Chicken Turnovers

Mark and Carmen are settling into married life in San Diego. The weekly calls are getting longer — Mark talks more now, the marriage softening the Navy rigidity, Carmen's influence visible in the way Mark uses more words, more sentences, more emotional content per phone call than pre-Carmen Mark would have ever allowed. He told me about their apartment, about Carmen's cooking (the coconut milk adobo that Lourdes has privately labeled "interesting"), about their plans for children — eventually, when the pandemic settles, when the timing is right.

Angela and James are trying to conceive. She told me at Saturday dinner at Lourdes's — casually, embedded in other conversation, the Angela delivery method for significant news. "We're trying," she said, between bites of sinigang. I looked at her. She looked at me. The look contained everything: hope, fear, the particular vulnerability of a woman opening herself to the possibility of motherhood while also opening herself to the possibility of disappointment. I said, "I'm happy for you." She said, "Don't tell Mama yet." Too late. Lourdes was already watching us from the stove with the face of a woman who has decoded the look and knows what "trying" means and is already mentally knitting a baby blanket.

I made lumpia — fifty, a personal batch, the meditation wrap that I do when processing family news. Fill, fold, roll, seal. The rhythm carried me through the processing: Mark married. Angela trying. Joseph in love. Three of four Santos children building toward family. The fourth — me — standing in a kitchen wrapping lumpia for one. Not sad about it. Not not-sad. Just standing in the math of it, the equation of a family where everyone is multiplying and I am a whole number, steady, undivided, alone.

The lumpia batch I described was fifty pieces for one person, which tells you everything you need to know about where my head was that evening. The rhythm of it — fill, fold, roll, seal — is what I keep returning to when I need to think without thinking, and chicken turnovers carry that same meditative structure: you press the edges closed, you commit to the fold, you set it down and move on to the next one. I’ve been making these on the weeks when the family math feels loudest, because sometimes you need a recipe that requires your hands to be busy and your mind to be quiet.

Prep Time: 20 min | Cook Time: 25 min | Total Time: 45 min | Servings: 6

Ingredients

1 tablespoon olive oil
1/2 cup finely diced onion
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 1/2 cups cooked chicken, shredded or finely chopped
1/2 cup frozen peas, thawed
1/4 cup chicken broth
2 tablespoons cream cheese, softened
1 teaspoon dried thyme
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
1 package (17.3 oz) frozen puff pastry sheets, thawed
1 egg, beaten (for egg wash)

Instructions

Preheat oven. Heat oven to 400°F. Line a large baking sheet with parchment paper.
Cook the filling. Heat olive oil in a skillet over medium heat. Add onion and cook 3–4 minutes until softened. Add garlic and cook 1 minute more.
Build the mixture. Add shredded chicken, peas, and chicken broth to the skillet. Stir in cream cheese, thyme, salt, and pepper. Cook 2–3 minutes until the mixture is cohesive and slightly thickened. Remove from heat and let cool 10 minutes.
Cut the pastry. Unfold puff pastry sheets on a lightly floured surface. Cut each sheet into 3 equal rectangles, giving you 6 pieces total.
Fill and fold. Spoon about 3 tablespoons of chicken filling onto one half of each pastry rectangle, leaving a 1/2-inch border. Fold the unfilled half over the filling to form a rectangle or triangle. Press edges firmly with a fork to seal.
Egg wash and score. Place turnovers on prepared baking sheet. Brush tops with beaten egg. Use a sharp knife to make 2 small slits in the top of each turnover to vent steam.
Bake. Bake 22–25 minutes until deep golden brown and puffed. Let rest 5 minutes before serving.

Nutrition (per serving)

Chicken Turnovers — The Fold and Seal That Gets You Through