.5 cups
Cold Water - 177 gm / 3/4 cups
Fine Sea Salt - 7 gm / 1 tsp
Cold Butter - 227 gm / 1 cup - You can use a fancy, expensive European butter, but the results are the same if you constantly maintain the temperature of the butter. It should be very hard, all the time.
Parchment Paper - Needed to wrap and roll the dough.
Cling Film Wrap - Needed to wrap the dough. You can use a wet towel too.
Measuring tape - This is optional, you only need it when rolling out the dough. However when rolling out, the dimensions of the dough are 12 inch x 6 inch, and that's 1 ft. x 0.5 ft. which is somewhat easy to eyeball.

Step 2 : Now add the salt to the flour, whisk it in, and then add all of your water in the dough and start mixing it with the fork. It might seem very dry, but that's okay. It will all start to come together. Don't worry, just keep going.

Step 3 : Now you will be tempted to add more water, but you really don't need to. I added no more than what I mentioned earlier, and it started to come together after several kneads.

Step 4 : Let's wrap the dough in a parchment paper. So you take a big sheet of paper, and keep the dough inside. Now using a measuring tape, measure out 7 inch, and then fold the parchment paper at 7 inches, on both sides. Look at pictures for clue. Roll the dough over this paper, to spread the dough to the edges inside.

Step 5 : Let's prepare the butter now. Chop the butter into cubes, and then sprinkle some flour on it. Now pound it with the rolling pin, to that it all becomes one big mass of butter. Use scraper to fold the butter onto itself to make it one whole big piece. Keep sprinkling little flour to avoid the butter to stick on the rolling pin.

Step 6 : Let's wrap the butter now using the same technique of wrapping the dough, except the size of the butter square has to be 4 inch x 4inch. Keep the dough and the butter in the fridge for 45 minutes.

Step 7 : After 45 minutes, comes the fun part! The rolling and folding!! So take out the dough first, and roll it slightly, just slightly elongate it in all directions.

Step 8 : Then take out the butter, and put it in a diamond shape on the rolled out dough (see picture). Then fold the dough over the butter like an envelope (see pictures), Tightly seal the butter in the dough. Make sure there are no air bubbles trapped, and then invert the dough onto itself.

Step 9 : Then roll it out to 12 inch long and 6 inch wide rectangle, and perform the first fold, by taking the top half part and folding it 1/3rd of the way down and then taking the bottom half and rolling it over the folded top half. (see pictures). This is your first fold. Wrap the dough in a cling film wrap and keep in freezer for 20 minutes.

Step 10 : Then turn this dough to 90 degrees, so that the folded layers are facing you. Now roll it out again to 12 inch long and 6 inch wide rectangle, and fold it again, the same way as before. Now this is your 2nd fold. Wrap the dough in a cling film wrap, and place it in the freezer for 35 minutes.

Step 11 : From here, you have to repeat the steps 9 and 10, two more times, for a total of 6 folds. If at any point, you feel like that the dough is not rolling, then place it back in the freezer for a minimum of 20 minutes and then try to roll it out again. Don't force the rolling process. Let the dough relax. I had to keep the dough in the freezer for 20 minutes, after each fold.

After the 6th fold, keep it in the fridge overnight, or if making it the same day, you can still let it rest in the fridge, by the time you make the filling (a minimum of one hour).

Step 12 : The delicious potato filling!! Now you can use any filling you like, any flavoring you like. Use some minced chicken or mutton or some paneer, whatever your heart desires. This is just one example, which is my favorite.

So you need to gather your ingredients first

Ingredients

Medium sized boiled potatoes - 4 to 5, mash'em
Green peas - 1 cup, boiled
Green chilies - 3 to 4, chopped
Onion - 1, chopped
Garlic - 3 cloves, chopped
Seasoning - salt (2 tsp), turmeric powder (1 tsp), red chili powder (1 tsp), garam masala (1 tsp), coriander seeds whole (2 tsp), cumin seeds (2 tsp)
Ghee / oil - 1 tbsp

In a pan add some ghee or oil on medium low flame, followed by cumin seeds. Here I am adding asafoetida, a common seasoning in an Indian kitchen, if you don't have it, skip it.

Now add in green chilies and garlic. Sauté them on medium low flame. Then add the seasonings, except the salt. Sauté everything on low flame to avoid the seasonings to get burnt.

Once the seasonings start to cook a little, add the onions and then the salt and mix everything in. Let it cook on medium low flame for a 7-10 minutes.

Once the onions are fried in the seasonings a little, add in the peas, followed by the mashed potatoes and mix everything properly.

Now a lot of the culinary chefs would not agree with me here about what I just did. I added some tomato ketchup, but not just any tomato ketchup, its the Maggi Hot and Sweet ketchup. This might not be the most sophisticated way of cooking or flavoring, but I love the flavor it brings. Also since I am not adding tomatoes, it adds that tangy flavor. In the end, I just sprinkled some dried mint leaves.

Step 13 : Coming back to our dough, I made these turnovers the next morning.

So Good morning! I love my kitchen window in the morning. Look at all the sunlight pouring in.

Step 14 : Now roll the dough out, to about 16 inch wide and 10 inch long.

Step 15 : Cut the dough into four columns.

Step 16 : Cut each column into roughly three squares. Look at the layers!! wee!!

Step 17 : Fill each square with about 1 tbsp. of the filling. Now as you can see I obviously overfilled them, and so these will open while baking. So try not to overfill them. Make sure you are able to seal it properly.