Shrimp in Puff Pastry with Goat Cheese and Bacon
Saturday, July 7, 2012 at 11:40AM 
After a lovely sojourn at the Circle B Kitchen West (see previous post), we’ve returned to Circle B headquarters and are back in business. And I can’t think of a better way to tell you how much I missed you all than to share this exquisite little shrimp recipe with you. Oh my ever lovin’ goodness, are these little guys ever scrumptious! But not in an “oh, yes, I think I will have another, thank you” sort of way. No, these are totally scrumptious in that category where you grab the entire platter and lock yourself in a quiet room with a glass of wine and savor each bite eyes closed in rapturous indulgence. That kind of scrumptious. One little shrimp just leads to another which eventually just creates havoc with people fighting over the last one and well, you know how that goes. We’ve all been there, right?
But as amazingly good as these are, they’re also deceptively easy to put together. Just grab some large (16-20 per pound) uncooked shrimp, peeled and deveined, with the tail on. You can do the peeling and deveining yourself and save a little $$. Then butterfly them by running your knife down the back until they flatten out…
Place a couple teaspoons of the filling down the center of each shrimp.
Have I mentioned the filling? Oh my. Before we cover those little shrimps in their puff pastry wraps, we get to stuff them with a little goat cheese, some herbs and crunchy bacon. Shrimp have never been so happy.
Fold the shrimp up over the filling…
Then just take your little puff pastry strips and wind them around the shrimp and bake. They come out all puffy and purdy and, like I said, scrumptious.
There’s not much else to say about these lovely little gems. Hopefully you will have occasion to make them soon and maybe even practice your sharing skills. Here’s the recipe…
Shrimp in Puff Pastry with Goat Cheese and Bacon
Click here for a printable recipe
These little shrimp are incredibly scrumptious. Below you will find the original recipe from the Pepperidge Farm Puff Pastry website. I’ve made these twice now and adjusted the recipe as follows. You can follow the original recipe, but here are the changes that I made...
1. Instead of the cream cheese, I used goat cheese to which I added a couple tablespoons of my Tuscan Herb Salt. (4 oz of goat cheese was plenty)
2. I eliminated the chopped parsley because I didn’t feel it was needed with all the herbs in the Tuscan Salt.
3. I used 3 slices of Welshire Farms turkey bacon
4. I cut the pastry a little wider (closer to ¾ inch). Even though you get fewer shrimp (15 instead of 18), I think they’re easier to wrap and cover better.
Recipe adapted from Pepperidge Farm
1 pkg. (5.2 ounces) garlic & herb spreadable cheese, softened
1 tbsp. finely chopped fresh parsley
2 slices bacon, cooked and crumbled
18 fresh jumbo shrimp (about 1 pound), peeled with tail left on, deveined and butterflied
1/2 of a 17.3-ounce package puff pastry sheets (1 sheet), thawed (see tip below).
Heat the oven to 400°F.
Stir the cheese, parsley and bacon in a medium bowl. Spoon about 2 teaspoons cheese mixture down the center of each shrimp. Fold the sides of the shrimp over the filling.
Unfold the pastry sheet on a lightly floured surface. Cut the pastry sheet crosswise into 18 (1/2-inch wide) strips. Starting at the top, wind 1 pastry strip around 1 shrimp, slightly overlapping the pastry and ending just before the tail. Repeat with the remaining pastry strips and shrimp. Place the pastries onto a baking sheet.
Bake for 15 minutes or until the pastries are golden brown.
Puff Pastry Tip: As you know if you’ve worked with puff pastry before, each sheet is folded in thirds when you take it out of the package. I have found that it’s much easier to unfold it if you do this when it’s still partially frozen. If you wait until it’s completely thawed, the pastry will stick to itself and never flatten out properly. So I let it sit out for about 15 or 20 minutes and then unfold it before letting it thaw completely.
Reader Comments (17)
Welcome back! What a fantastic way to return! What a fabulous dish! I'll definitely be trying these! They look amazing.
Thank you, Anna. It's nice to be back. Hope you give these shrimp a try. They're so good!
Omg! I adore shrimp any way I can get them, but these sound incredible! Definitely making them. Now!
These look yum!
Wow!! Hope these taste as good as they look!
Well, Yvette, I think they may taste even better!
I really want to make these, but do you think I can make them ahead and freeze them? Will they reheat OK?
I should have mentioned that, Bridget. Yes, you can make them ahead and freeze them. To reheat, just bring them to room temp and then reheat in a moderately low oven (300 -325 degrees) for about 20 minutes or until heated through.
Gorgeous and just brilliant!
Freakishly good!! Gotta make them! I like the idea of using the goat cheese instead of cream cheese.
The goat cheese was wonderful, Sandra. I haven't tried them with the cream cheese, but I can imagine that would be good too.
So wanna make these! Might be hard to share though. LOL!
This is truly elegant! What fabulous party food!
Oooh! This looks delicious. I just made a fresh batch of goat cheese yesterday and have shrimp on-hand. I may have to give this a try :-)
They really are good, Shea! And with homemade goat cheese, they'll be amazing!! Nice to hear from you!
Searched and searched and this is by far the best one I have read for pastry shrimp. Making them now
Hope you like them, Alexandra. We sure do!