I was in Carrefour (Xinyi, DongXin Road/Civic Boulevard) tonight. They have the soup bowl stuff. Two brands/types I think, in different areas of the shop.
Hey folks, would anyone be nice enough to point where to buy puff / flaky pastry nowadays in Taipei ? I have never saw it in Jason nor Citysuper or Carrefour.
I recommend against buying the puff pastry available locally in Taiwan. If you find something of better quality that what Iāve seen, though, please do let us know (including info on its ingredients and how it performs).
Well so far I have asked my mother to bring 2kg from France last week. It can freeze very well. She is buying it at a nearby bread shop in Paris. Was wondering if this could work in Taiwan I will ask some of the french guys working in Lalos see if they can sell some to me under the rug
Bump.
So I got puff pastry, I guess, from the Tianmu Carrefour - itās actually labelled āPĆ¢te FeuilletĆ©e Bladerdeegā on the Carrefour packaging, with the Taiwan-added label having āPuffed Pastryā and āę³åę·ŗå±¤ę“¾ē®ā. Itās not sold in the freezer, but rather in the same area as cheeses. Itās sold in a long triangular container, with the pastry wrapped around a tube inside. 230g in weight.
And, um, well, what should I do with it? Iām not entirely sure what to expect once I unroll the thing - it looks like itās pre-rolled in rounds, but Iām not sure if thereās just one round or more in there. Iām not unrolling it until Iāve got something planned. I gather itās not the puff pastry normally called for in cookbooks - the recipes I have that use puff pastry mostly talk about cutting it into different shapes and sizes, and this seems to lack that flexibility. Current plan is to use a Middle Eastern meat/raisin/pine nut pie recipe for this - are there any warnings before I embark on something foolhardy?
Excellent ! This is probably similar to the one we found in France although I couldnāt find this reference.
On my side, I use it mostly for dessert: tarte tatin, king pieā¦
Recently, I have been making it.
And after cooking with it: turns out itās one 30cm diameter disk. I cut it in four quarters and used it for Ottolenghiās Red Pepper and Baked Egg Galettes, and was pleasantly surprised with how it turned out - when I put those flat pieces in the oven, I thought there was no way they were going to puff up, but inflate they did. The recipes calls for four 6" squares, but four 6" radius āquartersā worked well enough.
I have never cooked with puff pastry before, but as far as I can tell it tasted a heck of a lot better than most of the soup-top or appetizer puff pastries than Iāve had in Taiwan. I didnāt pick up any of the āOh boy can I ever believe thatās not butterā aftertaste that often shows up with baked goods here.
You could probably find it in stores that cater to restaurants and commercial establishments. There in almost every major village. Iāve find a lot of ready made puff pastry topping for soup. Iāve also seem sheet of frozen pastry. Iāve found these stores much cheaper than supermarkets.
Some of those stores also have bulk dry goods where you can get flour, and baking powder and other essentials very cheaply at a fraction of the cost.
So I guess Carrefour is still the only place to go for puff pastry?
I havenāt noticed it in Carrefour either for a while now.
Iāve actually seen puff pastry in some really random, very Taiwanese-only stuff type grocery stores.
They use them on top of the cream of corn (or whatever that is) soups at āAmerican beefsteakā places (the NT100 beef on top of noodles with and over easy egg and pepper sauce on a sizzling tray)
Good news, found it at Carrefour Miramar . But in frozen section. And not the Belgian version mentioned above.
Ah, interesting. Thanks! I donāt look in that section often enough - there are occasional unexpected gems.