Bacon & Cheese Jambons
The Jambon is a staple in the Irish diet, made up of flaky puff pastry filled with bacon & cheese in a bechamel sauce. It’s the stuff of dreams after a night out, the perfect hangover remedy. My mam makes the most unreal white bechamel sauce for her lasagne, so I simply used the same sauce for the Jambons and added the bacon bits and they turned out a treat.
While I may be handy around a kitchen, puff pastry is just something I don’t think anyone has the time, patience or energy for so I have cheated and opted for pre-made puff pastry. While I am an advocate for everything tasting better when it’s homemade, I can’t agree when it comes to pastry, I just don’t have the knack for it and it usually turns out a mess!
I generally make between 6-8 Jambons per sheet of puff pastry, but you can make more or less depending on how big you like them. Don’t worry if some of the filling oozes out of the Jambon when it’s in the oven, they will still taste great. It will only be a real problem if you stuff your Jambon with too much filling that they will completely overflow. So once you stick to roughly a tablespoon of mix it should be fine.
Ingredients
1 sheet of pre-made puff pastry
1 heaped tbsp plain flour
1 tbsp butter
120-150ml low fat milk (depending on how thick you like your filling)
Pinch of ground nutmeg
Black pepper
100g white strong mature cheddar cheese (plus a little extra, 20g or so, for sprinkling)
125g smoked bacon lardons
1 egg yolk or a splash of milk to glaze
Method
Preheat your oven to 180 degrees Celcius (if using fan oven)
Line a large baking tray with some greaseproof paper.
You need to start off with a roux for a white sauce. Start by melting the butter and adding the flour to the melted butter to form a thick paste.
Slowly start adding the milk until the paste becomes a thick sauce consistency. You want to add the milk slowly as if you add too much your sauce will be too runny and it will be hard to assemble the jambons.
Once all the milk has been added add in some ground black pepper and a pinch of nutmeg (about 1/2 a tsp) and add the cheese until melted.
In a separate pan dry fry your bacon bits in no oil (bacon gives off it’s own oil from the fat content already, so no need to add extra)
Once you have your desired crispiness add put the bacon on a plate with some tissue paper and blot off the excess oil. Add the bacon bits to your white sauce
Roll out your sheet of puff pastry and cut into 6 squares (if you want to make more you may need to slightly roll out the pastry slightly so that it is thinner, however your pastry will be more fragile at this point so you’ll need to be extra careful when assembling the jambons)
Spoon about a tbsp of the bacon/cheese mixture into the centre of the pastry squares and sprinkle with a little extra cheddar (Do this one at a time as the filling will spread slightly so you want to get it sealed in as soon as it hits the pastry)
Fold in each of the 4 corners of the square into the centre and pinch them together slightly to seal the filling into the pastry.
Brush the pastry top once all pinched together with some beaten egg yolk or some milk. This will give a nice shine to your pastry.
Repeat this process until you have all squares filled with the mixture.
Carefully transfer each jambon using a fish slice to the baking tray and bake for 20-25mins or until golden.
Best served warm and on the day that they are made with a cup of tea and a little side salad.
If making 6 the calories are roughly 365 per Jambon
