Dessert First

Pâte Brisée

Ingredients

200 g flour

100 g unsalted butter

10 cL cold water

pinch of salt

Preparation

Put flour in a bowl. Using your hands, mix in pats of cold butter, until crumbly dough forms. Add water bit by bit, mixing constantly until you can form a ball that is easily handled. You may not use all the water. Refrigerate at least 30 minutes before using.

* For pies and quiches, the crust does not need to be cooked before using. Remember to poke a couple holes in the bottom with a fork to avoid air bubbles. If you'd like to bake it - to make a pie with fruits that do not require cooking, such as strawberries, bake at 350 degrees fahrenheit, 180 degrees celsius for 15-20 minutes. Let cool.

Leek and Bacon Quiche

Pâte Feuilletée
Ingredients

Détrempe:

• 250 g flour (1 cup)
• pinch of salt
• 1/2 cup water
• 1/4 cup melted butter

Beurrage:

• 1 1/2 sticks butter

Preparation

Sift together flour and salt. Make a well in the flour and add the water. Using your fingers, make a paste. Add the melted butter and continue kneading until a dough forms. Form into a square. Using a sharp knife, cut halfway through the block in the shape of an X. Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate. 

Let rest at least 30 minutes, preferably an hour. Take the remaining butter and place it between two sheets of parchment paper and beat it to flatten. The butter should be workable, smooth, but still cold. Form it into a square block. 

Take the dough out of the refrigerator. Roll it out slightly into a square - so that it will be able to enclose the butter. 

Keeping flour on hand to make sure dough does not stick to work surface, place the butter onto the dough rotated 45 degrees. Fold the edges of the dough over the butter - like an envelope. Pinch to seal the butter inside the dough. 

Using your hands, press the dough into a rectangle about 20 cm long. Now, using a rolling pin, roll it out to 55 cm. Fold the dough into thirds. Repeat the previous step, rolling it out first to 20 cm and then 55 cm, then folding it into thirds again.  Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate 30 minutes. 

Take out of the fridge and repeat the last two steps - twice. You will now have rolled out and folded the dough 4 times. Refrigerate another 30 minutes. 

Repeat once more. The dough will now have been rolled out and folded 6 times. Refrigerate before use. 

*If you are making croissants, you need to add 1 T instant yeast, 1/4 cup sugar, and a 1/2 cup of milk to your dough

Roll out the dough into a square, as close to 60 cm by 20 cm. Cut into 6 strips, width-wise. Then cut those strips diagonal to make a right triangle. Cut into the edge of the triangle 1 cm. Starting at the edge, roll to the point. Curl into a moon and connect the ends together. Brush with egg wash store in a dry warm place (23 degrees celsius) and let rise 1 1/2 hours. Bake at 220 degrees celsius for 16-20 minutes, rotating once after 8-10 minutes. If they get too brown on top, lower the oven temp by 10 degrees. Let cool. Eat just warm. 

Pâte Sablée

Ingredients

225 g flour

100 g unsalted butter

pinch of salt

1 egg yolk

125 g sugar

Preparation

Mix egg and sugar. Add to flour. Mix in melted - not liquid - butter.  Refrigerate at least 30 minutes before using.


For the Apricot Tart pictured above, just layer sliced apricots dusted with 1/2 cup granulated sugar and bake for 25 minutes at 180 degrees celsius. Eat warm. 

Pâte à Choux

This is used for cream puffs and eclairs when baked, and for beignets and churros when fried.

Ingredients

1 cup water

1 stick butter

1 cup flour

5 eggs (1 cup beaten)

1 pinch salt

Preparation

In a medium pot, bring the water and butter to a simmer on medium heat. Add the flour and with a wooden spoon or spatula, stir very quickly in one direction. Carefully watch and you'll see that the flour starts absorbing the liquid -- and a dough will form. Keep stirring to continue cooking the flour and cook off some of the water, another minute or two.

Transfer the dough to another bowl and add the salt and the eggs one at a time mixing rapidly until each is combined into the paste. The paste will go from shiny to slippery to sticky as the egg is incorporated. The pâte a choux can be cooked immediately at this point or refrigerated for up to a day until ready to use.

Spoon the dough into a piping bag. Pipe onto a baking sheet into little puffs, keeping the puffs 2-inches apart. With your finger, press down the peaks (as they can burn.) Bake at 425F for 10 minutes, then 350F for 18-30 minutes, depending on the size of your puffs. Alternatively to make éclairs, pipe the dough into éclair shapes. Baking stays the same. 

Filling - Crème Patissière:

Ingredients 

3 eggs

25 cL milk

30 g corn starch

75 g sugar

Preparation

Put the egg yolks and the sugar into a pot. Incorporate corn starch by spoonful. Bring milk to a boil and add slowly to egg/sugar/corn starch mix. Put the pot on a low flame and let thicken while mixing slowly. Let cool before refrigerating.

Cut the cream puffs or éclairs almost through. Pipe in crème patissière. For the éclairs, spoon chocolate ganache on top and let harden.

Alternatively, fill the choux with ice cream and then top with hot ganache for profitreroles. 

Topping - Ganache

Pâte Sucrée

Ingredients

1 1/2 cups (195 grams) flour 

pinch of salt

1/2 cup (113 grams) unsalted butter

1/4 cup (50 grams) granulated sugar

1 egg

Preparation

Cream together butter and sugar. Beating continuously, add egg. Once everything is mixed, add the salt and flour all at once and continue mixing until a ball can be formed. Flatten into a disk and refrigerate at least 30 minutes. 

Memories of Childhood

When I was a child, we used to come spend the summers in our house in Normandie. Right when we used to arrive, at the end of June, the cherry trees in the field behind the house would be heavy with fruit...and if we were lucky, the birds would not have eaten them all! We have such a wonderful variety of fruits at the house and in the surrounding land that every season will have something. Added to this the fresh vegetables we get from the neighbors, and life could not be fresher. Asparagus, green beans, peas and rhubarb in late spring; in early summer, red currants and cherries; in mid summer, raspberries, strawberries, lettuce, zucchini, and tomatoes; plums, pears, apples, grapes, blackberries, hazelnuts, and walnuts in late summer and early fall. Wow!  What a list!  Just writing it makes me remember the good times and is a reminder of why I love this place. It has such history too! 

My great-grandparents bought the house, then a farm, in 1942. This gave them benefits during the war - food to supplement the rations, and a laisser-passer which allowed them to travel with food, as well as extra rations of petrol. The oldest part of the house - mainly the cellars now - date back to the 12th century. The oldest above ground part is from the 16th century, and the rest is from the late 18th century. Until 30 years ago, most of the house was a farm - with just a small apartment redone by my great-grandparents. The center of the house, what is now the kitchen and the living room were, a room occupied by the tenants and hay storage, respectively. The commune currently boasts 263 inhabitants, with a church dating back to the 10th century. The population has been steadily in decline and the school and any remaining shops were closed about 20 years ago.  The closest village has around 1300 inhabitants. This village, about 85 percent destroyed during the war, has a church and some streets dating from the 11th to 13th centuries. The "big city," about 15 km away has about 18,000 inhabitants. In recent times, the population in the country has started to swell, with young families moving back to the villages where taxes are lower and quality of life is better. This region is also rich with history from World War II, with a strong presence of the Resistance and the German occupiers. It is also directly in the path from the D-Day beaches to Paris, and so suffered a lot of damage during the advancing of the Allied troops and the retreat of the Germans. 

Anyways, I could talk about this for hours, and have recently been delving into some of the more salacious stories...but back to the food - it is after all what you are here for!

One of my favourite recipes to make was a Clafoutis - a flan filled with cherries. Although traditionally, the cherries are not pitted - in order to keep the cherries from floating in the batter - one of the best parts was to use the cherry pitter and spend a couple hours staining our fingers from removing the pits from the basketfuls of cherries we used to pick. The remaining cherries were gladly eaten, or made into jam. 

Cherry Pitter

The clafoutis comes from the Limousin region of France and is traditionally made with black cherries. The Larousse Gastronomique specifies that in variations using other fruits including red cherries, plums, prunes, apples, cranberries or blackberries, the dish is properly called a flaugnarde.

The dish's name derives from Occitan clafotís, from the verb clafir, meaning "to fill" (implied: "the batter with cherries"). This name for the dessert first appeared in the second half of the 19th century. 

Clafoutis

Ingredients
100 g flour
100 g granulated sugar
400 g cherries 
20 cL boiled milk, cooled
2 eggs
10 g butter - for the dish


Preparation
Preheat oven to 190 degrees celsius. Boil milk and let cool. In a bowl, mix flour, eggs, and half the sugar. Add milk a bit at a time, stirring constantly to avoid granules. In the bottom of the buttered dish, spread a couple spoonfuls of batter, until the bottom is covered. Put the dish in the oven with the door open. The thin layer of batter should cook in a few minutes. Now, layer the cherries and the rest of the sugar. Pour the remaining batter over the cherries. Bake for at least 40 minutes. A Clafoutis should be served lukewarm, dusted with powdered sugar. 

Baked Goat Cheese Salad

Apples and Goat Cheese. Baked. And because its rich and slightly sweet, I found it goes well with the biting slightly peppery taste of arugula. I love goat cheese...did I ever mention that? Well, I do. Spread on some toast with a slight bit of jam; or honey. Really though, soft goat cheese just melts in your mouth. So when I was taking in the bountiful choices at the fromagerie - the cheese shop - these little mounds of cheese seemed just irresistible. And then, when I was offered a taste...well, I just knew that I had to buy it....which meant, I now had to come up with a pairing because it just wouldn't do to eat them all, now would it?

Baked Goat Cheese Salad

Ingredients

serves 4 people

2 crotins de chèvre

2 apples

2 large handfuls arugula

10g butter 

1/4 cup vinaigrette

Preparation

Preheat your oven to 200 degrees celsius. With an apple core remover, remove the center from the apples. Cut lengthwise into 4 thick slices. Heat butter in a large pan until just melted. Place apple slices in pan and cook - about 5-7 minutes on either side. Cut the goat cheese crotin in half lengthwise. Once the apples are almost cooked, place goat cheese on the apple slices and set under broiler for 5 minutes or until just browned. Place half a handful of arugula on each plate and sprinkle with one tablespoon vinaigrette. Place baked apple and goat cheese slices on top and serve hot. 

Baked Salmon with Asparagus

I was in Paris last week, in the 14th arrondissement, on a street filled with fresh fruit and vegetable shops, cheese shops, meat and fish so fresh I couldn't decide what to buy. So, I spent a a very enjoyable hour looking around and deciding on a meal for some friends. First, I made an entrée of toasted goat cheese (the recipe will be up in a few days); and then this beautiful plate. Salmon with sauce à l'orange, buttered asparagus and grilled polenta. 

Sauce à l'Orange

Ingredients

1/3 cup sugar

1 1/2 cups orange juice

2 T vinegar

1/2 cup water

bouillon cube (optional)

Preparation

Bring the water and sugar to a boil, creating a simple syrup. Add vinegar, orange juice, and bouillon cube. Continue heating until reduced by thirty percent. Serve over whatever dish you are making. 

Grilled Polenta

Ingredients

1/2 cup dry polenta

2 cups water

pinch of salt

2 T cream

1 T butter

1/4 cup grated parmesan cheese. 

Preparation

Bring the water to a boil. Add salt, and whisk in polenta. Turn down heat to low and cook until thick, stirring occasionally - about 15 minutes. Remove from heat and stir in cream and butter. Pour into a shallow, wide container and refrigerate at least one hour. Then, using a glass or a cookie cutter, create 4-6 circles. Set aside. Heat a pan with a bit of butter. Sear polenta slices until slightly browned. Serve as a side dish. 

Buttered Asparagus

Ingredients

1 L salted water

1 L ice water, in a bowl

3 asparagus per person (12-18)

butter

Preparation

Blanch the asparagus. Prepare a bowl of ice water. Bring salted water to a boil. Dunk in asparagus and let cook for 2 minutes. Take out and immediately transfer to ice water. Let cool completely. Cut asparagus in half lengthwise. Heat butter in a pan. Lay asparagus halves in the pan and cook until heated through, about 5-8 minutes. Serve as a side dish. 

Baked Salmon Filets

Ingredients

4-6 filets of salmon (about 200 g each)

1/4 cup orange juice

1/4 cup olive oil

salt

Preparation

Lay salmon filets on a baking sheet. Heat oven to 200 degrees celsius, 380 degrees fahrenheit. Sprinkle with salt. Pour olive oil and orange juice on salmon. Bake for 15 minutes or until just done through. Check  halfway through. Drape with orange sauce and serve hot. 

Hunting Rights

So apparently, because our house is attached to some land, and my grandmother had given the hunting rights to the Hunting club of our local commune, we are entitled to a pheasant a year as a form of gratitude/payment. So, upon our arrival to Normandie, the neighbor unearthed a pheasant, shot shortly after the new year, from the depths of his freezer and presented it to us.

What the heck do you do with a pheasant? 

When I was little, my dad and his brothers used to hunt on my grandfather's property, but it was either the cook or my grandmother who cleaned and cooked all the game - including pheasant, but also duck, wild boar, and deer. Thus, I had to figure out the best way to cook this game bird. I figured that roasting in the oven would make it dry and even tougher, so I decided to try braising. In my research, I stumbled on a recipe involving some of the local products, all apple based - calvados and cider.

Braised Wild Pheasant with Apples
serves 4-6
Ingredients
1 medium sized pheasant (1kg about)
4 apples, peeled and quartered
1 cup calvados or other apple brandy
1 bottle cider
3 onions, diced
1/2 cup flour plus 2 T
2T vegetable oil
2T sugar
1/4 cup cider vinegar
optional: diced carrots or celery

Preparation
Cut pheasant into 6 pieces. Coat with the flour. In a heavy bottomed skillet, heat the vegetable oil. Braise the pheasant until outside is browned. Remove with a slotted spoon and set aside.

























In the skillet, add the onions, the sugar and the vinegar. Cook until translucent.

























Add 1/2 cup cider and let simmer until the onions have caramelised, about 20-30 minutes. Remove with a slotted spoon and set aside. In the same skillet, add the calvados and the cider. Heat until boiling and reduce heat. Add the pheasant pieces and the onions. Let simmer on low heat, covered, until the pheasant is cooked, about 80-90 minutes. About 30 minutes before the end, add the apples. (If you are using carrots and/or celery, add them now). In the last 10 minutes, if the broth is not thick enough, mix 2T flour in 1 cup cold water and add all while stirring to the skillet.

Serve hot over pasta or rice

Joy-ful

I love Polenta. It's such a great grain, made from corn. And given that I have an intolerance to gluten, it's pretty much perfect (and a nice change from rice). It can be served in a porridge or if you add flour can be cut up into slices and pan fried, which can make for a nice accompaniment. I was attracted by a delightfully decadent recipe from Joy - a blue cheese, honey, and toasted hazelnut polenta. Yummy!

Polenta

from Joy the Baker

for 2 people

Ingredients

1/2 cup hazelnuts, chopped

4 T blue cheese 

2 T honey

1/2 cup dry polenta

2 cups water

pinch of salt

2 T cream

1 T butter

Preparation

Hazelnuts can be toasted by placing them 10 minutes on a cookie sheet in an oven at 180 degrees celsius. 

Bring the water to a boil. Add salt, and whisk in polenta. Turn down heat to low and cook until thick, stirring occasionally - about 15 minutes. Remove from heat and stir in cream and butter. Spoon into individual bowls and garnish with honey, blue cheese, and toasted hazelnuts. 

I served this with a green salad with a basic vinaigrette. It was also delicious reheated the next day. (It might even have been better - but I'm a fan of leftovers...) I'm pretty sure it would delicious with goat cheese and walnuts.

May Day

May Day celebrates the end of winter and the beginning of spring. It is one of the oldest traditions at my alma mater, Simmons College, in Boston. Simmons was founded in 1899 by John Simmons who believed that women should "acquire an independent livelihood and lead meaningful lives." 

On May Day, Sophomores serenade the Seniors at the break of dawn with pots, pans, and noisemakers. There are speeches and festivities, including a maypole dance at dawn, a tree planting, and a strawberry shortcake breakfast. So, in honor of that tradition, here is a recipe for Strawberry Shortcake. 

99th annual maypole dance, Simmons College Quad, 2011

Strawberry Shortcake


Buttermilk Biscuits
Ingredients
1 cup buttermilk
2 cups flour
1 stick of unsalted butter
1 t baking soda

Preparation
Mix ingredients until a dough forms. Handle dough as little as possible. Cut into rounds. Bake at 210 degrees celsius for 10-12 min.

OR

Sweet Vanilla Biscuits
Ingredients
225g flour
50g sugar
20g baking powder
2 hard boiled egg yolks
pinch of salt
85g unsalted butter
170g heavy cream

Preparation
Mix ingredients. Cut into rounds. Bake 18-20 minutes at 180 degrees celsius.

While the biscuits are baking, mix halved strawberries, lemon juice, and sugar and let marinate

Let biscuits cool. Cut in half. In serving dishes, put bottom half of biscuit. Add a heaping spoonful of macerated strawberries. Top with a nice spoonful of whipped heavy cream. fFinish with top of biscuit. Serve immediately.

*Also possible to serve with vanilla bean ice cream instead of whipped cream.

"Wisdom needs to be prodded by the urgency and single-mindedness of youth. So, I urge you to seize that role of risking all for principle, for justice, for truth. Help those of us who might be mired in the limits of the present world by dreaming the dreams of what does not yet exist."

- Jeanie Goddard, Class of 1969, Simmons College. Boston, MA