Pie « Tomato Kumato

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 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.

Comments (4)

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.

Comments (2)

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.

Comments (1)

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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November 22, 2007

Thanksgiving

Filed under: Appetizers, Pie, Quickbreads, Side Dishes, potatoes — Tags: cornbread, cranberry sauce, potato gratin, pumpkin, pumpkin pie, pumpkin tarte tatin, thanksgiving — emiglia @ 8:48 am

I know… I know. I’ve been bad. It isn’t even that I haven’t been cooking! I have tons of recipes to share, plus I just got back from England, where I ate at some awesome places. Nope… I just sometimes forget that I’m a student until I suddenly have to be one nonstop for several days. But my paper on Atlas Shrugged has been turned in, so I’m back and ready to tell you about Thanksgiving, yesterday.

Yes… I said yesterday. And yes, I’m well aware that Thanksgiving is actually today. But you see, back to the student thing, my partner in crime, Britney Spears (see Halloween post), was leaving for Madrid on a school trip early this morning, so we decided to have it one day early. I sent out invitations, but because of the strike, we were only able to attract three of the six who RSVPed… and they were all boys. Hmm…

I woke up at 9:00 yesterday to start work. The Canadian slept and shouted what he thought were helpful comments from the living room. He also watched in awe as Britney rolled out a pie crust. “I’ve never been behind the scenes before…”

The menu was as follows…

Roast Turkey Legs
Stuffing
Pumpkin Tarte Tatin
Whole Cranberry Sauce with Orange
Green beans with scallions
Sweet Potato Hash
Mashed Potatoes
Gratin Dauphinoise
Buttermilk Corn Bread
Tarte Tatin
Spiced Pumpkin Pie with Tender Pie Crust

Get ready… this is going to be a long post.

Ok, first of all, the turkey. I couldn’t roast a whole turkey in my dinky little oven, and even though some of the local shops were offering to sell whole roast turkeys, I wanted to do everything myself (not even a frozen pie crust around here). I went with turkey thighs, and I bought four of them. In the end, this was too much: as the Canadian said and Emese agreed, no one really cares about the turkey. It has to be there, in case you want to take a little slice and place it decoratively on your plate, but really, it doesn’t matter.

Well, good. Because I followed my mother’s advice and cooked them for an hour, (rubbed them first with some butter, sage, salt and pepper) but they were still pink inside, so I threw them back in after I had reheated everything else, and the turkey made an appearance on the table during second helpings of everything else. As Emese said, the potatoes are what are important.

Or, if you’re the Canadian, the stuffing. And no, stuffing does not come out of a box here. I called my mother and asked for a recipe, but she infuriatingly gave her “until it’s wet enough… enough to cover the bottom of the pan” directions, so I turned to Ree. To be fair, Mommy, her recipe was pretty much the same as yours… it was just easier to follow. And the stuffing was really, really good. I was going to only make one pan when there were going to be nine of us, but the Canadian thought that was ludicrous, so I made two. We finished one, but there were only six of us, so I suppose he was right.

I tried another new thing, the Pumpkin Tarte Tatin from the Wednesday Chef. I didn’t invert it, because I’m lazy, but it was delicious. I told Britney that I was going to attempt it, but that I wasn’t sure it would work out. She said, “Pumpkin and cheese? How can you go wrong?” Then I told her there was pastry and cream involved. Nuff said.
Cranberry sauce used to be the one thing on the table I sort of ignored. (Actually, make that one of two things. And I still ignore creamed pearl onions, so they didn’t make it onto my table. Sorry, Mommy). But I grew to love it, and now I can’t live without the tangy sweetness. I got my recipe from Finding La Dolce Vita, and it was perfect. As I watched the cranberries floating in the orange juice, I was a little bit skeptical, but then all of a sudden, without warning, it was cranberry sauce. I couldn’t tell you how it happened, but it was gorgeous on the table, and it’s almost gone! (I saved a little to have with my leftovers… Shh…)

Britney told me I didn’t need to have vegetables at Thanksgiving, but I ignored her. Yes, I didn’t make roasted brussels sprouts with pancetta and pistachios… possibly my favorite veggie on the Thanksgiving table, because I know that people are prejudiced against them and will never love them the way I do (*cough*theCanadian*cough*), but my Mommy promised to make them for me at Christmas, even though they’re usually a Thanksgiving fare, so I moved on and went with green beans. Guess what? They’re almost gone. For this, I can only thank Mommy… I used her recipe. You slow cook finely sliced shallots in some olive oil and butter, blanch the green beans (I boil water in my electric kettle, pour it over the beans, and dump it out almost immediately, right after they turn green. Then run them under ice water. You want them to still have some snap.), and then dump them into the pan with the shallots until ready to serve. Just turn the heat up, add a little more oil if you need it, and toss until heated through. So easy… and everyone ate their greens. My god, I am my mother.

We needed sweet potatoes, but I was running out of space in my oven. I made everything ahead of time, but it was all going to have to be reheated, and I’ve never much liked that marshmallow yam thing anyway, so I decided to try an epicurious recipe for Sweet Potato Hash. Because I was making it last minute, it turned into more of a Sweet Potato Mash (haha… rhyming. I’m so clever.), but it was delicious anyway. I also was having a slight problem with my brown sugar… I paid an exorbitant amount for it at the American store, only to learn that it was stale and hard as a rock. I sprinkled it with water and microwaved it, so some of it melted, leaving massive craters, and I was able to make small brown sugar pebbles when I attacked it with a fork. I used the smaller pebbles for pumpkin pie (which turned out creamy and delicious, than you), so I was left with larger pebbles for my potatoes. Thus, I had some trouble getting it to caramelize the potatoes and was happy enough to get it to melt. They were delicious and creamy and there’s very little left, but I’m thinking about saving them and eating them cold tonight.

Kudos to those who are still here. Mashed potatoes are mashed potatoes. I made a huge pot and threw some crème fraiche, heavy cream, butter and milk. They were a little wanting for salt, but there’s not much left, so I guess people were happy with them.

Gratin Dauphinoise is always the most popular dish for Thanksgiving at home. It’s my recipe, and I won’t give it to my mom, because I don’t want her making them without me. I usually make them at Thanksgiving and Christmas, and my aunt refuses to come to our house unless I promise they’ll be on the table. You slice potatoes reeeaaaalllly thin, put a layer in a greased baking pan, top with salt, pepper and nutmeg, and then a layer of grated gruyère cheese. You keep going with these layers, but only peppering the potatoes, no salt or nutmeg, until the last layer. Before putting the last bit of spice and cheese, you mix a cup of cream and a cup of milk and scald it, temper one egg and add it, and pour the mixture all over the gratin. Then add the spice (salt, pepper and nutmeg this time) and a layer of cheese. It’s amazing. I’m currently eating it for breakfast.

Emese made the cornbread from a recipe we got off epicurious. I don’t recommend it, so I won’t post it. It was fine and all, but not nearly moist enough. Emese and I ate quite a bit of it when we were in the picking stages after thirds or fourths, when you don’t want to refill your plate again. I suppose it helped that we were the two who were eating on the floor, right next to the table.

The tarte tatin was the same one I’ve posted about before. Same deliciousness. I won’t go on, as my fingers are starting to hurt and my gratin is getting cold. The pumpkin pie was delicious. It’s almost gone, and everyone was complaining that they didn’t have room for pie. That’s ridiculous. Who doesn’t have room for pie. Now if you’ll excuse me, there are some potatoes calling me. Happy Thanksgiving!

The Canadian just woke up from his nap and told me he could smell pie.

Me: A whole pie, or a slice of pie on a plate?

The Canadian: A whole pie.

He just at the rest of the pie in bed. I have photo evidence.

Place baking sheet in oven and preheat to 450°F. Whisk 2/3 cup golden brown sugar, 1/2 cup sugar, 2 tablespoons flour, 1/2 teaspoon salt, 1 teaspoon cinnamon, 1 teaspoon quatre épices, and 1/4 teaspoon nutmeg in large bowl to blend. Whisk in 1 1/2 cups canned pumpkin and 4 eggs, then 1 cup of heavy cream. Pour mixture into crust. (I used a homemade butter crust.)
Place pie on preheated baking sheet in oven. Bake 10 minutes. Reduce heat to 325°F and bake until sides puff and center is just set, about 40 minutes. Cool. Serve at room temperature.

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October 17, 2007

Dinner Parties and Tarte Tatin

Filed under: Appetizers, Chicken, Pie, Rice — Tags: basil, bruschetta, Chicken, lemon, risotto, tarte tatin — emiglia @ 6:58 am

“Festina tarde was a renaissance concept: make haste slowly.”

It’s taken me a long time to get to Under the Tuscan Sun, but it’s not for lack of cooking. On Saturday night, I threw a massive dinner party at my house. I invited ten people, and crafted a perfect menu: apératif of Tomato Bruschetta and Wild Mushroom Crostini, Risotto with Parmeggiano-Reggiano for a starter, and then Under the Tuscan Sun’s Chicken with Lemon and Basil. The dessert was tarte tatin. I spent all day Saturday prepping, making sure that everything would be easy once my guests arrived. I made the tarte dough, precooked my risotto (a restaurant trick I learned while waiting tables), made my salad dressing, tomatoes, and dressing for the chicken, and precooked the mushrooms. I had very little to do once my guests arrived.

… If they arrived. I guess one of the drawbacks of having so many international friends is not being aware of their customs. Example? Apparently, in a lot of South America, it’s considered rude to show up somewhere on time. So while my American friends arrived about ten to fifteen minutes late (like my mother told me, and apparently their mothers told them, you are supposed to do), the others didn’t show up for two hours.

Bear in mind, also, that this is rugby night in France, and France is playing England for a chance in the semifinals. We’ve opened the wine, eaten all the bruschetta, and the five of us have gotten quite tipsy while trying to find a way to watch the game online. When my friends finally arrived, I managed to get everything on the table (I forgot about the salad though), but my chicken didn’t brown the way I wanted to because I’d lost my sense of timing (thank you, Bordeaux), I didn’t have time to take any pictures of the plated dishes, and by the time we’d finished with the risotto and the chicken, we wanted to watch the rugby game, so we abandoned the finished pie in the cold oven and went down to the Champs de Mars.

The French lost, and the next morning I had to wash essentially all the dishes in my house. But later that evening, my friend Emese came by to help me finish the tarte tatin, and as we sat together on my couch, sharing half a pie between us, I realized that this was what I had wanted. Just to haves some friends, even one friend, over to my house, to cook something delicious, and to talk for awhile. I don’t know if I’ve learned how to make haste slowly, but I know that eating that one pie slowly was much more fun than any dinner party could have been.

The Menu:

Tomato Bruschetta

Wild Mushroom Crostini

Risotto with Parmeggiano-Reggiano

Basil and Lemon Chicken

In a large bowl, mix 1/2 cup each of chopped spring onions and basil leaves. Add the juice of one lemon, salt, and pepper. Mix and rub onto 6 chicken pieces (I used chicken thighs) and place in a well-oiled baking pan. Dribble with a little olive oil. Roast, uncovered, at 450 for ten minutes and at 350 for about an additional twenty, depending on the size of the chicken. Garnish with more basil leaves and lemon slices.
Tarte Tatin

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December 6, 2006

Mennonite Festival

Filed under: Pie, Uncategorized — Tags: cider, mennonite, mincemeat, toronto — emiglia @ 12:54 am

Living in cities is amazing. Every day, there is the opportunity to see something new. Not everyone takes advantage of these opportunities; I know for a long time I didn’t, but I decided recently that I probably won’t be in Toronto for much longer after I graduate, so for the few years when I can call this wonderful city my home, I should take advantage of it.

I suppose it helps that I have a friend who is constantly up for doing new, fun, sometimes strange things. He is the same friend who came with me to Lancaster County, PA a few weeks ago, so when I saw that there was a Mennonite Christmas Festival at the Harbourfront Centre here in Toronto, I knew that he would be up for it. What I didn’t expect was that he would be up for tasting mincemeat pie when I jokingly suggested it.

I was a chicken and went for hot apple cider, which was delicious. As anyone who knows me is well aware, and as my friend pointed out, I am a sucker for any cider: hot or cold, soft or hard. I have to say that even though my friend assured me that this particular mincemeat pie was of the vegetarian variety, I was glad I stuck with my cider.

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