This is a wonderful recipe for an appetizer that combines a few great ingredients that ends up with a delicious turnover! Be sure to top with chives or basil before baking. Fresh chives were used for the filling and before baking they were topped with dried chives. Can you believe I ran out of dried chives! As a substitute dried basil was used for the remaining turnovers since basil is pretty much good with everything. It adds a nice color to the presentation. Plus consider topping the plated turnovers with dried chives or dried basil as it adds a nice finishing touch! Look how wonderful and light the filling is – and it is packed with flavor!

Serve as a bite-size appetizer or with forks for those who do not care for finger food. The cheese mixture is hot out of the oven so be sure to take that into consideration in how you serve them.

The turnovers are best hot out of the oven; however if you have leftover they will warm up nicely the next day. There is some loss of the freshness but they are still yummy!! The below picture is how they look the next day – they don’t have the “puff pastry” dimension any more but a few seconds in the microwave will heat them up nicely.

This wonderful recipe was adapted from Fine Cooking

And now for the recipe – happy baking and more importantly… happy eating!!

Filling Ingredients:
4 oz. fresh goat cheese, at room temperature
1/4 cup thinly sliced fresh chives
1/4 cup minced sweet onion
Splash of lemon juice
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper

Pastry Ingredients:
Flour for dusting
1 sheet frozen puff pastry, thawed and room temperature
See the box for instructions

Topping Ingredients:
Melted butter if making ahead
Dried Chives or Dried Basil

Preparation:
Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Mix together the filling ingredients. For the pastry, flour a cutting board and with a rolling pin roll the puff pastry to about 12” by 12”. Cut into 9 pieces or the desired size. I like to fill them with about a teaspoon of filling near one of the ends. Then with your finger place some water around the dough edge and then fold over the side that does not have the filling. With a fork seal all sides of the dough. Repeat with the remaining dough pieces. Note: be sure the cutting board has enough flour to prevent the dough from sticking. The fork may need to be floured if it starts to stick when sealing the turnovers.

Place the turnovers on a lightly greased cookie sheet and shake on some dried chives or dried basil and bake for about 15-minutes. Check a few minutes early just in case they are done! The puff pastry dough can go from golden brown to being burnt rather quickly. The cheese will be hot when coming out of the oven so let them cool a bit.

I assembled them a couple of hours ahead of time before baking. I brushed on some melted butter, wrapped with plastic wrap and then placed in the refrigerator. I removed them from the refrigerator while the oven was preheating and placed them on the lightly greased cookie sheet.

Categories: Appetizer, Baking, Starters & Finishers

Tags: appetizer, baking, cooking, food, Make Ahead Appetizer, photo, photography, recipe, turnovers