paziols « Tomato Kumato

August 22, 2010

Homesick

Filed under: Cakes — Tags: apricots, cake, paziols — emiglia @ 9:28 am

It’s four o’clock in the morning, and I’ve slept two hours. I don’t have my contact lenses in, but I can’t be bothered to find any. Instead, I just pad down the stairs with the rest of them: the little Americans, the Country Boy, and I sit down in one of the giant, brown leather chairs that I’ve come to claim as my own.

We wait around in the kitchen as breakfast is eaten slowly–day-old-bread popped in the toaster with butter and jam. I stare at my toes and try to make out their forms in the shadows.

Eventually, we all clamber downstairs, one after the other. The bags were already piled into the car yesterday evening, so all there is to do is load the kids in with one last hug. They press their hands up against the windows and smile and wave: they may miss this place, but they’re not sad to go–they’re going home.

We have a tradition of chasing them down the hardtop road as they drive away, and so we do: bare-footed and blind, I follow the lights until they hit the turn at the end of the road, by the café, and then over the bridge–not because I see, but because I know–and they’re gone. It’s me and the Parisian’s sister, alone after another summer of full houses and banging doors and cake. Lots and lots of cake.

One of my new endeavors this year was to offer dessert every day. Dessert, as so many have come to know, with expanding jeans’ sizes and too much frosting, is one of my favorite things to make… odd, seeing as I don’t particularly care for sweet things. But that’s neither here nor there: for these kids, I will do anything, including making two cakes (because one is never enough, not for more than twenty people) nearly every night.

This cake is from back at the beginning of summer, when kids were still appearing well past their bedtime at the breakfast table, where I sat up nights to write. They came with tears and teddy bears, missing Mommy, missing home, missing their beds. It’s not a feeling I know well, but I don’t need to understand it to dry tears and offer a Carambar as a sweet treat til morning, when the days were so full that no one remembered to be homesick.

By the time they left, we could march into the vines at night to witness the sunset, picking grapes and blackberries from the bushes and eating them. By then, they might feel a pang when they thought about leaving… but it was nothing like the vacancy I knew I would feel once Paziols was, once again, just a memory and a handful of photos.

As we walk back into the house, picking our path carefully so as not to step on anything, I’m struck by an odd thought, one of those ones that passes through and leaves without fanfare, but then again, those are often the best ones. I wonder how it is that a place that I’ve barely lived in, just twenty-four weeks of my life, not even a full year, can feel so much like home that I fear homesickness will set in, not when I arrive, like with the kids, but when I leave?

Apricot Upside Down Cake

The cake portion of this dessert is made using the traditional French yogurt cake recipe, where the yogurt pot is used as a measuring device.

12 apricots
100 g. butter
200 g. sugar

1 125 g. pot of plain yogurt
2 pots flour
2 pots white sugar
1 pot vegetable oil
2 eggs
2 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. vanilla

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.

Wash the apricots and halve them, removing and discarding the pits. Heat the butter and sugar in a pan until the sugar dissolves, then spread the mixture evenly over the bottom of the pan and add the apricot halves. Cook until caramelized, about 10-15 minutes.

Meanwhile, combine the cake ingredients in a bowl, stirring until just combined.

In a cake pan (or tart pan, if you don’t have a cake pan, like me), spread the apricot halves and the remaining liquid from the sugar/butter mixture evenly over the bottom surface. Pour the cake batter over the apricots. Bake for 20-25 minutes, until the cake bounces back when touched or until a tester comes out clean with a few crumbs attached.

Invert the cake onto a platter and serve.

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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 19, 2010

A Tale of Two Gratins

Filed under: Vegetarian Main Dishes — Tags: gratin, gratin languedocien, paziols, ratatouille — emiglia @ 11:05 am

We have made a habit, in Paziols, of eating off-season food.

I’m not talking about ingredients–you’ve never seen so many tomatoes and zucchini in your life until you look in my Paziols kitchen–but because we wanted to introduce the kids to as many traditional French dishes as possible, it’s not unusual for tartiflette, coq au vin or gratin dauphinois to appear on our table.

All I can say is, at least we walk a lot.

Most afternoons, the kids set off (on foot) to one of the three local watering holes.

The favorite is the Pachaire: while it may be the furthest away, at an hour’s walk, it is also the only one to have a waterfall and a rope swing.

I like the Pachaire, really I do, but while as soon as I get to Long Island, you won’t be able to get me out of the water, in Paziols, I’m more likely to be on the sides, counting heads and making sure that everyone is safe. Maybe this is why I tend to enjoy the walk to and from the Pachaire (or the Fontaine des Eaux… or the Prade) even more than the destination.

In the garrigue, we’re surrounded à la fois by history and nature. There’s old Roman footpaths and expanses of grass and vines. There are structures from when winemakers used to spend entire days out in the fields, left to fall to ruins, ruins that I can’t get enough of.

Coming back to Paziols from the States every year reminds me of how new our country is, how long these buildings have stood, long before anyone even considered setting sail due west for India. I love to touch the stones: it makes me feel so insignificant and small. It’s not a bad feeling… just strange and different.

I don’t think that the others see it the way I do: the kids are happy just to sing songs and ask us “on est presque arrivés ?” (”are we there yet?”), and most of the other counselors are French, used to the ancient things that surround them on a daily basis. In France, everything is old, but I’m not used to it, and so I marvel.

At any rate, there are some things that catch everyone’s eye as we walk: it may be easy to ignore a particularly ancient rock, but it’s not so easy to ignore a sanglier.

After a full day of walking, it doesn’t seem to matter that the food we’re eating is more suited to winter than summer: everyone is hungry.

And sleepy.

Gratin is a typical French preparation that involves putting food (often leftovers) in a baking dish and topping it with something that gets crispy in the oven: either breadcrumbs or cheese. I’m famous back home for my gratin dauphinois, a recipe I learned in the north, but since I’ve already given you that one, I decided to include a new recipe I made for gratin languedocien, a typical regional preparation that is similar to a layered ratatouille.

Gratin Languedocien

2-3 Tbsp. extra virgin olive oil
2 medium eggplants, sliced
2 zucchini, sliced
2 red bell peppers, sliced into strips
10 small tomatoes, sliced
2 tbsp. tomato paste
6 tbsp. crème fraiche
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 tsp. salt
1 tbsp. herbes de provence
1 cup breadcrumbs
2 tsp. extra virgin olive oil

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.

In a skillet, heat a small amount of olive oil and cook each vegetable (eggplant, zucchini and peppers) separately until browned and golden. Add more oil as you need it. Do not cook the tomatoes.

In a gratin dish, layer the vegetables, reserving a layer of tomatoes for the end.

Dollop the tomato paste over the top of the gratin and smooth so that it more or less covers the whole gratin.

In a bowl, combine the crème fraiche, garlic, salt and herbs. Dollop over the top of the gratin and smooth so that it more or less covers the whole gratin.

Top with the last layer of tomatoes, then scatter the breadcrumbs over the top. Drizzle with olive oil.

Cover the gratin with aluminum foil and bake for 20 minutes. Remove the foil and bake an additional 10-15 minutes, until the top is golden and crispy.

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August 11, 2010

Apéro, cargolade and bolas de picoulat

Filed under: Uncategorized — Tags: apéro, cargolade, paziols — emiglia @ 8:24 am

After more than three years of living in this country, I like to think that I’ve assimilated enough of the French culture to no longer feel like “one of them,” even if I nearly never feel like “one of us.” I’m caught between two cultures, but at least I understand them both… so much so, in fact, that I have a hard time when a member of one of my cultures is caught off-guard by something that seems so natural to the other. The perfect example of this? Apéro.

Apéro is something that exists in nearly every Latin culture: to the Spaniards, it’s tapas or pintxos, to the Italians, aperitivo, and to the French, apéro, that perfect time after work and before dinner when everyone gets together around a table and a few bottles, accompanied by saucisson sec and bread and crispy snacks flavored with peanut dust to talk politics and tell jokes and make fun of one another, three of the French national pasttimes.

Apéro doesn’t have much of a place here in Paziols, at least not when the kids are here. The apéro hour is usually spent making dinner (for me and the Sous-Chef) or at the Prade (for everyone else), and when the clock hits eight and we finally sit down to eat, apéro has been forgotten. But there are some days–usually days when, on the way back from an excursion, we’ve stumbled upon a particularly excellent aged goat’s cheese or else some parents arrive with an assortment of saucisson sec that we reach for a bottle of sweet white Maccabeu, sit down and start to talk… and that’s when the questions begin.

“Is this dinner?” one of the kids will always ask, slightly frightened, as they see the group of us counselors sitting down and pouring out glasses, cutting into bread and cheese.

“No… it’s apéro,” I answer, borrowing the French word, because “cocktail hour” doesn’t seem like nearly an adequate translation. For me, apéro makes sense. For them, it’s as foreign as a two-hour lunch break in the middle of the day: I’m constantly reminding them that Proxi Proxi (our local mini-mart) is closed from 1:30 to 4:00 in the afternoon.

To the Marseillaise and the Country Boy, the strangeness of apéro is even stranger: even the Marseillaise, who doesn’t drink, pulls up a chair and a glass of grenadine. It’s not about the wine, we tell them. It’s about apéro.

Some of them get it. Some of them just snatch up as much saucisson as they can get their hands on, convinced they’ll never eat again. At any rate, I look forward to apéro with people who understand it, for whom this special hour that I still love is normal and second-nature, like our neighbors, just over the terrace wall.

It seems that we have developed a tradition of cargolade: like last year, we were invited over to witness the magic of tiny local snails being cooked to perfection with salt, pepper and piment. Accompanied by local wines and homemade aioli, cargolade makes the perfect apéro, and I love to watch Gilbert as he expertly arranges the purple coals to accomodate the apparatus that will serve as both cooking and serving dish.

But whereas last year I made jambalaya to follow up this meal, this year we were treated to yet another local specialty: bolas de picoulat, a Catalan meatball dish served with white beans, mushrooms and green olives.

We dug in as the sweet whites were swapped for reds, and I finally understood what the Country Boy meant when he told me he’s started apéros at seven only to have them last until eleven the next morning: the sun set, but the atmosphere remained the same, as we told stories from all of our cultural backgrounds, Americans, French, Macedonians mixing.

The Tramontagne wind picked up, but we were mostly protected by the high terrace walls, and the half-empty bottles were more than heavy enough to hold down our napkins and the tablecloth, and the gusts just added more ambiance to the evening, as we poured another glass and began to tell our stories, talking over each other and listening at the same time, a feat that I’ve found the French are particularly attuned to.

We heard the story of two months of English lessons producing no more comprehension than the word “double-u,” another about a particularly cold Englishman who refused to explain the announcement broadcast over the Tube loudspeakers. I explained my difficulty with speaking on the phone in French, and we all laughed as our neighbor bemoaned Anne-Marie’s voice travelling over the terrace walls at four in the morning, the morning we had to take the kids to Barcelona.

To these people, apéro may be normal… it’s becoming normal for me. But there will always remain a tinge of magic in this hour, a little bit of foreign bliss that I can revel in as I sip my wine and spear an escargot with a tiny metal prong. I hope that apéro always retains its magic: I may want to be French, but there are some things that will always be foreign, and somehow, that makes them all the more special.

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August 10, 2010

It’s all in the family…

Filed under: Bread — Tags: bakery, Bread, paziols — emiglia @ 5:35 am

I never wanted to go into the family business–then again, when your math skills are sub-par and the “family business” is an economic career you barely understand, it’s not a difficult decision to make. Add to that the fact that, especially in the States, we’re told we can “be whatever we want to be,” I was far more likely to go into a career as a ballet dancer than as a day trader… sorry, Dad.

It’s funny how much of who you become and what you do with your life depends on where you were born: had I been born in France, and especially into a family whose trade was less Wall Street and more Avenue du Roussillon, I probably would have ended up following in my father’s footsteps. Take, for example, the people who work at Bertrand Bergé, our local winery we’ve gotten to know so well for their Méconnu rosé and their friendly smiles every time we pass. Jérome and Sabine inherited this business from Jérome’s parents, who still work with them. Sabine’s parents take care of the children, doing their own part to make sure the business survives.

I don’t know what the two little ones will do when they grow up–I know that our “you can be anything” mentality hasn’t quite infiltrated the French system, even if it is catching on with every new generation. Suffice to say, Gabby and Mathilde have an open spot in the wine industry if they want it… and seeing as it’s a business that surrounded them as they grew up, the technical terms for winemaking as much a part of their vocabulary as any other simple words we hear at our parents’ knees, I don’t see why they would want to do anything else.

That is… unless they want to go into the bakery and pastry industry: the other family business, as we learned a few days ago, when Jacques, Sabine’s uncle, invited the lot of us to come learn to bake bread.

Last year, we did something similar at the Moulin de Cucugnan, learning not only to bake bread but to mill flour. But the kids didn’t accroche, as we say here: there was something about the demonstration and discussion that left their eyes wandering, and we weren’t sure, when we left, if they understood why we brought them there at all.

The experience with Jacques, however, was nothing like this: a teacher as well as a boulanger, Jacques had prepared several projects for little hands to dig into, and as the dough from our sprouted wheat bread rose, there were fougasses to form and fill, pistachio and hazelnut breads to make and bake, aniseed rings to cover with eggwash and pearled sugar and watch rise.

And dough to poke… I promised one of the girls that someday I would find a way to fill a swimming pool with Jacques’ bread dough so that we could surround ourselves with it.

There was never a dull moment the entire afternoon: Sabine and Gabby had come along for the ride, and Gabby was one of the most fun to watch as the girls tried their hands at what, for Jacques, was second nature.

Sometimes the dough didn’t obey–c’est pas évident, faire du pain, but Jacques made it look so easy that the girls looked up in horror and confusion when the rolling pin stuck or the dough wouldn’t come off the table.

Even the Country Boy tried his hand at, what I learned, was a family business for him too: his grandfather was a baker. Even left-handed, he managed to load the baguettes and other treats in and out of the stiflingly hot oven.

I had a moment to talk to Jacques, and he explained his search for an exchange program with the States: his school is already sending and receiving students in exchange with Italy and Spain, and I racked my brain for names of culinary schools in New York, though my brain blocked when I considered the differences between the prim and pressed institutes (like the Cordon Bleu here in France) and this small school in the bled, the middle of nowhere in France. Somehow, though, I don’t think that New York students exported to the southern French wine country would mind all that much.

At the end, when everything had come out of the oven, Jacques reached for some crates to begin packing everything up, including an elephant he made in two seconds and a few deft movements with his hands and a sharp razor–bread is, after all, art, as he so perfectly and simply explained.

Jacques saw me snapping pictures, and he stepped in to rearrange all of the delicacies we had made, explaining how important it was to make everything look pretty. I couldn’t agree more.

When we returned to Paziols, we made one more stop: it was back to the other family business for us, where we picked up a few bottles of Méconnu rosé, which, with our fresh bread and some local goat’s cheese, made the perfect apéro and the perfect end to the day.

Boulangerie Prats Frères
91, avenue Jean Jaurès
Bages, Languedoc-Roussillon

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August 8, 2010

Cassoulet

Filed under: Beans and Legumes — Tags: cassoulet, paziols — emiglia @ 11:01 am

OK… I’m ready to eat my words now.

Remember when I told you, weeks ago, although now it seems like years, about how the Marseillaise thought that my and Anne-Marie’s brains work differently? Well, somehow, even though it happens every year, without fail, right as the kids are about to leave, I got it… and all the tiny things that had irked me all throughout the session no longer seems important.

It happened yesterday: the group of younger kids had gone on an excursion, and I was left alone at the house with the Junior Counselor, the three older kids and three of the 11-year-old girls. We finally decided (after a lot of hemming and hawing and whining on the part of the teenagers) to spend the afternoon at the Pachaire, despite the half-hour trek. And so, with the little girls in the lead and the older ones trailing behind, off we went into the garrigue.

We spent the afternoon without plans or organisation, without a time to be home by or something to do upon our arrival. Instead, we watched the little girls come up with new and creative ways to jump in the water, the prudishness that is so ingrained in the American mindset abandoned as they made the leap in cotton underwear, New York eleven-year-olds kids, for once, for an afternoon.

On the walk back, their clothes drying in the sunshine, we stole bunches of purple grapes, the first ripe bounty of the vineyard harvest season, and those who could stand it chewed on the tiny, acidic globes, spitting seeds on the path. I allowed juice to spill all over my hands, making them sticky. Even as a child, I had abhored having sticky hands, but today I just let it go and enjoyed my last few moments of Paziols before the summer ends and fall sends us all back to the States.

Cassoulet

This is not a summer dish, but it’s a tradition here all the same.

1500 g lingot beans (or other white beans), dry
20-30 pieces of confit de canard, canned
800 g. lardons
2 onions, minced
4-5 cloves garlic, minced
3 saucisses de Toulose (or other mild sausage)

Soak the lingot beans overnight in 5 times their volume of cold water. In the morning, drain and cook over low heat with 3 times their volume of water until soft, about an hour. Drain and salt. Set aside.

Place the confit de canard and the duck fat from the cans into a large Dutch oven and heat. Remove the pieces of duck and set aside. Reserve the fat.

Over a low flame, heat two tablespoons of the duck fat in a frying pan. Add the onions and lardons and cook until golden, stirring occasionally. Add the garlic and heat until aromatic, 1-2 minutes. Mix this combination into the beans.

Wipe down the frying pan and add two more tablespoons of the duck fat. Cut the sausage into links, and fry until golden.

Assemble the cassoulet: in a cassole (or any shallow, wide cooking vessel, preferably glass or porcelain), place a layer of beans, a layer of duck, another layer of beans and then the sausages. I usually use three vessels for this recipe. Add 1-2 tablespoons of the duck fat to the top of the cassoulet.

Place into an oven and heat to 250 degrees farenheit. Cook for 2-3 hours, occasionally pressing the hard crust that will appear on top down and moving soft, white beans to the top.

Serves 20ish and reheats well.

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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.

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August 1, 2010

Brunch for 30 and the Muffin Story

Filed under: Muffins and Cupcakes — Tags: paziols — emiglia @ 9:47 am

A few days ago, I posted a recipe for some transcendental scrambled eggs, eggs that were made and consumed here in France… in the morning.

For my American and British readers, this may not seem strange, but here in France, where the only savory thing you’re likely to find on the breakfast table is beurre salé–salted butter–eggs in the morning are a rarity… unless, of course, you live next door to a house of 26 rowdy Americans, in which case you may find yourself invited to brunch on a Sunday morning, complete with muffins, pancakes, eggs benedict and florentine, fruit salad and mimosas (something that shocked and appalled the Country Boy, who still shakes his head and mutters about adding orange juice to perfectly good Champagne).

For my part, I spent the entire evening Saturday night and all of Sunday morning preparing; for those of you who have been privvy to one of my Thanksgivings, it rivaled Paris 2009… much of which was due to the muffin story.

Saturday night, the rest of the house piled into the two vans and headed three kilometers down the road to the campground in Tuchan, where there was an African music concert, while the Sous-Chef and I stayed at home with a mission: to make four batches of muffins, two blueberry, two chocolate, for the next morning. I blame the Sous-Chef entirely for what happened next.

“Hmm…” I said, picking up an apple with a rather large bruise. “This apple looks unhappy.” I put it aside, with the intention of making applesauce.

“Throw it in a muffin,” she said.

I shrugged, but then I thought: what’s more American than apples and cinnamon? And apple-cinnamon muffins did sound quite delicious… I still had batter from the blueberry muffins left to cook, but the others wouldn’t be home for a few hours.

“Grab some more eggs,” I said to the Sous-Chef, who headed down the stairs to the pantry for what must have been the thirtieth time that day.

I quickly riffed an apple-cinnamon muffin recipe and set the Sous-Chef to work making a crumble for the top.

“What about zucchini muffins?” she said, half joking.

“No, I need those zucchini,” I answered, as my eye drifted to the sad-looking carrots sitting in a pile. They were too soft to be eaten raw… but with a cream-cheese filling, they might make good muffins. By the time the Sous-Chef looked up, I had grated a pile of carrots, and we set our sights on a fourth batter.

“What about lemon?” she said.

“No,” I said. “Absolutely not!” I was quite giddy at this point after licking God-knows-how-many muffin bowls, and the Sous-Chef was happily muching away at the evidence of two failed chocolate muffins and a failed blueberry one.

“You always need lemon…” she taunted.

By the time the kids returned, we had no fewer than sixty muffins waiting for our brunch guests, as well as a blueberry crumble made with leftover blueberries and leftover crumb topping. Alongside two batches of “the best pancakes ever,” eggs benedict and florentine, fruit salad, mimosas and scrambled eggs, they made quite an impressive spread… and they were all demolished by the time we sat down to lunch on Monday afternoon.

Sometimes, the Sous-Chef just makes me crazier… but sometimes it’s all for the best.

Apple-Cinnamon Muffins

3 apples, grated
3 cups flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
2 teaspoons baking powder
Heavy pinch of salt
Dash of Nutmeg
1 tbsp. cinnamon
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1 egg
1 cup yogurt

1/2 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup flour
3 Tbsp. butter

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

Put the grated apples into a colander, and put the colander over a bowl while you prepare the rest of the batter.

In another bowl, sift together the flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt, nutmeg and cinnamon. Add the sugar and mix well to combine. In another bowl, combine the oil, egg and yogurt. Add the wet ingredients to the dry and mix to combine.

In another bowl, use a wooden spoon or your fingers to blend the brown sugar, flour and butter until it has a crumbly texture. Set aside.

Fold the apples into the muffin batter and portion into greased muffin cups. Sprinkle the crumble mixture on top. Bake for 20-25 minutes, until the tops are golden and a toothpick inserted into the middle comes out clean with a few crumbs attached. Yields about 18 muffins.

Lemon Muffins
3 cups flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
2 teaspoons baking powder
Heavy pinch of salt
1 cup sugar + 2 Tbsp. sugar
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1 egg
1 cup yogurt
2 lemons, zested and juiced

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

In another bowl, sift together the flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt and lemon zest. Add the cup of sugar and mix well to combine. In another bowl, combine the oil, egg and yogurt. Add the wet ingredients to the dry and mix to combine.

Portion into greased muffin cups. Bake for 20-25 minutes, until the tops are golden and a toothpick inserted into the middle comes out clean with a few crumbs attached.

While the muffins are baking, prepare the syrup: heat the lemon juice and 2 Tbsp. sugar in a saucepan until the sugar is melted. Allow to cool. When the muffins come out of the oven, pour the cooled syrup over the hot muffins. Allow to soak two minutes, then remove the muffins from the tins and allow to finish cooling on a rack. Yields about 18 muffins.

Carrot Cake Muffins with Cream Cheese Filling

3 carrots, grated
3 cups flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
2 teaspoons baking powder
Heavy pinch of salt
Dash of Nutmeg
1 tbsp. cinnamon
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1 egg
1 cup yogurt

4 oz. cream cheese
3 tbsp. sugar

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

In a bowl, sift together the flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt, nutmeg and cinnamon. Add the sugar and mix well to combine. In another bowl, combine the oil, egg and yogurt. Add the wet ingredients to the dry and mix to combine. Fold the carrots into the muffin batter.

In another bowl, combine the cream cheese and sugar.

Portion the muffin batter into greased muffin cups; fill about halfway. Add a small spoonful of the cream cheese mixture, then add cover with more batter. Bake for 20-25 minutes, until the tops are golden and a toothpick inserted into the middle comes out clean with a few crumbs attached. Yields about 18 muffins.

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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.

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July 13, 2010

Peach Clafoutis

Filed under: Cakes — Tags: clafoutis, dessert, paziols, peach — emiglia @ 12:18 pm

I speak slowly and carefully, even when I’m doing a million things at once. “Met les pâtes dans la casserole,” I say to one of the girls. She looks at the giant pile of noodles–four bags that amount to two kilos.

“Tout ?” she asks, unsure.

“Tout.” I reply, turning back to chopping tomatoes. From behind me, I hear the tell-tale sound of dehydrated pasta hitting the tiled floor I’ve just swept for the third time this week.

“C’est pas grave,” I say, without even turning around. I reach for a broom as I catch the eye of the girl who’s dropped the pasta, her face still playing host to a worried expression. The Sous-Chef laughs.

“It’s only grave if she does it,” she says, referring to my habit of letting things slide–egg dropping, adding of too much salt, incorrect tomato slicing, overwhipping of egg whites… as long as it’s not me who does it, “C’est pas grave.” If I’m the one setting torchons on fire or overcooking rice or dropping bread on the floor, however, watch out… it’s a calamity.

Somehow, though, on a recent occasion, I gave myself a free ride. I bought a ridiculous amount of peaches last Monday when the marchande de pêches came to our little square: something about hearing that familiar “Allô, allô,” over the loudspeaker again made me overzealous, and somehow, it suddently made sense to buy an entire cajet of peaches, even though somewhere in my Excel spreadsheet head I was certain there was no way we would get through all of them in a week, even if I did make jam. And sure enough, even though I gobbled them like candy and made two batches of confiture, I ended up nearing the end of the week with a basket full of peaches who looked as though they were on their last legs.

“C’est pas grave,” I said, to the astonishment of the Sous-Chef who, I’m sure, was expecting a major meltdown. (She knows me too well).

Instead, I whipped out this recipe for clafoutis I’ve been meaning to try, replacing the apricots with peaches. It was an amazing success; the texture was perfect, the taste of the creamy custard the perfect foil for the peaches I’ve come to look forward too all year long. I would have eaten it breakfast, lunch and dinner, but it’s all gone now. C’est pas grave… I’m sure there will be other opportunities for clafoutis.

Peach Clafoutis (adapted from Chez LouLou’s recipe for apricot clafoutis)

12 ounces fresh peaches, pitted and cut in four
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 peaches 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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