Have you ever noticed that they put sugar in their pastry?
if savory pastry
A little while before the lockdown we were sharing a taxi back from somewhere with two Polish ladies, one in her 80s who'd lived in France and one in her 60s.
The older one was telling the younger one about a wonderful recipe she knew, how versatile and easy it was etc, etc, and was describing it step-by-step to the other who had never heard of it. It was shortcrust pastry!
She used all butter too.
Pastry shouldn't have anything added to it
Flan pastry (with an egg in) can be useful, though I'd only use it if the pie filling is going to be wet and even then I'd probably just do a 'plate pie' (probably called something else outside Yorkshire) instead where it's basically just a pastry lid over something.
Very partial to vol-au-vents - so 1970s dinner party chic :)
They deserve a revival. Not just the mini ones that Iceland sell frozen but the big French kind. There's a restaurant in Lomianki that specialises in galettes (it's the main thing on the menu) which remind me a bit of that.