Rissoles

Rissoles aux confitures (sweet jam-filled fried turnovers) teach one severe little pastry lesson: the seal is the dish. The filling must be cold and thick, the paste thin, and the seam spotless, because one loose edge in the frying oil turns a plump half-moon into an empty shell. Get that seam right and the reward is immediate, crisp fine layers, a warm fruit centre, and sugar caught on every ridge.

The classical pastry kitchen assumed a bowl of puff-paste trimmings left from larger work and a frying kettle held ready. At home, one cold all-butter sheet, rolled firmly to temper its lift, gives the honest equivalent; twelve half-moons replace a brigade's display of purses, rounds, and ovals. The parade of shapes is service scaffolding and can go. Thin paste, modest filling, and a complete seal are the dish and must stay. One cook, one stove, one evening.

Keep the pastry cold, use no more than a teaspoon of filling, and press each rim from the fruit outward so trapped air escapes before you crimp. That complete seal is the one step that matters most before the pan comes near you.