Silverbeet baked in puff pastry: ideas

baked silverbeet product, served with potatoes from our plot

Silverbeet is not most people's favourite vegetable. My wife came up with a great idea for using it in a baked puff pastry dish. Yum!

Basically, one only needs to chop up the silverbeet into small pieces and cook it on a skillet (with garlic or your preferred flavour) until softened. My wife suggests that you could squeeze water out because this vegetable is quite wet (or dehydrate it on the pan). Once cooked, you simply spread it on a piece of puff pastry and make a dent (or two) where an egg (or two) is placed.

looks prettier on the inside, doesn't it?

You can put any other fillings in; my wife usually adds cheeses (garlic cream cheeses are great, but this time it was just normal low-fat cheddar), hams or salami (if you're not vegetarian and want some extra protein). It should be well seasoned with salt and pepper. We could have put more in if it wasn't so hard to 'close' it up with the top layer of pastry, due mainly to the eggs that we added in. Next time if we really need to finish off our silverbeet, we would skip the egg and just load it up with lots of silverbeet and cheese.

It's ready when it's golden brown and plumped up. Make sure you use a fork to press down on the edges (to prevent explosions in your oven), and to paint the top with egg wash (one egg with 1 tbsp water, mixed) to give it that nice golden colour.

golden brown means it's been cooked to perfection
(and well-painted with egg wash!)

My wife used to put other 'more yummy things' (her words!) into this puff pastry... i.e., cheese, ham, and mushrooms. It's her kind of hot breakfast. But this creation here is one of our first attempts at making silverbeet interesting and delicious. I'm sure there are other ways to enjoy silverbeet too, and we'll learn them in the coming months. We have quite a few silverbeet (or silverbeet-like) plants on our plot. We never cooked this vegetable before we started growing it.

My wife is still eager to improve this recipe... I'll post it up hopefully in the coming month or two!

Oh, and she recommends serving it with a good tomato sauce.

Do you like to bake your veggies inside a puff pastry container? Do you have other ideas for using up your silverbeet / spinach? Please share your ideas in the comments below!