The easy availability of butter in America was a boon for my mother, who saw endless possibilities for perfecting French pâtés chaud, large puff pastry rounds filled with an aromatic meat mixture. She regularly made the rich pastries from scratch, and they were standard breakfast fare for my siblings and me growing up. As adults, we have scaled back our consumption, making the pastries smaller and serving them as finger food on special occasions. Shaping tiny round pastries is laborious, so we form logs and cut them into diamonds. Unlike my mom, I don’t have the patience or time to make my own puff pastry. Instead, I rely on a local bakery for frozen sheets of all-butter puff pastry or use the frozen puff pastry sold at supermarkets. The latter are usually sold two sheets to a box, with each sheet weighing about 1/2 pound and measuring about ten inches square.
At Vietnamese American bakeries, pâtés chaud are often labeled pork or chicken pies. These popular pastries can also be made in advance and then baked when needed. Fill the logs as directed in step 2 and then freeze them on the baking sheet for 1 hour, or until hard. Wrap each log airtight in plastic wrap and freeze for up to 2 months. Let thaw about halfway before cutting and baking as directed.
