Pork & Garden Greens – Crispy Puff Pastry Parcels with Melty Cheese

Pork & Garden Greens – Crispy Puff Pastry Parcels with Melty Cheese
In this final episode of my From Patch to Plate – Summer Greens series, we are making something a little different: crispy puff pastry parcels filled with melty cheese, garden greens, and just a little pork for added flavour. Think of it as a cross between a rustic calzone and a creamy turnover, easy to prepare, and beautiful hot or cold.

This is a flexible and seasonal dish, perfect for using up whatever greens you have, spinach, chard, beet leaves, or even the smaller courgette leaves from your garden. The pork can be leftover BBQ, sausage, or even pancetta. This is a true zero-waste Mediterranean recipe that works all year round.

With cheese oozing out of golden pastry and the comfort of home-grown flavour inside, this dish is a reminder that simple food is often the most satisfying.

💚 Watch the full series below, and feel free to suggest your own recipe ideas in the comments.

INGREDIENTS
1 pre-rolled puff pastry sheet (320g)
200g diced pork (or sausage/pancetta/leftovers)
1 small onion, finely chopped
1 clove garlic, minced
1 tbsp olive oil
75g spinach, roughly chopped
75g chard leaves, roughly chopped
40g grated cheese (e.g., cheddar, mozzarella, Parmigiano)
1 heaped tsp soft cheese (ricotta, cream cheese or similar)
Splash of dry white wine
Handful of olives and a few sundried tomatoes
Salt and black pepper
2 eggs ( 1for egg wash)
Chopped parsley and basil or any herbs you like

COOKING INSTRUCTIONS
Sauté onion and garlic gently in olive oil until soft.
Add diced raw pork, fry until browned.
Pour in white wine and cook off the alcohol.
Add spinach and chard, season with salt and pepper. Let wilt. Cool the mixture.
Stir in grated cheese and a spoon of soft cheese (e.g., ricotta or cream cheese). Add olives and sundried tomatoes and mix with an egg.
Cut pre-rolled puff pastry into rectangles (approx. 18 cm x 12 cm).
Place 2 heaped teaspoons of filling in the centre. Add mozzarella or any cheese of your choice, fold to seal and crimp edges with a fork or knife.
Decorate with pastry cutouts if you like. Brush with egg wash.
Bake at 200°C (180°C fan) for 20–25 minutes until golden.

00:00 – A Garden-Inspired Final Episode
03:00 – Sautéing Onion, Garlic & PorK
07:11 – Adding Greens
08:40 – Mixing the Filling with Cheese
12:42 – Assembling & Decorating the Parcels
21:49 – Golden, Crispy, and Ready to Eat

#PuffPastryParcels
#PorkAndGreens
#MeltyCheese
#CucinaPovera
#TortellinoTime
#FromPatchToPlate

bonjouro sometimes the best recipes come from a little inspiration from our vegetable patch and from whatever we have got in our fridge this is the last episode of a minieries which are labeled from patch to plate and I already made four episodes in the very first one I cooked some greens which actually is what sparked the idea of this little series this is a combination of charred and spinach and uh I cooked a very simple dish which was uh combining the greens with some garlic and olive oil very very simple absolutely delicious in the second episode I cooked some nudi if you remember and they are a specialtity from Tuscanany and then in the third episode I used the stems from the first two episodes this is what I’m referring to the stems of the chard and the spinach to then make a beautiful frittata during the third episode I collected a bit of stock which was also combined with wine and I used that uh in the fourth episode where I made a beautiful minestron roto and here I am today in the last episode and I did say it was a little surprise and today I will be making more of a savory for meat eaters dish as the first four have been mostly vegetarian or for vegan people and uh I will be using of course again chard and also spinach but I will just run you through the rest of the ingredients so that you’re aware of what it is and it’s still very simple but there is a little bit more so I’ll be making a soprito which is a very simple one i will be using a white onion and a couple of cloves of garlic also I’ve got here a little pork and this is the um I think it’s leg is part of a leg this weighs about 400 gram but I think I will be using about 300 and I will be delazing everything with a little dry white wine this is a third of a glass and on the cheese front I will be using some Parmesan cheese but also you can use pecorino or any cheese you like you can use cheddar edga whatever you like and also I will be using a little bowl of fresh mozzarella these are bread crumbs i’m not sure if I will be using them or not depending on the liquidity level of my mix so I will decide as and when but obviously I will share that with you couple of eggs and one is going to be for the mix and one is going to be where I’ll be using the egg wash to make my parcel look good because actually I will be using some puff pastry i’ve got it here this weigh I think it’s 320 g and uh that will be the towards the end of the recipe and I’ve got some fresh herbs these are um parsley and a little basil which I picked from the garden earlier these are olives that I keep in olive oil and I will also be using some of the some dried tomatoes i’ve topped them up earlier today and my last ingredient hopefully the last ingredient is some nutmeg olive oil salt and pepper so I’ll make a start if I forgotten anything I’ll tell you in a little while as and when I use it but uh let’s make a start this is a recipe where I want to enhance the flavor of sama and I will be chopping my ingredients very finely so I start with the onion but here are my two cloves of garlic and just like I done with the onion this time instead of crushing them I will actually be slicing them in little pieces just like this i’m ensuring I got a big enough frying pan and I’ll put a little olive oil at the base first followed by my garlic and my onion and I’ll place this on the hob on a medium to high temperature initially until it starts sizzling and then I’ll turn it down and I’ll wait until the garlic has sorry the onion and softened up and I moved to the pork and I can see actually that there is quite a little bit of the cota or fat whatever is called skin so by the time actually I remove this I will have most probably just the right quantity also you will have spot that I’ve got here a plastic board i always do that when I chop pork or any poultry because um clearly they are a little bit more dangerous as far as meat goes rather than using the wooden chopping board as it tends to absorb more liquid so like this is considerably safer so what shall we do with the pork i’m going to be cutting this into little cubes so I’ll go and make some slices first of course this is h a joint of pork but you can use any pork you can also use um sausages if you like or pork mince this is very very lean and it’s um from the leg of the pork but as I said you can use any cut but as it will be going inside my little puff pastry parcels just like I done with the onion I’m making sure that I do not cut it too big so I will make about 1 cm cubes pieces also this will be cooking a little while and just like any meat when it cooks it will shrink a little four minutes in and my onion is looking beautiful and actually is the perfect time now to add my pork or any sauce and I’ll mix this in and I’ll leave it to now sizzle still temperature medium high actually I turn it down a little bit of number six or even number five for about four or five minutes until I brown that all over in the meantime I’ll deal with my greens they are here and I’ve actually thoroughly washed them always important even if they are from your own garden because uh you could have um flies or little bugs in them and also there’s a bit of sometimes earth attached to them now I have noticed that some of these actually is growth which has taken place in the last couple of weeks as I’ve been picking and eating it and the stems are really really tender so I’m not going to bother removing the stems except this one here which is a little bit uh gone to seed so that is most probably the only one I will remove and with the rest just like I done in the other episodes I’ll just chop it roughly like this about couple of inches and uh I’ll mix the stems and the leaves together and this will be ready to be added after I have the glazed the pork in the meantime my pork is doing really well but can you see look there’s a little bit of water which has been released by the pork and I don’t want that i want it to all gone so I’m going to turn the temperature up on high now and I’ll wait until that goes past and within a couple of minutes the bottom of my pan is bone dry and you can see also that all of the pork is pretty much cooked and I plan to add my dry white wine a splash of white wine here helps lift absolutely everything especially when I’m cooking leafy greens and pork together it actually brings a lot of brightness to the dish and do not worry by the way the alcohol will evaporate within a couple of minutes and you will not be able to taste the wine it just adds a bit of elegance behind the scenes absolutely beautiful so the smell of alcohol has completely gone and if you look I’ve got this beautiful cream underneath now and that is a perfect timing for my chard and spinach to go in so I will add them all on top like this and then I will make sure that I’ll put the lid on and I will now leave them to gently cook for about 7 or 8 minutes until the chard and the spinach has reduced in volume and then I’ll take them out and we’ll leave them to cool down so I’ll see you in about 7 to 8 minutes and as predicted 7 to 8 minutes and that is enough it’s perfect for the last 3 minutes by the way I removed the lid as I don’t want uh any liquid or as little as possible and all of my vegetables have shrunk considerably so before I can carry on though I need this to cool down slightly so the first thing I’ll do is to move it into a a glass bowl as it will be easier for me to mix it later and I will be adding an egg next but it’s too hot at the moment i will end up partly cooking the egg so I will uh leave it here for 5 minutes and can you see there is a little bit of the the stock in there i will make sure that that doesn’t go in so 5 minutes see you then so my mixture has cooled down enough for me to safely add more ingredients and I’ll start with a little nagme i’m actually adding about a quarter of a bowl if I show you this is the size I’m referring to so about a quarter of that also you can buy nutmeg which is already grated and if you’re not too keen you don’t have to add it you can skip it but I absolutely love it so this is the parmyo regano so I will add one two three and four full the spoons i will leave the breadrumbs for last if I need them so I mentioned parsley earlier so I’m going to be very generous and I’ll add it all a good handful and also I’ve got here some basil here more parsley and with the basel I will limit myself to the leaves perfect in it goes what else so I’ve got here some olives and I keep my olives in olive oil what I do if you want to replicate it I buy some very affordable olives which are already pitted and I drain them from the I think they’re in brine i drain the brine and I leave them to just uh drain for a few minutes so that they are almost dry then I put them inside a good looking little jar like this and I put some rosemary and also if you look here can you see i got a few cloves of garlic and here I got a mixture of black and green olives depending on what I can find and some dried tomatoes and then I cover everything with olive oil and uh then I will leave them and they will infuse and marinate the oil and we tend to use uh the oil for from here to make salad because uh it’s already infused with the olives but also the beautiful flavor from the garlic and the rosemary so whenever we dress a salad we use this oil a little tip for you but today I’m going to be using some uh green olives and here I’ll pinch also a few sundried tomatoes quantity is entirely up to you really but I think I will go for four pieces of sundried tomatoes and uh I don’t know maybe 10 to 15 olives these are small olives by the way so 10 to 15 is plenty perfect but before everything goes in I’ll just chop them in smaller pieces as I mentioned before I don’t want my ingredients to be too big as they will be going into little parcels and I’ll chop the olives in half just like this and they are done so I’ll bring in my mix over here and I will just uh add everything in including any of the olive oil which has been released by the olives of course some it’s a lovely time of the year but don’t fly get on your nerves there is one fly i don’t know how how I’ll manage to get in as we go blind but uh it’s driving me mad so I’ve added the egg and I’ve added this last mostly because I want to make sure that everything is totally cooled down so I’m not checking the consistency to see if I need to add any breadrumbs and as I don’t want to be too vague about it but depending on what sort of leafy vegetables you use they could release more water or less water and of course the reason why I don’t want this to be too wet is because I will be using the puff pastry to make my little parcels and uh the danger is that it gets too soggy if this is too wet however looking at it I don’t think I’ll need any breadrumbs it looks uh quite okay so if you make this recipe you will have to judge it if it’s too liquidy too wet just add maybe half the spoon of bread crumbs and then have a look if you don’t need it don’t put any that’s perfect i will not be putting any today with my mozzarella by the way I’ll chop it into six pieces like this and then I’ll see i might need another one but if I do obviously I’ll open a new one and here is my puff pastry by the way do ensure thath you keep it in the fridge especially in the summer today is very warm here about 27° if you leave it out to get to room temperature it will be very difficult for you to work so the first thing I want to do actually is to remove as much as I can i think see even here it’s a little bit stuck i’m not too worried because I will be needing some later but open it as much as you can and I will now need to make some shapes for my little parcel so I’ll do two types i’ll do some uh little rectangular pockets in terms of shapes but also I will do some um round ones i’ve got here a little um dish which uh measures 10 cm in diameter so I’ll start with that first and I will do one over here and I’ll just press it down and let’s have a look to see if it comes off yeah it’s working and I’ll make sure that I’ll take this off before I remove my dish i’m going to get a knife over here to finish the job and then here it is here’s one little circle i’ll move it over here out of the way and I’ll do another one over here this size in terms of measurement by the way this is um 34 cm in length and 24 cm in width so that you’ve got an idea if you want to replicate my recipe entirely so I’ll do another one over here that’s pretty good let’s have a look to see if it comes off easily that’s perfect now let’s make some um rectangers next so I’ll uh cut this straight over here with my knife i got my tape measure i know it’s a little bit sad but I want to make sure that they come to size see so I’ll do it about 18 cm this way from here to here and then I’ll go in the middle over here and I’ll do another cut over here which is about 14 cm or actually maybe 12 12 and a half that’s perfect so I’ve got four pieces four shapes well four different two different shapes but four pieces that’s perfect but with the remainder I am going to now mix it together just uh like uh you were doing with dough but not as vigorously as this is not pasta and uh I’ll roll it and I’ll make another shape and then I’ll show you what I’ll do with the leftover and to roll it by the way I have placed a little olive oil i’m going to add a little bit more at the bottom of the same paper it came with and then I will Oops where you going i will apply it there and then I’ll put some oil also on my rolling pin and I will only go one direction until I get the same thickness that he gave me in when I open the packet and I think it’s pretty much done so that will give me the opportunity to make at the very least another one of the round ones that’s perfect with the remainder I’m making a few little strings so that I can use them for decorative purposes so I’ll see you in a couple of minutes when I can put the parcels together and that is when the excitement part starts so I will apply a little olive oil on some baking paper which is also inside an oven tray and I’ll spread it teingly across the base using a little brush this is to ensure that the pastry doesn’t get attached to it and I’ll start by making the first one and I’ll do them one by one so I don’t run into trouble so I’ll do a rectangular one by the way I’ve put a little pinch of salt in my mix so that I don’t forget so I just realized that I hadn’t done that so I will be very careful not to put too much otherwise it will not close properly so just also ensure that you’ve got a good combination of ingredients there and try to avoid bringing in any liquid so just enough to give you enough scope for you to close it so I make a little well and uh I will now add my mozzarella in and a very good thing about puff pastry is that actually it does flex quite nicely without breaking so if you’re careful and you’re gentle you will see that you can play with it so I’m going to place this down at the same time and I will start sealing the edges using my fingers first like this and to finish the job you can go along either with a fork or with a knife i’m going with a knife today as I will be cutting the excess off anyway so that I get a proper seal and the puff pastry obviously will puff when it’s in the oven so it will grow quite a bit so that’s good and then if you want to take care of presentation just go along the edges and just chop the excess which is uneven and that will give you a beautiful result at the end that’s one i’ll just close it here notice that it’s hardly open and I’ll do this side also and over here so I’ve got a nice square edge i’ll move into a round one next and see how that goes that I’m happy that that is worked quite well so same again really but uh I will have less space for my filling so I’m going to be a little bit more mean but I want to make sure that I get a good mixture of ingredients i think it’s enough and of course my mozzarella here is a little bit too big so we’ll definitely not need a second one so it it goes in there and that’s lovely and then I’ll just stretch it slightly and then I’ll bend it and this is called ksonino by the way kon is a word for the pizza which is folded in half katonino is like a small pizza and you can see what I’ve done it’s perfect just push it on the top and this turns into a little half moon but I’m not going to bother doing anything with a knife rather than just compacting it because it’s perfectly round so I’ll do the others and then uh I’ll show you what to do with the egg wash and then they’ll be ready to go in the oven and here they are i’ve completed them all by the way I go into trouble with one of them this one here i got a little bit greedy with the filling and as I was bending it over it split so don’t panic uh I just put a little bit more of the pastry which I had left over and I patched it up be interesting to see what it ends up to be like at the end but I’m sure that will be fine so the next job is to as I mentioned before to do a little bit of decorations and I go a little left here so I’ll just turn it so that I make a little little plat I suppose and then I’ll chop it and I’ll put on top of the scale once as I mentioned nothing too fancy but I think once it’s baked it will look quite good as it will grow along everything else so one here and one here and I’ll use a little fork here no actually knife and I’ll just blend it in with the rest of the pastry without damaging it i cannot get to it though that’s one side and here is another side so ready for the eggs wash next so here is egg number two and the first thing to do is to just remove the white so I’ll break it inside this glass over here so that’s done one and two and all I need is some of the yolk really perfect and that can go in here this can go away and I’ll give this a gentle mix with my brush and then very simply I will apply it on top of all of my little parcels and I’ll make sure that I’ll go where the edges are so that the egg will provide a little seal in case she decide to open up but also the egg wash will give a beautiful color to my little parcels once they’re cooked so I’ll go on top of these and then I’ll be ready to go in the oven i really like recipes like this with puff pastries because actually by the time they come out they will look absolutely stunning and they’re ready to go in the oven temperature 200 degrees fan assisted conventional oven up by 20 to 220 and I’ll put them in for about 20 to 25 minutes i’ll check them after 20 minutes before that anyway but 20 minutes should be enough but I’ll check them and then I’ll let you know along the way in for golden in color beautiful make sure you don’t burn them and then they will be ready so I’ll see you in about 20 to 25 minutes by the way as I started tidying up it crossed my mind that I need to share with you the fact that actually I’ve made far more than what I need for the quantity of puff pastry I’ve used so there is enough here for two rolls of puff pastries so what I’ll do with mine I’ll put it in the freezer and then I will defrost it one day and that will be an excellent base for a pasta sauce so I will add some tomato pasta and then that will be perfect for pasta sauce or you can do the same or you can eat it as it is really as a side because it’s perfectly okay but in the notes in the description of this video I will give you the exact quantities to make one roll of puff pastry so there won’t be as much as I’ve been illustrating during this video so see you then in 20 minutes and actually 20 minutes exactly and they’re ready and here they are looking absolutely beautiful although they’re very very hot and I did say to you earlier that um the one I fixed is here you can see that has been fixed but it looks very presentable so I’ll wait a couple of minutes before I dig in and test one and these ones by the way you can have them right now although I would wait a few minutes because they’re really really hot uh warm are perfect but also you can um let them to cool down completely put them in the fridge you can have them the day after or the day after that until meat would actually last 3 days maybe in the fridge but also you can freeze them and then you just defrost them at room temperature and you can eat them straight away picnics ideal um I’ll cut into one in a minute but I wanted to just say something else i’ve noticed that um lots of you are watching my videos and that’s lovely to see the channel growing and lots of you also commenting and liking my videos which is great to see but also lots of you are watching my videos but um are not commenting or letting me know if you’re enjoying them i would really appreciate to interact with more people because actually that is why I do what I do i do appreciate that my videos are a little bit longer than the average but I don’t cook to make a video i cook because I cook and I love cooking and sharing my passion with you guys that’s why often I go into more detail than other videos do so I would appreciate some feedback and would you like me to do something different very very open to feedback as always so enough of that and uh let’s uh cut into one and I will leave the other ones to cool down though i just wanted to show you what they look like on the inside i’m opening the one which I had to patch up and yeah it’s uh it’s looking good i’m not sure where the cheese is gone so the cheese is here because actually has melted away but um let’s have a look very very hot oh do you know what they’re absolutely delicious maybe I could have been a little bit more generous with salt which I can add it now but they are lovely so a little bit more salt at the end would have been helpful they’re delicious they’re really hot now i’m not paying the price make them and see how you get on and let me know also as I mentioned at the beginning this is the last episode of the series if you got some ideas of things you’d like me to cook from our vegetable patch we got peas we got beans we got broad beans lettucees and broccoli julie is growing enough broccoli to feed the village and other stuff which you would love seeing from time to time let me know i’ll be very very happy to cook anything you like obviously within reasons thank you for watching and hopefully enjoy the series and I look forward to your feedback thank you bye