Start with Puff Pastry
It’s hard to imagine a more versatile ingredient than puff pastry, which feels just as appropriate on a fine beef Wellington as wrapping around cocktail wieners for homemade pig-in-a-blankets. The incomparably light pastry is a product of butter being wrapped in dough, then folded again and again, resulting in more than 700 individual layers. Though this once had to be done painstakingly by hand (and is still how the best bakers and pastry chefs do it), the modern miracles of the dough-sheeting machine for mass-production and a freezer section in every grocery store mean that puff pastry is always within reach for any home cook. And so, even elaborate dishes like pot pie can come together quickly, an asparagus tart can be a weeknight side dish, and you can go from “What’s for dessert?” to apple turnovers quicker than you could make a round trip to the bakery. New to working with puff? Why not start with this crowd-pleasing roll, which combines the soul of an Italian hero sandwich with the pleasure of dipping warm, salty goodness into pizza sauce? The recipe doubles easily, which is a good thing, because once it shows up at a party, it won’t last long.
