Pie « Tomato Kumato

August 20, 2010

A Tale of Two Desserts

Filed under: Pie — Tags: chocolate, clafoutis, paziols, Pie, tart — emiglia @ 11:07 am

When it comes to dessert, I’m in the minority: I’ve found that most people, the kids in Paziols included, are in the chocolate camp. I, meanwhile, could just as easily forgo chocolate entirely, but when it comes to a fruit-based (especially lemon) dessert, watch out, I’m likely going to eat the whole thing.

Still, I know that most people prefer chocolate, and since I’m a born people-pleaser, when it comes to dessert, I’m often browsing recipes for things heavy in cocoa, not in fruit, like this chocolate tart that was a huge hit with everyone in Paziols.

The recipe comes from one of my favorite French food blogs, Eryn et sa folle cuisine. I edited it a bit to make larger tarts instead of the tartelettes she calls for, but everyone enjoyed licking the dishes clean of the chocolate filling, and I enjoyed the “effet miroir” or mirror effect that the finished product had.

But while chocolate is fun, I still gravitate towards my favorite fruit desserts, especially in summer. A summer staple in France is clafoutis, and with apricots raining from the skies in July, clafoutis it was.

I especially loved this dessert because of how easy it was. Case in point: I stood by and watched as our two youngest campers assembled this dessert almost entirely on their own. (I still opened the oven. I believe in seven-year-olds, but not at the peril of their tiny fingertips).

As for which dessert people preferred, who can say? All I know is both times, the tart pans were licked clean, and that’s enough of a “thank you” for me.

Tarte Noisette et Cacao en Miroir (Translated and adapted from Eryn folle cuisine)

Hazelnut crust:
120 grams flour
40 grams ground hazelnuts
30 grams butter, diced
30 grams sugar
1 egg

Chocolate filling:
150 grams sugar
12 cl water
10 cl heavy cream
50 grams unsweetened cocoa powder
10 grams gelatine

Preheat the oven to 180 degrees C.

Prepare the dough: cream the butter and the sugar. Add the cream and mix to combine. Add the flour, egg and hazelnuts, and work into a ball of dough.

Butter and flour your tart pan, then roll out the dough and place it in the pan. Using pie weights or dried beans, bake the crust for 20 minutes, then remove the weights and bake another 5 minutes, until golden. Allow to cool.

While the crust cools, prepare the filling. Sift the cocoa into a bowl. In another small bowl, allow the gelatine to dissolve in cold water for 10 minutes.

In a saucepan, heat the sugar, water and cream, mixing all the while, until the sugar is dissolved. Add the cocoa and mix to combine. Bring to a boil for 1 minute over high heat.

Remove from the heat and allow to cool five minutes, then add the gelatine and mix well. Allow to cool completely.

Pour the filling into the crust, then refrigerate at least 4 hours. (You can also cool in the freezer for 1 hour and then another hour in the fridge, if you’re in a rush, but don’t forget it!

Apricot Clafoutis (adapted from Chez LouLou)

12 ounces fresh apricots, pitted and halved
1 cup minus 2 tablespoons sifted flour
¼ teaspoon salt
2 cups whole milk
3 large eggs
½ cup sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 tablespoons butter, cut into 6 pieces

Pre-heat oven to 450 degrees F.

Butter and lightly flour a 9½ inch round tart pan or baking dish with deep sides.

Place the apricots in the tart pan.

Combine the flour and the salt in a large bowl and whisk together.

Add 1 cup of the milk and whisk until completely smooth, then add the eggs, one by one, whisking briefly after each addition.

Whisk in the vanilla sugar, the vanilla extract and the remaining 1 cup of milk.

Pour the batter over the apricots and dot with the butter pieces.

Place in the center of the oven and bake for about 25 minutes, until puffed and golden brown.

Let cool completely before serving,

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August 9, 2010

Pop-Pop

Filed under: Pie — Tags: almond, bakewell, pop-pop, tart — emiglia @ 8:28 am

When I was growing up, I used to have regular dreams–not exactly nightmares, but something odd and strange that left me feeling uneasy when I woke up–about my grandfather coming into my room, sitting at the foot of my twin bed, and having frank and simple conversations about nothing at all. Not so strange, you may say, unless you know that my grandfather died a few months before I was born, and I never knew my father’s father.

My mother’s father, the only grandfather I ever knew, was anything but frightening. Of German blood and American birth, my grandfather was known for his hour-long “ablutions” in the morning: he was always showered, pressed and dressed, his hair perfectly combed, his white stubble shaved, before he even considered coming down for his regular breakfast of eggs and coffee and the morning paper. Everything he did was to the letter: he had his chair, his pipe, his tobacco, his barber, who came to cut his hair even once cancer put this man–a man who was retired for all of three seconds before he realized how bored he was and went back to work as a patent lawyer well past the age he could have been sitting in front of the television all day–on the sofa, to absorb the Weather Channel and football games

My grandfather, a man we all knew as Pop-Pop, was the person to call if you ever needed to know the driving conditions or chance of precipitation in any of the fifty states. He lived for atlases, looking up the places I jet-setted to and calling when he knew I would be driving through snow to make it home for Christmas, telling me which route to take from Canada through upstate New York, where he was raised and went to university–first to be an engineer, then to be a lawyer.

I feel lucky to have had the last few months I had with him, the months that were “supposed” to be in Argentina, the months where I felt “stuck” in New York. It’s funny, sometimes, how the universe can give you a gift you didn’t even know you were getting. Every Tuesday afternoon, Pop-Pop’s face would light up when I came upstairs from work. He would ask about my job(s) and exclaim over how many I seemed to take on. I tried to explain the concept of freelancing to him, but he was always worried about me. He didn’t want me to work too hard or take on too much, and he would frown as he contemplated and speak slowly and deliberately, “Well… just don’t overexert yourself, sweetheart.”

It was strange to see the man we knew as the “weasel,” who used to dress up in plaid and flannel and overalls with a cap and pipe in place, to trundle out to the woods with his wheelbarrow and rake, to organize the forest, in all his Germanness. We used to make fun of him–he took it in stride–but when I saw him lying under a blanket this winter and spring, thin and pale, I would have given anything to see him back in the woods again, a trail of the smoky smell I know so well following behind him as he collected piles of leaves to burn.

Pop-Pop was never sick a day in his life until three years ago, when we heard the big C. From then on, he battled it strongly–as any family who’s dealt with cancer knows, there are good days and bad days. Through phone calls from my brother and my mother, I know that in that last bit of time we shared, the long conversations and, sometimes, just quiet hours of watching the news together, I got the good days before I left in May, leaving with a “see you later…” not a “goodbye.”

I know, though, that last few weeks have been hard for everyone back home, and so when my mother called me this morning at nine, it took my foggy brain only the few moments to switch from French to English before I realized he was gone. I cried–when the world loses someone like him, there’s no other way to react–but in the end, I know that it’s for the best. I was so angry to not have been able to say a proper goodbye–it’s part of living somewhere else, to be far away when something like this happens. I remember when my grandmother passed three years ago, how far away I felt, how distant from the mourning I should have been a part of, and it’s flashback to hearing about Nana’s funeral from afar as I sit here in Paziols, so far away from where I’m supposed to be.

My aunt asked me this morning if I had someone here to take care of me–a strange concept to me, who has been taking care of myself for so long. I didn’t want to be taken care of: I don’t like people to see me cry. All I wanted was to be able to kiss him one last time, but I know that what we shared–our regular visits that he looked forward to and expected: five o’clock, on the dot–was better than saying goodbye to someone who was nearly already gone, so much that when I asked my mother a few days ago if I could call, she said that he wouldn’t know it was me.

Pop-Pop, for me, will always be the man who, when the crowded house of cousins and aunts and uncles got to be too much, would fold up his paper and grab his pipe to sit in the car that only he was allowed to drive, parked in the driveway, to read. When we went outside to play in the snow, we would see the thin trail of smoke escaping from the window, and we knew that Pop-Pop was taking his time and catching up on the news.

When he got sick and started losing weight, my aunt and I tried to help him bounce back by bringing him treats: German cookies, Wienershnitzel. When my brother flew back to America, I sent him with Pop-Pop’s favorite French candy, calissons d’Aix: he’s always loved almonds and marzipan, which is why, a few months ago, I carried a warm pie plate the five blocks from my parents’ house to his, a pie plate that, when opened, revealed a Bakewell Tart: cherry jam and almond paste in a crumbly, buttery crust that had him smiling for days. I’ll never forget his laugh or the way he pressed his lips to my cheek for nearly a minute every time he said goodbye, as though he didn’t know when he would see me again.

Bakewell Tart (Daring Bakers recipe)

Makes one 23cm (9” tart)

One quantity sweet shortcrust pastry (recipe follows)
Bench flour
250ml (1cup) jam or curd, warmed for spreadability
One quantity frangipane (recipe follows)
One handful blanched, flaked almonds

Sweet Shortcrust Pastry

225g all purpose flour
30g sugar
½ tsp salt
110g unsalted butter, cold (frozen is better)
2 egg yolks
½ tsp almond extract (optional)
1-2 Tbl cold water

Sift together flour, sugar and salt. Grate butter into the flour mixture, using the large hole-side of a box grater.

Using your finger tips only, and working very quickly, rub the fat into the flour until the mixture resembles bread crumbs. Set aside.

Lightly beat the egg yolks with the almond extract (if using) and quickly mix into the flour mixture.

Keep mixing while dribbling in the water, only adding enough to form a cohesive and slightly sticky dough.

Form the dough into a disc, wrap in cling and refrigerate for at least 30 minutes

Notes:

• If you wish, you can substitute the seeds of one vanilla bean, one teaspoon of vanilla paste or one teaspoon of vanilla extract for the almond extract

Almond Frangipane

Frangipane

125g unsalted butter, softened
125g icing sugar
3 eggs
½ tsp almond extract
125g ground almonds
30g all purpose flour

Cream butter and sugar together for about a minute or until the mixture is primrose in colour and very fluffy.

Scrape down the side of the bowl and add the eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. The batter may appear to curdle but don’t be concerned with it.

After all three eggs are in, pour in the almond extract and mix for about another 30 seconds and scrape down the sides again.

With the beaters on, spoon in the ground nuts and the flour. Mix well. The mixture will be soft, keep its slightly curdled look (mostly from the almonds) and retain its pallid yellow colour.

Assembling the tart

Place the chilled dough disc on a lightly floured surface. If it’s overly cold, you will need to let it become acclimatised for about 15 minutes before you roll it out.

Flour the rolling pin and roll the pastry to 5mm (1/4”) thickness, by rolling in one direction only (start from the centre and roll away from you), and turning the disc a quarter turn after each roll.

When the pastry is to the desired size and thickness, transfer it to the tart pan, press in and trim the excess dough. Patch any holes, fissures or tears with trimmed bits. Chill in the freezer for 15 minutes.

Preheat oven to 200°C / 400°F.

Remove shell from freezer, spread as even a layer as you can of jam onto the pastry base. Top with frangipane, spreading to cover the entire surface of the tart. Smooth the top and pop into the oven for 30 minutes. Five minutes before the tart is done, the top will be poofy and brownish. Remove from oven and strew flaked almonds on top and return to the heat for the last five minutes of baking.

The finished tart will have a golden crust and the frangipane will be tanned, poofy and a bit spongy-looking. Remove from the oven and cool on the counter. Serve warm, with crème fraîche, whipped cream or custard sauce if you wish.

When you slice into the tart, the almond paste will be firm, but slightly squidgy and the crust should be crisp but not tough.

Comments (1)

August 4, 2010

Peach and Berry Galette

Filed under: Pie — Tags: paziols — emiglia @ 5:38 pm

I’ve mentioned before that this year in Paziols is different from previous years. I’m not the only one who’s noticed it–even the girls who have come back from years before have mentioned that something has changed. Maybe it’s because the staff is different, or maybe because we have one less car, and thus we travel in smaller groups. Who knows, really, what has made the change happen, but suffice to say, the past two years blurred together into one giant Paziols party, and this year is a little bit… different.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s not bad. But I definitely have to say that there are certain things about last year–the excursions, the learning experiences–that I miss, and certain things about this year–the fact that I often don’t leave the kitchen, the fact that my hands are peeling from endless piles of dishes, the fact that there were some kids at the end of the last session who couldn’t even remember my first name, so infrequently I actually had time with them–that I wish weren’t so. There’s a little girl who constantly begs me to play with her, and it breaks my heart to tell her no so that I can go sweep the kitchen floor for the thirteenth time that day, mais c’est comme ca, things change, and if I didn’t attack the endless pile of dishes, we’d be eating off of paper towels.

Suffice to say, when I ended up with the three grandes and our Junior Animatrice at the house today, we were all more than happy to kick off our shoes (shh… don’t tell) and relax. We did a grammar class on negatives tranquillement, as we laughed and intermittantly discussed the differences between proverbs in French and English. We ate a lazy lunch with bread on the table–a luxury we don’t permit ourselves when we have little Turks who will stuff themselves with bread and nothing else. The dishes were a breeze, and so even though I had set my sights on the colossal dinner dish that is cassoulet, I decided to put together a summer galette for dessert as well.

With a simple pie crust dough and an even simpler filling: I used frozen berries that I had lying around, but you could just as easily use fresh, this galette is the perfect end to a summer meal, and the best way to use up any peaches–or any summer fruit–that you have lying around.

Oh, and if you’re looking for compliments or recognition, this isn’t a bad way to go about fishing for them: two of the little boys here looked up at me after their first slice of tart and said, “Emily, did we ever tell you you’re the best cook… ever?”

Luckily, I’m too smart to be that easily swayed…

Peach and Berry Galette

Crust:

2 1/2 cups flour
250 g. cold butter, cubed
2 tbsp. sugar
2 tsp. salt
cold water

Filling:
5 peaches, cut in eighths
2 tbsp. flour
1 tbsp. sugar
pinch nutmeg
juice of 1 lemon
2 cups frozen mixed berries, thawed and drained, or fresh

Crumble the flour and butter together with your fingertips until they have a sandy texture. Mix in the sugar and salt, and then add cold water by the tablespoon until the mixture comes together. Form a ball, wrap in plastic and refrigerate for at least an hour.

When ready to make the tart, separate the ball of dough into two and roll the crusts out. Place in small tart pans with the edges hanging over, and place in the freezer until ready to use.

In a bowl, combine the peaches, flour, sugar, nutmeg and lemon juice. Remove the crusts from the freezer, and line the bottoms with the peaches. Top with the berries. Fold the edges of the crust over the filling. Replace in the freezer for 15 minutes, and preheat the oven to 450 degrees.

Bake for 20-25 minutes, until the crust is golden and the fruit is hot. Serve warm with crème fraîche. Consider allowing seconds.

Comments (3)

July 27, 2010

I Come Bearing Pie

Filed under: Pie — Tags: paziols, peaches, Pie — emiglia @ 11:56 am

*Creeps out from around the corner.*

“Are you mad?”

Seriously… I’m sorry for disappearing like that. I wish I could warn you before the storm comes, but I never seem to know until suddenly, I look at my poor little blog and realize it’s been two weeks and you haven’t had a word from me. So I’m sorry… can you forgive me?

…

I brought pie…

And not only pie: it’s one of the very best pies I’ve ever tried. And that’s saying a lot coming from someone who, like me, loves pie. It was, perhaps, made even better thanks to the peaches from the marchande de pêches here in Paziols–peaches so life-changing that I’ve had to hide them under the counter to keep eager kids (and counselors) from devouring them instead of breakfast, lunch and dinner. Still, I feel confident in saying that this pie–with or without marchande de pêche peaches–is possibly in the top three pies I’ve ever had in my life. Do you forgive me now?

What if I told you that I haven’t even left the kitchen in what feels like days? The new running joke here in Paziols is how strange it is to see me without an apron tied around my waist. When I spend too much time in another room of the house or–God forbid–out of doors, people start to ask me if I’m feeling all right. It’s not exaggeration: when you’ve got as many kids (19) who eat as much as these ones do, it’s a wonder I leave the kitchen to go to bed.

Paziols in years past was marked by trips to different sites around the area: I’ve visited the Cathar chateaux of Aguilar and Queribus at least ten times apiece, the musée de la Préhistoire in Tautavel even more. When I first realized I would be missing these outings in favor of more time in front of the stove, I have to admit that I wasn’t all that fussed: you can only climb a crumbling castle a certain number of times before the allure wears off and your patience with small children wandering too close to the edge wears thin. Nevertheless, as I browse old photographs, I find myself missing some of the trips I used to take.

Luckily, there have been new trips, some of which even I have been a part of, like a recent outing to Rennes-le-Chateau, a small town about an hour away from Paziols named for the small chateau that gave the town its story and claim to fame.

Legend has it that a priest who came to work at the parish in this village, Bérenger Saunière, found a buried treasure somewhere inside the small church, permitting him to completely rebuild it. Whether the treasure was a gift from the devil or simply a myth remains to be determined, but as it is now, the legend leaves many questions unanswered, and especially after the publication of books like The DaVinci Code a few years back, the popularity of the small town has grown.

As is often my M.O., I raced through the museum to pop out on the other side, where I could wander the garden peacefully. Saunière constructed not only the small church, but also a series of buildings, including a house and a tower that offers an astounding view of the valley below.

I took advantage of everything–the flowers, the view. Everything was an excuse for a picture, and as I snapped away, I laughed to myself about the observation that the Country Boy had made a few days earlier: as he scrolled through the pictures on my digital camera, he commented that 90% of them were of food.

While the pie pictures leave something to be desired (for this I apologize: but I was otherwise occupied with salad collection after a particularly violent gust of Tramontagne wind, and by the time I got the chance to take a picture, the sun had set), the accusations are true: the majority of my pictures now are of different dishes I make, sometimes ten or twenty pictures of each dish so that I can select the best ones. If it weren’t for this blog, there’s a good chance that I would never have bought a new camera when the old one broke, but as it is, I have one, and when greeted with the opportunity, whether the subject in question be a particularly lovely peach pie or a particularly lovely garden, I’m happy to have the time and the opportunity to capture it on film so that, when I’m back to hovering over my stove or sweeping shards off the floor after yet another glass has slipped from over-eager hands (current count: six), I can remember days like this, when my biggest concern was the angle for a picture of a flower.

Peach and Crème Fraîche Pie (Recipe from Smitten Kitchen)

1/2 recipe All-Butter, Really Flaky Pie Dough, chilled for at least an hour in the fridge

Streusel
1/4 cup confectioners’ sugar
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
Pinch of salt
3 to 6 tablespoons all-purpose flour
1/4 cup cold (1/2 stick) unsalted butter, cut into pieces

Filling
1 1/2 pounds ripe (4 to 5 medium) yellow peaches, pitted and quartered
2 to 4 tablespoons granulated sugar
Pinch of salt
5 tablespoons crème fraîche

Prepare pie dough: Roll out pie dough to about 1/8-inch thick and fit into a regular (not deep dish) pie plate, 9 1/2 to 10 inches in diameter. Trim edge to 1/2 inch; fold under and crimp as desired. Pierce bottom of dough all over with a fork. Transfer to freezer for 30 minutes. Preheat oven to 400°F right before you take it out.

Make streusel: Stir confectioners’ sugar, baking powder, salt and three tablespoons flour together in a small bowl. Add bits of cold butter, and either using a fork, pastry blender or your fingertips, work them into the flour mixture until it resembles coarse crumbs. Add additional flour as needed; I needed to almost double it to get the mixture crumbly, but my kitchen is excessively warm and the butter wanted to melt. Set aside.

Par-bake crust: Tightly press a piece of aluminum foil against frozen pie crust. From here, you ought to fill the shell with pie weights or dried beans, or you can wing it like certainly lazy people we know, hoping the foil will be enough to keep the crust shape in place. Bake for 10 minutes, then remove carefully remove foil and any weights you have used, press any bubbled-up spots in with the back of a spoon, and return the crust to the oven for another 5 to 8 minutes, or until it is lightly golden brown. Transfer to a wire rack to cool slightly. Reduce oven temperature to 375°F.

[P.S. If you're not overly-concerned about "soggy bottoms" (in the words of Julia Child) you can save time by skipping the par-baking step. Given the light nature of the filling, odds are good that it would not become excessively damp even without the parbake.]

Make the filling: Sprinkle quartered peaches with sugar and salt. Let sit for 10 minutes. Spread two tablespoons crème fraîche in bottom of par-baked pie shell, sprinkle with one-third of the streusel and fan the peach quarters decoratively on top. Dot the remaining three tablespoons of crème fraîche on the peaches and sprinkle with remaining streusel.

Bake the pie: Until the crème fraîche is bubble and the streusel is golden brown, about 50 minutes. Cover edge of crust with a strip of foil if it browns too quickly. Let cool on a wire rack at least 15 minutes before serving.

Comments (1)

July 12, 2010

Tarte Tatin

Filed under: Pie — Tags: apple, tarte tatin, tatin — emiglia @ 5:07 pm

I am–and always have been–of the school of thought that says that people don’t change.

Maybe a little bit, OK, I admit, but really, most people–and most things–don’t change all that much. When they do, it comes as a shock, at least to me.

Paziols, on the other hand, is a strange sort of organic place where everything changes and yet nothing changes all at the same time. Each time I come back to this house, I recognize everything, the past four summers blending together into a wild blur of all-nighters in the grenier and early mornings in the kitchen, long lunches on the terrace and excursions started from the garage.

I feel as though this house is mine: the blue paint I spattered all over the tiles two summers ago is still there, proof that I exist, though most of the kids have taken to telling me that this place wouldn’t exist without me, something I can’t even imagine (the program not existing or the program existing without me.)

Summers blend together through memories and photographs, though I can separate them easily if I try hard enough; trying is hardly worth it though. It doesn’t seem to matter anyway: I’ve always been here. Anne-Marie and I are the only ones who have been here all four years, and even though there are some kids and some counselors who are back again after two or three years, it’s me that people in the town recognize. “You’ve come here before… haven’t you?”

I don’t recognize most of them–after all, it’s much easier to remember someone when they invade your small town every summer with a band of rowdy Americans than it is to recognize the locals who watch you swarm down on them from afar. By chance, I finally met one of them this weekend, and he posed all the questions I was sure others had been thinking of. “What are you doing here?” “Why France?” “Wait… where are you from?”

I don’t mind answering. It may be my fourth year, but I’m always learning things about this place, and nothing ever gets old for me, even the Cathar chateaux and the prehistoric museum in Tautavel we visit every year. But maybe most of all, it’s the people who actually do come back that make this place into what it is.

This year, five of the six older girls who are campers here are returning students, one of which is my Sous-Chef from last year. She stumbled back into the kitchen as though she had never left, and though I took my time remembering where we kept the knives and which one was my favorite–after two weeks back, it seems impossible that I could have ever forgotten–she had remembered everything down to where we kept the presse-ail, and she was more than happy to watch me recreate one of the favorite desserts from last year: tarte tatin.

She’s taken a different role this year–something I didn’t expect. Instead of hanging on my coattails, she’s the one directing the younger kids, leaving me free to run around chasing boiling-over pots and burning quiches. She stands behind me calmly and explains how to wash the salad three times, where the bowls for the tomatoes are kept, how to set the table for lunch. One afternoon, when I got stuck in Perpignan for longer than expected, Anne-Marie turned to her and asked, “What’s for lunch?” I wasn’t there to witness it, but apparently, she didn’t miss a beat.

So maybe some things have changed. After all, this year, the Country Boy flung the last few slices of tarte into the circle of six grandes, who launched themselves onto them like lions and licked the plates clean.

This year it was me, and not Marc, who turned the tarte tatins out of their pans and onto the glass serving plate. This year, no one suffered sugar burns, but no one laughed at Marc screaming like a little girl either. And this year, the Sous-Chef stood calmly behind one of the other girls, explaing what to do with the seemingly endless apple slices I kept dumping into her bowl, as she created spirals in a pan of melted butter and sugar and settled back into her element.

Tarte Tatin (republished from this time last year)

2 refrigerated puff pastries
14 granny smith apples
lemon juice
1 cup butter
3 cups sugar
2 sachets vanilla sugar or 2 tsp. vanilla

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.

Core and peel the apples and slice them. Use a little bit of lemon juice to keep them from browning as you slice.

Heat the butter and sugar in two tarte tatin pans or in two skillets if you don’t have them over medium heat. Add the vanilla sugar.

When the butter and sugar are melted together, add the apple slices in swirls from the inside out. You will not use all the apples. Turn the heat down to low and cook.

As the apples begin to cook, squeeze more and more apples into the spaces that will appear between apple slices. Continue cooking until the sugar is a deep brown and all the apples have been used.

Flip the pans so that the apples are upside down into tarte pans (if you are using tarte tatin pans, skip this step).

Unroll the pastries onto the apples, pressing the sides down so that they stick. Place in the oven and cook for half an hour, or until the pastry is golden on top. Serve with crème fraîche.

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July 19, 2009

Normal

Filed under: Pie, Salad, Side Dishes — Tags: garlic, lemon, paziols, radishes, tarte au citron, tomatoes — emiglia @ 11:59 am

It’s incredible how quickly something that was foreign and bizarre can become a natural and normal part of your daily life. It’s even more strange how quickly something that used to be normal can seem so far away.

I live in Paris: I’m used to it by now, used to saying it, used to going about my daily life with La Poste and Champion and the Paris métro as frequent players in my day to day. But when I first moved to Paris, everything seemed new and exciting and shiny. I craved the days where I would get to say to someone, nonchalantly, of course, though I was jumping with excitement on the inside, “I live in Paris.”

After three months back in the South, Paris–and everything that goes along with it–seems so far away. Gone are days filled with minutes that were just for me. Gone are afternoons of walking around and discovering new things. Gone are early evenings of apéro and Le Grand Journal–the news program I slowly became addicted to over the last few months of being in Paris.

Normal, now, is dinner at nine on the terrace. Normal is buying enough potatoes to feed an army without blinking an eye. Normal is throwing ten or so packs of jambon cuit into the caddy at the supermarket–it doesn’t matter if we don’t have sandwiches planned on the menu… they’ll get eaten by someone eventually.

Normal is translating every five seconds what someone around me is saying into another language. Normal is trying to find ways to reword the French jeux de mots printed on the inside of Carambar wrappers, that French candy that gets devoured the minute I walk into the house with a pack.

Normal is running into the woman who runs a program for French teenagers in our tiny town while in line at the tinier supermarket. Normal is upping the count for dinner from 17 to 25 when we decide to have these guests over just a few hours before we plan to sit down to eat.

Normal is throwing several dozen sausages on the grill and preparing a few pounds of tomatoes for a salad.

Normal is selecting about seven cheeses for a cheese board, knowing everything would be gone by the end of the night.

I’m aware, somehow, that soon this will all seem faraway and hazy, in the same way that Paris has become. I know that once I’m back home in the States this August, Westhampton and driving everywhere and taking the New York City subway will be my new normal, and I know that that too will fade when I leave after just one short month for Spain. I know that this is the essence of the life that I have made for myself, and I know that normal, for me, will never be just one thing.

But for just a few weeks, I like to pretend that this is the way that my normal life will always be, that mornings of making French toast in bulk and evenings of serving up tart tarte au citron will always be a part of my day-to-day. I know that it’s a lie, but even for me–”tell me like it is, even if it hurts”–I’m going to tune out the whisper that tells me that I’m just kidding myself, have another glass of Muscat de Rivesaltes and hide behind the chirp of the cicadas for just a little longer.

Tomato Salad

6-8 on-the-vine tomatoes in various colors, vines reserved
1 spring onion, minced
2 cloves of garlic, pressed
3-4 Tbsp. olive oil
salt
1 tsp. dried basil

Cut the tomatoes into chunks and mix in a glass bowl with the onion, garlic, olive oil, a generous amount of salt and the basil. Add the vines and allow to marinate at least one hour outside the fridge. Remove the vines and toss before serving.

Tarte au Citron

4 large eggs, cold
1 1/4 cup sugar
1 cup fresh lemon juice
1 Tbps. fresh lemon zest
12 Tbsp. butter, cold
2 refrigerated pâtes brisée

Prebake the pie crusts in a 350 degree oven until just crisp, 5 minutes.

Whisk the eggs, sugar and zest together. Heat in a double boiler until the eggs begin to foam. Add the lemon juice, bit by bit, whisking constantly. When the mixture has the consistency of loose lemon curd, remove from the heat and mix in the butter.

Pour the filling into the crusts and heat under the broiler until just set. Refrigerate until ready to serve.

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July 12, 2009

C’est pas évident

Filed under: Pie — Tags: apples, puff pastry, tart, tarte, tarte tatin — emiglia @ 5:00 am

One of my favorite expressions in French is “ce n’est pas évident,” something that is almost exclusively used in spoken French, and so it almost always comes out as “c’est pas evident.”

Evident means obvious in French, but when used in the negative, like many of my favorite expressions in French, it can take on a myriad of definitions, none of which is easy to categorically translate. (C’est pas évident… it’s not straightforward.)

C’est pas évident, in general, to find something that a large group of teenage girls will all be interested in.

C’est pas évident to find 12 jobs so that all of them can help in the kitchen when you realize that all it took was making Tarte Tatin.

C’est pas évident that, when making said Tarte Tatin, a store-bought puff pastry crust would work just as well as a homemade one.

C’est pas évident to flip the finished Tarte Tatin when all of the plates in the house are smaller than the tart pans you used.

C’est pas évident that the grown man you ask to help you will scream like a little girl when flipping the Tarte Tatin onto a glass cake plate you finally found that is, in fact, big enough to hold the final tart.

C’est pas évident, when you see 12 skinny little girls get off a plane, that they will each be able to put away more than the four growing boys you had last year combined.

Tarte Tatin

2 refrigerated puff pastries
14 granny smith apples
lemon juice
1 cup butter
3 cups sugar
2 sachets vanilla sugar or 2 tsp. vanilla

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.

Core and peel the apples and slice them. Use a little bit of lemon juice to keep them from browning as you slice.

Heat the butter and sugar in two tarte tatin pans or in two skillets if you don’t have them over medium heat. Add the vanilla sugar.

When the butter and sugar are melted together, add the apple slices in swirls from the inside out. You will not use all the apples. Turn the heat down to low and cook.

As the apples begin to cook, squeeze more and more apples into the spaces that will appear between apple slices. Continue cooking until the sugar is a deep brown and all the apples have been used.

Flip the pans so that the apples are upside down into tarte pans (if you are using tarte tatin pans, skip this step).

Unroll the pastries onto the apples, pressing the sides down so that they stick. Place in the oven and cook for half an hour, or until the pastry is golden on top. Serve with crème fraîche.

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April 26, 2009

Foodbuzz 24, 24, 24: Iron Chef

Filed under: 24, Appetizers, Chicken, Pie, Side Dishes — Tags: chestnuts, iron chef, rice pudding, roast chicken — emiglia @ 11:29 am

And now for something completely different.

As many of you who read this blog regularly probably know, I am a recent university graduate. I graduated a semester early, which means that most of my friends here in Paris are still in college. There is a stereotype when it comes to college parties: kegs, togas, etc, but that’s not what we typically do for fun around here.

We have Iron Chef competitions.

The contestants are always me and my friend Matt. Katrina is our organizer, but she is a self-proclaimed cook of two things: tortillas and a German dish that I can’t pronounce, much less spell, and so she and Alex are always two of our judges.

We have to find a third for each competition, and this time around, it was Alex’s friend Brigitte, who, along with Alex, helped document the occasion with photos.

Before I continue, I need to make a quick note about the photos. Because I was cooking, I couldn’t very well be taking pictures at the same time, so Alex and Brigitte took care of that. You all remember what it was like when you first started dealing with macros and varying light sources, so please be forgiving of blur and color imbalances. I’ll try to make up for it with my eloquent prose. Or something like that.

The way Iron Chef works is quite simple: each of us puts in a little bit of money, and Katrina goes to the store to get materials: the secret ingredient, as well as a collection of other things we can use. There is always some form of meat (for this round, we each got a whole fryer) as well as a variety of fresh produce, pantry items and dairy products. I always allow the use of my oil, spices, flour and sugar. In addition, Matt and I each select two ingredients in advance that we will have for ourselves and will not share with one another: Matt chose cream and rice noodles, and I had canned peaches and crème fraîche.
And this week’s ingredient was…

Marrons entiers! Whole cooked chestnuts.

From the moment the ingredient is revealed, we each have fifteen minutes to plan out our meals: three courses including an appetizer, a main and a dessert. After the fifteen minutes of planning time, we have an hour and a half to cook under the watchful eye of the judges, who will later judge in five categories: food, costume, kitchen skills, use of the ingredient and x-factor.

Matt washes his hands: points for kitchen skills!

Katrina is camera shy.

Matt and I have very different cooking styles as well as different ways of approaching the contest. I always plan everything out from the very beginning. For this round, I knew that we would each have a whole chicken to work with, so I planned on roasting it and then came up with a chestnut stuffing to go with it. I also knew that I wanted to make a pie, so I was able to make the crust in the beginning and refrigerate it while I worked on other things.

Matt is much more free-form with the way he develops his menu. “I don’t know what I’m doing til it’s done, basically. Every time I do it, it’s like… the secret ingredient is something I don’t know or haven’t worked with before. I write down what I want to do in the beginning, but as I go, it changes.”

Our final menus were:

Emiglia

Potato-Chestnut Soup with Caramelized Onion-Chestnut Garnish and Goat Cheese Croutons

Roasted Chicken with Chestnut Stuffing

Raspberry-Pear Tart with Chestnut Purée

Matt

Goat Cheese and Chestnut Crostini with Dried Cranberries

Chicken Stir Fry with Rice Noodles

Chestnut Rice Pudding

A big part of the competition is the costumes… your costume amounts to one-fifth of your total score. Mostly, our costumes become characters. This time around, Matt was the son of the devil, and I was a hippie. We tried to stay in character while the judges (mostly Katrina) asked us questions as we cooked, much like Alton Brown does in the American version of the television show.

Because you only have a certain amount of time to work, preparation is everything. In my tiny kitchen, this is even more of a challenge. Something like a pie, which I made, is difficult to get right because we only have one oven to share between two people. It’s easier to control the cooking of something like a stir-fry, which Matt chose to make.

While Matt and I cooked, Katrina, Brigitte and Alex watched and drank (it’s dinner theater at home!) Alex and Brigitte also took pictures. I realized that Alex must have been watching me take my food pictures closer than I thought. He, like me, snapped about twenty pictures of each item.

He especially liked to take close-up shots of the chestnuts,

close-ups of Matt expertly butchering the whole chicken,

and close-ups of me chopping things. Basically a lot of close-ups.

I wonder where he gets it?

Half-way through the competition, Matt offers the crowd the leftover topping for his crostini. This gets him a lot of x-factor points.

The pressure is on… time’s nearly up!
When the hour and a half is up, we serve our food to everyone.

After which, the judges have to judge. Katrina liked the soup I made and the rice pudding that Matt made. She also liked the stuffing that came with the chicken. I got points for staying in character while cooking. Verdict: Emiglia

Brigitte liked the soup too (in fact, the soup just got points all around.) She really liked Matt’s presentation of his appetizer: he put lit matches into whole chestnuts when he brought out the dish. Verdict: Matt

Alex liked pretty much everything he ate: he was happy that we both used the goat’s cheese (put cheese on anything and Alex is happy). He liked Matt’s character (the devil’s son). In the end, though, he wasn’t crazy about the stir-fry (some of the rice noodles were uncooked) or the chestnut purée that went on top of the pie that I made. It took him awhile, but he finally made his decision after deciding that he preferred Matt’s crostini topping raw rather than cooked. Verdict: Emiglia

It’s interesting the way that a contest like this changes my approach to cooking. Usually, especially when baking, I make sure to carefully measure everything before starting and to double check my recipes. I realized during this contest that it’s not always necessary: I was able to make pie crust from scratch au feeling just because I’ve made it before and I know what it should look like.

I end up cooking mostly with instinct: I know that chestnuts, chicken and sage go well together, so I build off of that knowledge. I also know that cream and cheese make things better, which is how so much cream made it into my soup (it was delicious, but definitely not the sort of thing I would make for a regular weeknight dinner).

Sometimes, it doesn’t work out: my chestnut purée wasn’t the perfect match with the pie. It may have gone better with something chocolate. A lot of things turn out surprisingly well, and we learn how to use a new ingredient, which is always fun. Because of the free-form way that we cooked, I can’t really offer you any recipes: everything we made was fairly simple. Instead, I can give you basic ingredient lists for the things that were made.

Potato-Chestnut Soup with Caramelized Onion-Chestnut Garnish and Goat Cheese Croutons- onions, potato, salt, pepper, chestnuts, crème fraîche, goat’s cheese (soup), caramelized onions, butter, salt, pepper, chestnuts (garnish)

Roasted Chicken with Chestnut Stuffing- chicken, butter, salt, pepper, herbes de provence (chicken), bread, crème fraîche, milk, sage, salt, pepper, chestnuts, onion

Raspberry-Pear Tart with Chestnut Purée- butter, salt, crème fraîche, flour (crust), raspberries, canned pears, sugar, mascarpone cheese (tart), chestnuts, mascarpone, sugar, crème fraîche (purée)

Goat Cheese and Chestnut Crostini with Dried Cranberries- goat’s cheese, chestnuts, tarragon, salt, pepper, bread, Craisins

Chicken Stir Fry with Rice Noodles- chicken, tarragon, cream, Worcestershire sauce, honey, onions, garlic, mushrooms, leeks, rice noodles

Chestnut Rice Pudding- cooked rice, cream, mascarpone, cinnamon, chestnuts, sugar

At any rate, Iron Chef is a really fun way to get friends together and enjoy a meal. I love being a contestant: this is the second time I’ve been one, and it’s a really fun way to challenge yourself. I know that next time, I’d love to be on the other side, taking the pictures!

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March 26, 2009

Sweet Potato, Goat Cheese and Balsamic Onion Tart

Filed under: Pie, Vegetarian Main Dishes — Tags: caramelized onion, goat cheese, savory tart, sweet potato — emiglia @ 11:30 am

There aren’t a lot of things that smell better than onions slowly caramelizing in butter.

I’m not necessarily telling you all of this just so that you are immediately aware (if you weren’t before) of the joys of butter and onions slowly cooked together until they harmonize into something so sweet and so soft it’s almost spreadable. Rather, I am writing this to let my future self know that if I ever have a bad day, the first thing I should do is start caramelizing some onions.

Caramelized onions were part of my dinner plans for tonight anyway. Slicing my hand open as a glass I was washing shattered in my grip was not. I held my hand above my head for an hour, contemplated stitches and bemoaned the time I was wasting on my stupid finger when I could have been: 1) Blogging, 2) Doing the online crossword puzzle, 3) Grocery shopping. I was kind of glad that I got to stop doing the dishes and that Alex did them for me when he got home, but that’s beside the point.

Luckily, caramelized onions changed all that. Sure, I still have a pretty impressive gash in the back of my hand, and sure, when I spilled the boiling soup that was supposed to be my lunch all over myself, including said gash, I still let off a string of expletives that would make a sailor blush, but when I think about the caramelized onions… well… none of that really seems to matter anymore.

I suppose I should move on: you see, caramelized onions were not meant to be our whole dinner. I love them, but not that much. Rather, the onions were one layer in a tart that I was constructing with sweet potatoes, goat cheese and balsamic vinegar.

Served simply with a green salad (as are so many things in my kitchen), this was our dinner. The potatoes were thinly sliced and turned crispy on the top, guarding the goat cheese and allowing it to melt through the caramelized onions. The crust was a homemade one that I seasoned with black pepper, and the butteriness of it made it somewhat decadent for a weeknight…

I deserve it. I’m wounded.

Sweet Potato, Goat’s Cheese and Balsamic Onion Tart

For the crust:
1 1/8 cup all purpose flour
8 tbsp. butter
1 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. pepper
cold water

Combine the flour, salt and pepper in a bowl. Cut the cold butter into the flour, using your fingertips to rub it together until it is pebbly. Add cold water by the tablespoon, gently incorporating it, until the dough just comes together. Wrap in plastic wrap and keep in the fridge until ready to use. Meanwhile, prepare the filling.

For the filling:
1 sweet potato, thinly sliced (use a mandoline if you have one)
60 g. (about 2 ounces) goat’s cheese
2 onions, thinly sliced
2 tsp. balsamic vinegar
2 tsp. olive oil, separated
1 tbsp. butter
salt and pepper

Begin by heating the butter and 1 teaspoon of olive oil in a skillet over low heat. Add the onions and the vinegar and season with salt. Allow them to cook and gently caramelize for about twenty minutes, stirring occasionally. Allow to cool slightly before assembling the tart.

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees.

Assemble the tart by rolling out the dough and placing it in the bottom of a pie pan. Spread the onions over the dough, moving quickly so that the butter in the dough does not melt. Sprinkle the goat cheese evenly over the onion layer. Then, assemble the rounds of sweet potato in circles over the cheese layer. Press down lightly, and season with salt, pepper, and the remaining teaspoon of oil.

Bake for thirty minutes, until the crust is golden brown and the potatoes are cooked through.

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December 1, 2008

Thanksgiving

Filed under: Chicken, Pie, Side Dishes, cheese — Tags: baked brie, Chicken, cornbread muffins, cranberry sauce, goat cheese, Pie, pumpkin, sweet potatoes, tarte tatin, thanksgiving — emiglia @ 4:08 pm

I know, I know… my Thanksgiving post is late. But to be fair, my Thanksgiving was late: I had it on Friday.

It was tons of fun… and unlike last year, it went off without a hitch. (Wait… scratch that. I had to have my one disaster of the evening. I burned the candied walnuts, but my guests assured me that the baked brie did not suffer.)

Here was my menu:

Apéro

Baked Brie with Candied Walnuts and Caramelized Onions
Pâté, Boursin and Cornichons with Spicy Mustard and Fresh Baguette

Meal

Roasted Chickens (from the butcher… best decision I ever made)
Pioneer Woman’s Sweet Potato Casserole
Mashed Potatoes (mashed with milk, butter, crème fraîche, fromage frais salt and pepper, spread into a baking dish, topped with more butter and baked at the last minute to heat)
Cranberry Sauce
Double Corn Cornbread Muffins (I tossed in about a half teaspoon of salt… baking without salt just doesn’t seem right to me)
Pumpkin Tarte Tatin

Dessert

Pumpkin Pie (I used this recipe for the crust and replaced the spices with two teaspoons of Quatre Épices, a French spice blend that includes cinnamon, cloves, black pepper and nutmeg)
Tarte Tatin

This year’s Thanksgiving had a much better turnout, possibly due to the fact that there was no métro strike this year. The two winners were undoubtedly the baked brie and the pumpkin tarte tatin: I probably shouldn’t post some of the reactions on here because this is a family friendly blog, but suffice to say I think that people were happy.

This was the second year that the pumpkin tarte tatin was on the menu, and I made a few changes, increasing the amount of goat cheese and baking it like a typical tarte as opposed to upside down, which made the top even more delicious and caramelized.

The baked brie was a new addition, but it was a welcome one. After trying four different stores and coming up empty-handed on my search for phyllo pastry, I simply used a frozen pâte feuilleté, or quiche dough, which worked fine. I decided to use apricot jam, and, as I mentioned before, there were no candied walnuts, but the presence of caramelized onions more than made up for it in the opinion of my diners.

What did I like best? The fact that nothing had to be done last minute. I worked from noon until 8: I had a very specific schedule that involved at least an hour of planning, knowing when the oven would be free, when I would be able to pay attention to caramelized onions, and when I would have enough burners. It was a very well-made schedule, and I’m a tiny bit embarrassed about how proud I was of it.

But as soon as my guests arrived, I was free to sit with them and chat with nothing more to do than remove the dishes from the oven and put them on the table.

I think I’m getting the hang of this.

Ok… my minions helped.

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