KP was not allured to this dinner concept while I referred to it with certain diction—“pea mash”—not a sexy term. “Pea” anything was not what KP wanted to accompany his sea scallops. Usually, we cannot afford scallops, but I was awarded some per diem for a conference, and rather than go out to eat at a fancy restaurant, I chose to bring fancy to my home kitchen cast iron. What could be more fancy than “Scallops on a ricotta spring pea mash,” a phrase one can only say with a British or otherwise pretentious accent.
I was appropriately worried that mashed peas would tragically undershadow the scallops, but as it turned out, they were better than gravy. Green gravy, with notes of mint and basil made this dish not only mouth-watering but mouth-cleansing.
Afterwards, it was as though I had eaten blossoms and rain.
Seared Sea Scallops and Ricotta Spring Pea Mash
Adapted from Food and Wine
CHIVE OIL (very difficult, I abandoned this step after I realize how vast a quantity is two cups of chives)
Fill a medium bowl with ice water. In a medium saucepan of boiling water, blanch the chives for 10 seconds. Drain, then transfer to the ice bath to cool. Drain well. Squeeze out as much water from the chives as possible and pat dry.
In a blender, puree the chives with the canola oil until smooth. Strain the chive oil through a fine sieve into a bowl, pressing on the solids. Season the chive oil with salt.’
Pea Mash, or, Whirled Peace
In a medium saucepan of salted boiling water, cook the peas just until tender, 2 to 3 minutes; drain well and pat dry. Using a fork, mash the peas until chunky. Stir in the olive oil, mint, Parmigiano, basil, shallot, lemon juice and garlic. Fold in the ricotta and season with salt and pepper.
Scallops
In a large nonstick skillet, heat 2 tablespoons of the olive oil. Season the scallops with salt and pepper, add 6 to the skillet and cook over moderate heat, turning once, until golden and just opaque throughout, about 5 minutes per side. Transfer to a large plate. Wipe out the skillet and repeat with the remaining olive oil and scallops.
Spoon the mash onto plates and arrange the scallops around it. Drizzle with the chive oil and serve with lemon wedges.
It’s a Stormy Monday. Mondays are best tolerated with cookies. For this I am grateful to my Sourdough Surprises group for this month’s prompt: biscotti. Biscotti means twice (bis) cooked (cotti). I was reading about how biscotti cookies were the preferred snack of warriors in ancient times because they kept so well. As I start residency in a few short weeks, I have been stockpiling a collection of survival foods that I can cook and stow away for dark call nights ahead. Izzy helped me find and adapt this recipe in The Joy of Cooking (her favorite bedtime story book), and I think here we have a winner:
Chocolate Orange Hazelnut Biscotti
Adapted from The Joy of Cooking
2 cups white flour
1 1/3 cup wheat flour
½ tsp salt
2 tsp baking powder
¼ cup sourdough starter (this replaces the oil in the original recipe)
1 ¼ cup sugar
2 large eggs
2 egg whites
2 tsp orange zest
1 tsp almond extract
1 tsp vanilla
1-2 cups dark chocolate chips
½ cup chopped hazelnut pieces (toasted)
Stir the flour, salt, and baking powder together in a small bowl. Separately, beat the eggs, whites, zest, almond and vanilla, sugar and sourdough starter together. Slowly add the flour. Let sit for 40 minutes on the counter. Divide the dough into two equal pieces and with each, roll out using flour to prevent sticking into an 11×1.5” log. Flatten against a piece of parchment on a cookie sheet.
Heat the oven to 375 degrees and bake for 25 minutes. Remove and let cool slightly.
Cut on a steep diagonal the biscotti slices, as thick as you please, but probably less than an inch thick. Lay the slices flat on the parchment and bake again for 10 minutes on each side.
Bake until lightly browned. Transfer to a rack to cool.
When cool, melt 1-2 cups of dark chocolate chips in the microwave and add hazelnuts. Alternatively you could just melt the chocolate and sprinkle on the toasted hazelnut pieces. Dip one side of the biscotti piece in the melted chocolate, and prop up in a glass or bowl to set dry.
Tell your bulldog that next time you will make her some without any chocolate. In fact, you will make them chicken and beef flavored and call them Bulldog Biscotti. If she can’t wait, give her one of her favorite peanut butter homebrew dog biscuits.
Had the pleasure of spending the morning with poet Jimmy Santiago Baca. His memoir, A Place to Stand, is what I currently devour page by page when I get my nightstand appetite. This man learned to read and to write in prison, and over the years within those cells, he came to find writing as a way of healing. I cannot imagine a more evolved, transformed human being existing on this planet. He read for us the following poem he wrote in the midst of poverty, when, he says, the only possessions he truly had were his lungs and the air within them. I almost feel as though the I and the you in this poem are one and the same.
I am offering this poem to you,
since I have nothing else to give.
Keep it like a warm coat
when winter comes to cover you,
or like a pair of thick socks
the cold cannot bite through,
I love you,
I have nothing else to give you,
so it is a pot full of yellow corn
to warm your belly in winter,
it is a scarf for your head, to wear
over your hair, to tie up around your face,
I love you,
Keep it, treasure this as you would
if you were lost, needing direction,
in the wilderness life becomes when mature;
and in the corner of your drawer,
tucked away like a cabin or hogan
in dense trees, come knocking,
and I will answer, give you directions,
and let you warm yourself by this fire,
rest by this fire, and make you feel safe
I love you,
It’s all I have to give,
and all anyone needs to live,
and to go on living inside,
when the world outside
no longer cares if you live or die;
remember,
I love you.
Curry Garlic Fries
Adapted from Post Punk Kitchen
1 1/2 lbs russet potatoes
2 tablespoons mild curry powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon minced garlic
1 tablespoon olive oil
Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil. In the meantime, you’ll prep everything else and preheat oven to 425 F.
You want “steak fry” slices. So slice them about 1/4 inch thick and 3/4 inch wide.
Fill a big bowl with ice water. Lay a kitchen towel on the counter and line it with paper towels. You’ll be plunging the fries into the ice water after boiling, and then placing them on the towel to blot dry.
Once the water is boiling, add the potatoes and cook for 3 minutes. Drain the potatoes and immediately plunge them into the ice bath to stop them from further cooking.
Once completely cool, place potatoes in a single layer on the towel to drain. Blot dry-ish.
Pour the ice water out of the bowl and wipe it dry. Scoop the curry powder into the bowl and mix in the salt. Add minced garlic. Drizzle in the oil and mix with a fork.
Oil a baking sheet, or don’t– it’s your stuff. Toss a handful of potato slices into the curry powder and try to get each slice evenly spread with curry garlic goodness.
Place fries in a single layer, spray with a little extra cooking spray, bake for 8 to 12 minutes on each side until golden brown and tender inside. If you’d like extra browning, place under the broiler for a few minutes, keeping a close eye. Serve hot!
This evening a curried carrot soup gave me déjà vu. I thought back to November when KP and I were piled high in snow and higher in carrots with our CSA looking to off-load root vegetables and cruciferous goods. This carrot soup is vividly emblazoned in my memory not because of how good it was, I suspect the one I had tonight at a friend’s house was better, but because of the fun I had in the kitchen playing with anomalous carrots—carrots which would otherwise be sorted out of the produce section for odd appearance, but which I found to be fuel for the imagination—fuel for rocket carrots. Blast off!
Apparently I forgot to take pictures of this soup, which probably means it was delicious and I rapidly devoured it. Either that or it was horribly photophobic. Just imagine an orange puree in a bowl.
Curried Carrot and Apple Soup
Adapted from Food and Wine—
4 tablespoons unsalted butter
1 medium onion, chopped
1 medium leek, halved lengthwise and thinly sliced crosswise
1 medium fennel bulb, cored and chopped
Kosher salt
Pepper
2 pounds carrots, cut crosswise into 1/4-inch rounds
1 1/4 pounds celery root, peeled and chopped
1 Granny Smith apple, peeled, cored and chopped
7 gingersnap cookies
1 tablespoon Madras curry powder
2 garlic cloves, crushed
1 teaspoon finely grated peeled fresh ginger
2 thyme sprigs
2 quarts chicken stock
1 cup sour cream
1 teaspoon apple cider vinegar
Toasted pumpkin seeds, for garnish
Chopped mint, for garnish
Chopped cilantro, for garnish
In a large saucepan, melt the butter. Add the onion, leek, fennel and a generous pinch each of salt and pepper and cook over moderately high heat, stirring occasionally, until softened and just starting to brown, 9 minutes. Add the carrots, celery root, apple, gingersnaps, curry powder, garlic, ginger and thyme and cook, stirring, until the carrots and celery root soften slightly, 10 minutes. Add the stock and bring to a boil. Simmer over moderate heat, stirring, until the vegetables are very tender, 25 minutes. Discard the thyme sprigs.
Working in batches, puree the soup in a blender with the sour cream and vinegar until smooth. Reheat the soup if necessary and season with salt and pepper. Ladle the soup into bowls, top with toasted pumpkin seeds and chopped mint and cilantro and serve.
Bread dough offers a healthy reminder that even in your absence, the great world spins. Last night, when at long last I arrived back home in Rochester, to restore order in the only way I know I can, I promptly set about to making bread. But in the flurry of kisses from Izzy, the toppling pile of mail to be sorted and managed, dinner preparations, the writing impulse, and a week’s worth of clutter from the many bags stuffed with found objects and treasures from New Orleans and Minneapolis—I forgot about my bread dough quietly rising in a dark nook, and retired to bed. This morning I was met with abundance. How faithful and diligent is the yeast while I am at rest. How comforting to know that I do not, that I cannot, do it alone. That even my failure might yield growth.
Whole Wheat Flaxen Tartine Bread
Adapted from the Tartine Bread Book
Sourdough 200 g
Water 800 g
Wheat flour 700 g
Regular flour 300 g
Salt 20 g
1 cup flax seeds
1 cup chia seeds (or sunflower seeds, poppy or sesame, or whatever seed you feel like)
4 cups boiling water
Pour the boiling water over the seeds, cover, and set aside until cool.
Prepare the dough using the method of Tartine Country Bread, except let the dough rest for 60 minutes in the first rise, because it needs to absorb more water. Mix the seeds in after the first folding.
Had the blessing to spend the weekend in Minneapolis staying with my dear friend Susan while attending the AWP Conference. We took a stroll to Memory Lanes to watch bowling and eat tots after taking several laps on the Cajun dance floor at the Eagles.
KP and I wandered into this fabulous BBQ joint, somewhat by accident. We had the audacity to ask the owner as he was seating us, “How long has Market BBQ been here?” “Oh, only 70 years.” Fantastic, the best, pulled pork I’ve had in a long time, served on buns of brioche! Heaven!
And finally, the birdseed bread produced by the Birchwood Cafe where Susan and I had a lazy Wednesday morning breakfast after I landed in MSP from NOLA. I enjoyed a black bean burger on this millet, flax, and sunflower seed speckled bun! So good!
O wilt thou leave me so unsatisfied, New Orleans? I so wanted to find my roost, but it is slim pickings in the Crescent City housing market, unfortunately. Patience. Deep breaths. Meditation to break the very unproductive ruminative default thought loops, “Where will we live?…. Where will we live? ….. Where will we live?”
I’ve been reading Janet Malcolm’s rather disappointing book on psychoanalysis, in which I found this lovely quotation on the difficulty of this impossible profession: “You will feel discouraged, guilt-ridden, depressed, lost, confused, and deluged by the quantity of data and by its ambiguity and complexity. You will suffer back pain, indigestion, headache, fatigue—all the affliction the flesh is heir to—because of the guilt you constantly feel about not understanding the data [that is, the data of what a patient tells you, not, as I might be tempted to read in at this point and time: “medical school” or “house-hunting”]… Analysts keep having to pick away at the scab that the patient tries to form between himself and the analyst to cover over his wound. That’s what the patient keeps trying to do—it’s what’s called resistance—and what the analyst won’t let him do… He must keep the surface raw, so that the wound will heal properly.”
Lovely analogy. Psychoanalysis as debridement of inflammatory defenses.
By analogy, I’ll liken baking to debridement of circular, inflammatory rumination. Just knead. Don’t fret. Just knead. Ooh, the smell of garlic. The simplicity of appetite.
Garlic Knots
Adapted from Artisan Bread in 5 Minutes a Day
Dough
1 3/4 cup Water
1/4 cup Olive Oil
1 tsp Sea Salt
1 Tb Sugar
1 cup Sourdough Starter
approx. 5 1/2 cup all-purpose Flour
Garlic Coating
1/8 cup Olive Oil
2 T unsalted Butter
4 cloves Garlic, finely crushed
1/4 cup finely chopped fresh Italian Parsley
Sea Salt to taste
Combine water, olive oil, sea salt, sugar, and starter in a bowl. Add flour. Mix to incorporate flour, cover, and set in a warm spot to proof until doubled in volume.
Chill the dough for a bit, then set up your knotting station.
Put out a large wooden cutting board and oil liberally. Grab a rolling dowel or pin and oil. Grab a pizza cutter or something similar to slice dough in strips. Put container of flour within easy reach. Line several sheet pans with parchment paper and place within easy reach. Oil your hands to help keep dough from sticking to them. Divide the dough in two parts to make it easier to handle. Take the first half, slap it onto the oiled board several times to flatten. Using the dowel, spread into an even rectangle approx. 5″x16″ and 1/2″ thick. Slice the rectangle into 1/2″x5″ strips.
Rotate the board 90° and sprinkle dough strips and board with flour. Taking the strip nearest to you, roll it back and forth to create an even rope.
Tie into a knot (over, under, and through) and place on lined sheet pan.
Place knots about 1 1/2″ apart. After each sheet pan fills up, cover with a dry sack towel, and let rise. Preheat oven to 400° F
After knots have doubled in size, take off dry sack towel and glaze with olive oil, minced garlic, a sprinkle of salt, and rosemary if you’re in the mood.
Place sheet pans in the oven. Bake for approx. 12-15 min. or until golden.
We near the end of the symbol-rich Holy week, and the start of the Poetry Month, and so I offer the lyrics to an old hymn we sang several Lenten Sundays ago which makes bold the fascinating parallels and circularity to the symbols we celebrate at Easter. Ahem, not chocolate eggs.
O wheat, whose crushing was for bread,
O bread, whose breaking was for life,
O life, your seeming end is seed,
A seed for wheat, our bread and life
O fruit, whose crushing was for wine,
O wine, whose flowing is for blood,
O blood, your pouring out is life,
Our life in you, O fruitful vine.
O life, whose crushing was for love,
O love, whose spending was to death,
O death, your mourning is our joy,
Full joy and birth to lasting life.
While (or perhaps because) I gave up nothing for Lent this year, I was cast as Judas in the Passion Pageant, and I’m still suffering the shame of it—until tomorrow! This bread is a lovely sweet bread used for Easter celebrations in Greece.
Artos, Greek Celebration Bread
Adapted from The Bread Bakers Apprentice
2 cups pre-ferment such as poolish or sourdough starter
3 1/2 cups bread flour
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon ground allspice
1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
1 teaspoon orange extract
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 large eggs (slightly beaten)
1/4 cup honey
1/4 cup olive oil
3/4 cup milk (lukewarm, 90-100 F)
Glaze (optional):
2 tablespoons water
2 tablespoons sugar
2 tablespoons honey
1 teaspoon orange extract
sesame seeds
Take your starter other pre-ferment out of the refrigerator at least an hour ahead of time to let it get to roughly room temperature.
In bowl of stand mixer, put flour, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg, allspice and cloves. Mix for a few minutes until all ingredients are incorporated.
Add room temperature sourdough, orange extract, vanilla, eggs, honey, oil and milk. Continue mixing with paddle attachment until the dough becomes a rough ball then switch to the dough hook. Knead with the dough hook for about 10 minutes adding flour if necessary. The dough should clear the sides of the bowl and be soft and tacky, but not sticky. It should also pass the windowpane test.
If you are adding dried fruit and/or nuts, add them toward the end of your kneading time or turn the dough out onto a floured surface and knead the fruit/nuts in by hand.
Spray or drizzle some oil in a bowl and transfer to dough to that bowl. Lightly coat it with oil, cover with plastic wrap, and ferment for about 1 1/2 hours (until it doubles in size).
After fermentation, remove the dough from the bowl and prepare to shape. I did a boule.
Spray with oil, cover loosely with plastic wrap and proof at room temperature for 60-90 minutes (dough should nearly double in size). Preheat the oven to 350 F during the last 15 minutes of proofing time.
Bake the loaf for 20 minutes, then rotate the pan 180 degrees and continue to bake for an additional 20-25 minutes. When done, it should register 190 F internally and make a hollow sound when thumped. You can brush the glaze on as soon as it comes of out the oven.
For the glaze, which I chose not to do because I didn’t want it to be too chi chi fru fru, but no judgment, combine the water and sugar and bring to a boil in a sauce pan. Add the honey and extract, turn off the heat and stir together. Brush on the loaf straight out of the oven with a pastry brush then sprinkle sesame seeds on top. (Which would have tasted great, but I ran out of sesame seeds… Just use your imagination in the photos below.)
Karl-Peter last weekend, disguised as Quest Love, enjoyed a little bout of Egg Roulette at the Jimmy Fallon-themed Game Night party of our favorite neighbor. Egg is a multi-purpose tool, says Easter. Say the Portuguese.
I have to admit I thought this recipe was going to be intolerably gross, but my track record for misjudging cuisine is such that I no longer allow my Yuck Reflex to determine what I attempt in the kitchen. Had I gone with my gut, I would have missed out on this lucky find.
Portuguese Baked Eggs
Adapted from Penzeys Spices
1/4 Cup olive oil
3 bell peppers, thinly sliced
1 medium red onion, thinly sliced
2 large tomatoes, cut into wedges
8 garlic cloves, thinly sliced
1 jalapeño pepper, diced fine
1/4 Cup fresh basil leaves
2 TB. fresh oregano leaves
1 1/2 tsp. chili powder
1 tsp. Hungarian paprika
1/4-1 tsp. salt, to taste
1/4-1⁄2tsp. pepper
1 Cup ricotta cheese
6 large eggs (I like to use Betty’s for this. Betty is my Americauna who lays green eggs)
1 Cup grated sharp white cheddar cheese
1/4 Cup grated Parmesan cheese
Toasted country-style bread
Heat the oil in a large heavy pot over medium heat. Add the peppers and onion and cook, stirring occasionally, until softened and just beginning to brown, 10-12 minutes. Add the tomatoes, garlic, jalapeño, basil, oregano, chili powder, and paprika. Reduce the heat to medium-low and continue cooking, stirring occasionally, until the vegetables are very soft and the liquid has thickened, 20-30 minutes. Season with salt and pepper. Discard the jalapeño.
Preheat oven to 400°. Transfer the vegetable mixture to an ungreased 9×13 baking dish. Using the back of a spoon, make 6 evenly spaced divots in the mixture.
Spoon a dollop of ricotta into each divot, reinforce the divot by making a similar impression in the ricotta cheese,
and then crack an egg into each.
Sprinkle with the cheeses and season with salt and pepper.
Bake, rotating the dish halfway through, until the cheese is melted and the egg whites are almost set but the yolks are still runny, about 15-18 minutes. The yolks will continue to cook as the dish sits, so serve right away if you prefer your eggs soft. Serve with toast.
“Please, Ma’am, tell me about your Edible Book project.”
“Well I chose Chocolat, after which I fashioned a chocolate ginger bread house decorated like a French chocolaterie.”
“Beautiful. And yours?”
“My book is The Color Purple by Alice Walker, and so I decorated a cake with all things purple! Radicchio, purple grapes, dark carrots, tinted cauliflower, and purple flowers.”
“Wow, that is impressive. Hmm, tell me about this next one, you made an ‘Ezra Pound Cake’?”
“Yes. Well, on a simple level, there is the obvious pun. But going deeper, I chose the poem ‘Envoi”’ because of the way Pound wrote it to be a clever pastiche on Edward Waller’s 17th century poem ‘Go Lovely Rose.’ That is why I created a ring of roses and shaped the pound cake into a circle with layers, as Ezra Pound with his Cantos was clearly making allusion to Dante’s cantos, the rings of hell arranging moral order into archetonics of landscape—which curiously forms, in the end, the tiered layered structure of a rose, or a balconied cathedral—the ultimate symbol of beauty just as described in Pound’s last line of ‘Envoi’:
When our two dusts with Waller’s shall be laid,
Siftings on siftings in oblivion,
Till change hath broken down
All things save Beauty alone.
Interesting, too, to note the potential double-entendre with his diction reminiscent of baking, sifting and ‘change hath broken down,’ Ahem…”
When I realized that the judges were trying to look anywhere else but at me, I stopped explaining my Edible Book Festival entry and conceded, “Perhaps I thought about this a little too hard.” Everyone laughed, in relief, and moved on to the Game of Scones.
I’m afraid it is deeply ingrained in my character to always try too hard—an approach to life that is sure to set one up for frequent disappointment. Flashback to a clip of my early TV appearance on Captain Kangaroo, The Smile Contest scene: my pig-tailed five-year-old self straining and shaking to sustain a smile so intense it could cause an aneurysm. Then, when my over-the-top smile efforts did not earn me the win, my incessant scream from somewhere over Captain Kangaroo’s shoulder, off-camera, stage left, startling whole rows of calm, patient kindergarteners, “What about me!!!!?”
As the Chocolaterie woman won the prize on Saturday, a small voice inside me still shrieked “What about me!?” from the back row. But I’ve grown up, and now I know the best prizes are the ones you award yourself. Like a dozen roses, poetry, and a pound cake to enjoy for, really, no good reason, on an otherwise plain and ordinary Saturday afternoon.
Ezra Pound Cake with Lemon Glaze
Adapted from Baking Illustrated
16 tablespoons unsalted butter (2 sticks)
1 ½ cups cake flour
½ teaspoon table salt
1 1/3 cups granulated sugar
3 large eggs plus three egg yolks
1 ½ teaspoons vanilla extract
1 ½ teaspoons water
Lemon Glaze (Optional)
½ cup granulated sugar (3 1/2 ounces)
¼ cup lemon juice, from 1 or 2 medium lemons
Directions
Adjust oven rack to middle position and heat oven to 325 degrees. Grease 9 by 5-inch loaf pan with 1 tablespoon softened butter; dust with 1 tablespoon cake flour, tapping out excess. You can also use a bundt cake pan, feel free to double the recipe if so.
Soften the butter, but it should still be cool. Beat in a mixer for a minute until silky and smooth. Then add the sugar slowly in multiple additions. Mix together for 3-5 minutes.
In a separate bowl, mix together the whole eggs, the three yolks, water and vanilla. With mixer running, add the egg mixture to the butter slowly. Slow slow slow. You don’t want the dough to curdle. If it does, start over because you’ve lost your air. And you are making this pound cake the old fashioned way, not cheating with baking powder.
Add salt, then sifted flour. Pour batter into prepared pan and bake 70 minutes. Continue to bake until deep golden brown and skewer inserted in center comes out clean. Cool in pan for 10 minutes, then turn onto wire rack.
If using lemon glaze, while cake is cooling in pan, bring sugar and lemon juice to boil in small nonreactive saucepan, stirring occasionally to dissolve sugar. Reduce heat to low and simmer until thickened slightly, about 2 minutes.
Glaze the cake after it has cooled for one hour. Serve and enjoy while reading some Ezra Pound on cooking: Siftings on siftings in oblivion,/ Till change hath broken down/ All things save Beauty alone.
If you want to “glue” Pound’s stanzas to your finished product, wait till it has cooled and then using a spray bottle of water, wet the paper with the poem printed on it and spray also the surface of the pound cake. It should stick without too much effort.
I placed the pound cake on a stack of several small plates, and filled a cake pan up with water to keep the roses fresh while appearing to grow out from beneath the crumb.
All in all, it was a lovely festival hosted by the Rochester Public Library. There was a book cake we enjoyed together.
KP DJed two hours of music with food themes. “Sweet Potato Pie,” “Peaches,” “Just Eat it” (admittedly, the majority of tunes were by Weird Al Yankovich.)
Here included is the poem that inspired the Ezra Pound Cake, and also, the Waller poem that inspired the Pound poem, a lovely pastiche.
This pie, my Daring Bakers club challenge for the month, is upside down. Tarte Tatin was the delightful discovery of an overworked French woman who meant to make a regular apple pie but left the apples too long in the butter and sugar, was running short on time, so chose to throw the crust on top rather than start over or forego dessert. She put the whole thing back in the oven, baked it upside down, turned it over for her guests, and Voila—totally a scene from my own life, ever a haphazard spackle job—but with a gem of a result.
Sometimes haste, cousin to necessity, is also mother to invention. When your world is upside down from The Busyness, perhaps your pies should be also. To all you who are harried by the pace of life—may you flop out Tatins instead of skipping desserts.
Tarte Tatin
Adapted from Baking Illustrated
Tart dough
1 stick butter (1/2 cup)
1 1⁄3 cups all-purpose flour
1⁄4 cup powdered sugar
1⁄2 teaspoon table salt
1 large egg, chilled
Tart Filling
1 stick butter (1/2 cup)
3⁄4 cup granulated sugar, plus extra for work surfaces
6 granny smith apples, peeled, cored and cut into eighths
Cut the first stick of butter into small chunks and chill thoroughly.
Combine the flour, powdered sugar, and salt in the food processor. Add the chilled butter and process until the mixture resembles coarse crumbs. Pour the mixture into a bowl, add the egg and mix until the dough comes together. Turn out onto the counter and shape into a disc. Wrap tightly with plastic wrap and refrigerate thirty minutes.
Meanwhile, melt the remaining stick of butter in 9-inch skillet. Remove from heat and sprinkle the sugar evenly over the bottom. Add the apple slices in a rosette pattern and return the skillet to the heat.
Increase the heat to medium high and cook for 10 minutes, until caramel turns a rich brown. With a fork, turn the apples to caramelize the other cut edge, and continue to saute until slightly transparent, about five minutes. Set aside and preheat the oven to 375°.
Unwrap the chilled dough and sprinkle generously with flour. Gently roll into a ten to twelve inch circle. Carefully roll the dough around the rolling pin and transfer to the top of the caramelized apples.
Tuck the crust around the edges of the skillet to seal in the apples, folding the excess over.
Bake until the crust is golden brown, about 25-30 minutes. Let the skillet cool for an additional twenty minutes before carefully running a knife around the edge to loosen the pastry.
Place the serving plate over the top of the skillet, invert and remove the skillet. Gently rearrange any apples stuck to the skillet back into the pastry. Serve the Tarte Tatin warm with vanilla ice cream or whipped cream.
