The Home Cook: Baked Seafood Puffs

I love seafood. Part of the reason is that I just don't get it all that often unless I'm eating out, the other part is that true seafood is a fussy beast to prepare at home. But once in a while I stumble across a recipe with so much potential oozing off the paper I just have to resign myself to an hour of deveining and chopping to make it. I recommend making friends with frozen shrimp and imitation krab for this one...not that the canned stuff is bad, but this recipe relies so heavily on quality ingredients for it's flavor that it's nearly mandatory to go above and beyond. And if you can afford skip any imitation krab with a "k" and locate yourself some real honest to God straight from the claw crab meat. (Unfortunately I can't, so for us, for now krab with a "k" it is.)

I had this recipe for over a year before I actually made it because one item had me so mystified I could not for the life of me figure it out...baking shells. It was just vague enough to mean several different things...but after by passing this recipe on more occasions than I care to count I finally broke down and researched the unheard of baking shells. Turns out they are ceramic oyster shells to bake stuff on...not nearly as weird or hard to find as one would imagine. But I did not own any and after re-reading the recipe for the umpteenth time, I decided that they needed more panache than a dumb ol' fake shell could offer anyway. And so was born the Puff.

In the freezer department, hidden away near the pies, fruit and cool whip is a small section of long narrow boxes from the Pepperidge Farm Company...three varieties of puff pastry. Individual shells, sheets and mini-shells. The individual shells seemed to fit the bill as a good containment unit for this concoction. With that I went home and cooked, modified and semi-created the recipe I use today for Baked Seafood Puffs. I've reduced the amount of Parmesan cheese and eliminated the crumb topping since I have the puffs to fill in as the "crispy" compliment, I've also taken to mincing up the shrimp in a food processor to reduce the chunkiness of the filling and giving it a better overall "seafood" flavor. The end result is a very savoury and rich seafood blend that easily fills 10 dainty pastry cups. The pastry offers a nice crisp compliment to the almost custard like filling, but does not have any remarkable flavor to detract from the blissful shrimp and crab medley. Tim was tentative at first but is now a big fan and has since embraced a similar yet wholly different beast...the Asparagus and Ham Brunch Puff...with these two recipes at my disposal I am ready to take the puff food world by force and rule with an iron fist. Or, ya know, not.

Baked Seafood Puffs

10 Individual Serving Puff Pastry Shells

1 10.5 oz can Cream of Celery Soup

1/4 cup Milk

1 Egg, lightly beaten

2 Tablespoons Grated Parmesan Cheese

8oz Flaked Crab, cut into bite size pieces

4 oz Shrimp, cooked, deveined & tail off, finely minced

3oz can Mushrooms, drained

Preheat oven according to puff directions (Some where in the neighborhood of 425 degrees). Bake puffs for 15 minutes.

Meanwhile, over low heat cook soup, milk, egg and cheese until cheese is melted. Stir in crab, shrimp and mushrooms. Stir over low heat until crab is heated through, about 3 minutes.

Pull puffs from oven. Remove tops and gently fill with seafood mixture. Be very careful, as puffs are not done baking and are still very delicate. Return to oven and bake 5-8 more minutes or until puffs are golden brown.

Serve immediately. For nice presentation, they can be garnished with a sprig of parsley and a lemon twist. They serve well with a rice, pilaf or couscous side.