The Quintessential Dessert September 23, 2009
Posted by whiskedoff in dessert.Tags: baking, french dessert, pastry, tarte tatin
6 comments
Is there anything more French than Tarte Tatin?
Probably not. It incorporates the three major French food groups – butter, sugar, pastry – and requires the perseverance of Joan of Arc.
This morning Chef Eric treated us to an ‘extra curricular’ lesson: his personal recipe for Tarte Tatin. Strange that the most often ordered dessert in French restaurants is not in our course manual. But I can’t complain: it’s now in my notebook, and in my belly.
Legend has it that tarte des demoiselles Tatin was created by two French sisters at the family-run Hotel Tatin in 1898. As the story goes, Stéphanie Tatin, the not-so-smart sister, accidentally put her apple tart into the oven upside down. Instead of letting it cool first, she took it out and served it immediately. Guests loved it and the rest is history.
Ingredients:
- 100 g butter, cut into thin slices
- 150 g caster sugar
- 8-10 large firm apples (i.e Braeburn, or other hard varieties that won’t disintegrate when cooked)
- puff pastry 2-3 mm thick, large enough to cover the pan
Method:
- Preheat oven to 200°C (about 400°F).
- Arrange butter in a frypan with high sides; one that can go into the oven later. Cover evenly with sugar.
- Core and peel the apples. Cut them lengthwise and place them – vertically -on the sugar. Pack them snugly in concentric circles around the pan and fill in the center.
- Place the pan, uncovered, on the stove on medium heat.
- The butter and sugar will caramelize and bubble up around the apples. As the apples cook down, add more slices to the pan filling in the spaces so the dish remains tight.
- From time to time, shake the pan gently. As the steam subsides more caramel will be created. When the caramel is a rich brown color and the apples hold together (about 20 mins, depending on apples) remove the pan from the heat to cool.
- Roll out the pastry on floured wax paper. Cut out a disc a little larger than the diameter of the pan and prick it several times with a fork.
- Cover the apples with the pastry top, pushing it down around the inside edges of the pan. Make a hole in the center for steam to escape.
- Bake for 20-30 mins. or until the crust is light brown.
- Place a plate on top of the pan and, holding both the pan and the plate, flip over. Let the pan rest on the plate for 2-3 minutes before removing the pan.
- Add a little water to the pan and return it to the stove to make a caramel sauce from the sugar left in the pan. Spoon the sauce onto the tarte tatin.
- Serve hot!
Apples caramelizing on the stove
Out of the oven, waiting to be flipped
An off day September 16, 2009
Posted by whiskedoff in lesson.Tags: cartouche, chicken, french dessert, stocks
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All around, not a great day.
The morning’s demonstration was a dizzying blur (see photo). While effortlessly preparing three separate dishes, Chef Eric expounded on the relative merits of white and brown stocks (for brown you roast the bones before adding liquid); showed us how to make a simple syrup and to poach fruit; and cut up a chicken into 10 pieces including those delicate ‘lollipop’ wings you sometimes see in stylish restaurants.
By 11:30 he had moved on to what can only be described as culinary origami: folding and snipping wax paper into a ‘cartouche’ to cover a pan and thus prevent its sauce from evaporating in the oven. My notebook is a mess of arrows, French cooking terms and confusing diagrams.
The demo results were beautiful, but I didn’t taste the food. Between avoiding pork and shellfish, not mixing milk and meat, and my allergy to pears, I was pretty limited by the menu. Mussel soup, chicken casserole with bacon finished with butter, and poire belle-helene. Of the 5,000 recipes in Auguste Escoffier’s Le Guide Culinaire published in 1903, there are probably 40 dishes I would try.
The highlight of the day was lunch with new friends. With a 40 minute break, four of us nipped around the corner to Marylebone High Street, a great stretch lined with pubs, clothing shops and cafes, a fromagerie, fishmonger, and lots of good people watching. At Natural Kitchen I had a yummy leek and carrot soup with roasted tomato-studded focaccia.
Chef Loic and a friend
My happiness turned out to be short-lived. This afternoon it was my turn to be sous chef for my group. The job entails coming back from lunch early to get the workshop ingredients from the basement prep kitchen.
The good news is that I made it back with time to spare. The not-as-good-news is that between the basement and the 3rd floor I got stuck in the claustrophobic kitchen elevator surrounded by 10 raw chickens, an overturned bag of button mushrooms and a slab of bacon. Obviously, I made it out.
Unfortunately, in my panic to escape I lost my tea towel (we don’t use oven mitts) and a few hours into the practical I burned my baby finger removing a pan from the oven. This was after I cut my chicken wings incorrectly and had no chance at making the lollipops. And, with my cartouche looking more like a paper snowflake than anything useful, my rice had burned to a crisp in the 180°C oven. Boo hoo.
Looking forward to making eclairs tomorrow and the wine lesson at 4pm!
Whisked Off 