Clafoutis: when in Texas, do like the French

This is not a cake, but something divinely just above a cake. And as classically French as it might be, I discovered it on a business trip to Houston, affirming my belief that one should never, ever decline an invitation to a meal.

A friend of a colleague invited us to a BBQ on the sunday afternoon that our team arrived in Houston, which sounds normal, except that the invitation was in french. A BBQ in French? To my eternal delight, this Houston BBQ was classically français by way of fresh, quality ingredients and complete with the classic entree-main course-cheese plate procession with this beauty of a desert to finish things off.

Coming back to the clafouti, if you use a deep pan, the batter separates a bit as it cooks, so you almost get two layers, as if it was a custard or a flan cooked in a crust. I like using a small, deep pan so that it stays thick and you get a full delicious of flan nestled into a light crust. In my second clafouti this week, I discovered that overcooking makes the flan almost grainy. I prefer it undercooked...

Sour Cherry Clafoutis:

For six (generous) portions

5 eggs

a pinch of salt

130g sugar

60g melted butter, plus a bit to butter the pan

80g flour

30cl milk

a dash of vanilla or a pack of vanilla sugar

300-500g cherries

note: I used frozen cherries, following the example of my generous host, which worked great. I just let them thaw in the fridge and then left out most of the juice. Hey, if they're not in season frozen is an acceptable alternative for staying 'from scratch!'

Preheat the oven to 180ºC/350ºF.

Hint: to make life easy on yourself, use a blender! You wont even need to dirty a single bowl. Just start with the eggs in the blender and add the other ingredients one at a time, pulsing between additions until it is finished and pour it straight into the mold that already has the cherries scattered.

Otherwise: With a pinch of salt, beat the eggs 'into an omelet,' which means really getting some air into them, making the eggs puff up, literally growing in volume. Add the sugar and keep beating.

Melt the butter and add, making sure to continue beating if the butter is not (to not cook the eggs). Add flour. mix. add milk. mix. add vanilla... you get the point.

If you're using fresh cherries, wash and dry them and then heat a spoon of butter and a spoon of sugar in a small pan, adding the cherries and enjoying the smell and sound for five minutes as they sauté and caramelize a bit in the butter and sugar.

Butter your pan and spread the cherries in the pan. Keep the juice - which is not only pretty but delicious, too - unless its just a ton. Pour the batter over top.

Bake for about 25 minutes. Serve warm.

Galette - a Smitten Kitchen jewel with a simple filling

I continue to be absolutely smitten by Smitten Kitchen, which I have recently learned to be the most amazing cooking blog on earth.

And I have been drooling over her galettes for a while. One of my least favorite things, though, is trying to match a recipe exactly because it usually includes multiple trips to the store to get specific ingredients and the fear that the one substitution you were forced to make will make it all turn out wrong. The blending of all things left in my fridge turned out BEAUtifully.

Smitten Kitchen's flaky galette is a yes.

But as per most blogging (we can chant this together, if you want) I changed just a couple things... I then also found that a year later she also blogged the galette with zucchini in it. Not surprising. She is brilliant like that. Of course she would be years ahead of me! And just to give sufficient shout outs, here are her zucchini and ricotta galette, her roasted butternut squash and caramelized onion galette, and

anyway. onward.


Galette, as per the Smitten Kitchen:
1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour, chilled in the freezer for 30 minutes
1/4 teaspoon salt
8 tablespoons (1 stick) cold unsalted butter, cut into pieces and chill again
1/4 cup sour cream (yogurt worked fine! buttermilk probably, too)
2 teaspoons fresh lemon juice
1/4 cup ice water

Filling:

2 zucchinis

1 shallot

chunk of blue cheese

handful of swiss cheese, grated

splash of crème fraiche

salt and pepper

marjoram

1 egg

I'll refer you to her directions for the dough, but the filling:
-Dice the shallot and put it over medium heat with a bit of oil and the zucchinis, chopped.
-Once they start to turn clear, turn off the heat, stir in all the rest, and your filling is ready!
note: it should be thick enough to hold its form as in the photo. If its too liquid it will be hard to close the crust around it.

Assemble the galette directly on parchment by laying out the dough and pouring the filling in the middle and folding in the sides, one small section at a time.

Preheat oven to 205ºC/410ºF and slide the assembled galette in the oven, turning the oven immediately down to 195ºC/380ºF and bake for 33 minutes, or until nicely browned. 

Zucchini Coconut Cream Soup

Yep, still going strong on my coconut milk kick.

I realize Zucchini is not considered gourmet in the US, but here in France it is simply luxurious. "I looove zucchini" is one of the phrases I hear the most often here. After "shit... I'm sick of that!" and other lude expletives, of course.

Anyway. DEEEElicious soup. Its really more of a velouté... a creamy, smooth vegetable soup. Perfect for Versailles, I'd say.

This was a 30 minute job and made enough for 4 large bowls of soup.

2 small onions
2 stalks of celery
1 carrot
1 garlic clove
3 zucchinis
1 bay leaf
1 tbsp marjoram
enough stock to cover all of it
(uh... 5 or 6 cups? I used 2 bouillon cubes and water as needed)
1/2 can of coconut milk
2-3 tbsp olive oil

In a pot (something about the size you would boil noodles in - you don't want it too wide or it will be too low to blend with the immersion blender)

Chop all the vegetables into rough chunks.

Sautee the onions, celery and carrot on medium-high heat.

When the onion and celery turn clear (about 7 minutes) throw in the garlic and the chopped zucchini.

Stir every couple minutes until the zucchini turns clear. If it starts to brown or stick/burn to the bottom of the pot, go ahead and go on to the next step.

Stir in your spices and the bay leave and then add the stock. Enough to cover the vegetables, and then some, depending on how thick or thin you like your soup.

Simmer for about 15 minutes, remove the bay leaf, blend that sucker with your immersion blender and stir in the coconut milk. I would say a whole can wouldn't be bad...

mmmmmm.

Cakes Salés - Savory cakes

Salty cake. I realize it doesn't sound appetizing to the American ear, but the reality is a rich palate into which you can add any savory ingredients that you fancy and end up with a delicate, salty, cake-like bread. Cut into large chunks and dipped in white sauces, this is the supreme appetizer. Especially with Karen's white dipping sauce...

She first cooked this for me nine months ago, but I only recently have both an oven and a cake pan in which to make it... She has a tremendous love of cheese, so the original here has 3 different cheeses as the "throw ins" but any other three will do! See below for ideas

The Base

Beat together, in this order:

3 eggs

1/2 cup milk

1 tablespoon baking powder

a little bit less than 1/2 cup oil (.42 cups, technically...)

150g flour (about 1 1/4 cup)

salt and pepper

"throw in" ideas:

100g swiss
100g blue cheese
100g cheddar

~or~

a palm full of dried (or fresh!) spices of your choice

a handful of whatever cheese you have on hand

a half an onion, chopped

~or~

a handful of sliced olives

cubed feta cheese

fresh basil leaves, chopped

~or~

1/2 cup cubed ham

Bake for about 30 minutes at 200ºC/390ºF

Cut into cubes and serve as an appetizer with a dipping sauce. Also really good chilled - it brings out the flavors of the cheeses!

Note: This freezes wonderfully, and thaws fairly quickly if you want to prepare ahead for a party or keep something on hand. Just throw it in the fridge the night before to thaw. Cube before freezing to make it even easier

Carrot salad

Yes, I too would probably look at this photo and say "that looks too healthy to be good." But fear not, the boiled veggies might look "healthy," but they are surprisingly tasty and it is not lacking in yummy fresh dressing and cheese. The perfect combination, in my opinion. I am learning that boiling fresh veggies gives a very full flavor and filling results. Amazing with a sauce on top.

There is a concept for carrots, celery, and onion in french cooking called Mirepoix - or 'the holy trinity' in creole cooking. I always thought they were optional when I saw carrots and celery in a recipe, but I have been amazed recently at how much flavor is in each of them. This is just one permutation of that discovery.

2 carrots

1 onion

mozzarella

vinaigrette

Bring a pot of water to a boil and salt. Pull or cut the mozzarella into shreds and set aside.

Clean the carrots and cut to your fancy - rounds, thin sticks, whirls if you can pull it off. Peel if you must, but if you can simply clean them well, there is a lot of flavor to be had in the peel. Cut up the onion, too. I just peel it and cut it into slices. It falls apart in the water.

Throw them in the boiling water and cook until you can pierce the carrot with a fork. About 10-15 minutes.

Drain, throw together with the mozzarella and season with vinaigrette. How can boiled vegetables have so much flavor?! I find that with real ingredients like these - though they might not have the nutrition facts attached - you can know that its a good, healthy, and filling meal. Even with oil based dressing and cheese.

Apple and Pear Tarte à la française

This is more of a method post. I was reading a french cookbook and this is just one step further than a fruit tarte, and I'm kind of in love. It means taking an apple tarte, and adding a cream, egg mixture overtop halfway through baking, which this cookbook apparently calls "à la française." The egg-cream mixture baked on top adds an almost pudding-like layer but because it is so thin, it retains the refined feeling of an apple tart for desert. The consistency makes it a bit more substantial than just the fruit and crust of an apple tarte. I added the pears because we bought too many and they're going bad. I will now do so every single time I bake apple anything.

1 crust

1 apple

1 pear

1 egg

a big scoop of a cream: crème fraiche, greek yogurt, marscapone, cream cheese, or maybe even sour cream if you like tart tarts

1/4 c sugar

1 tsp vanilla (optional, to make it killer)

a couple spoonfuls of almond powder/flour (ditto on the optional)

Preheat oven to 180ºC/350ºF

Butter your mold and prepare the crust. Use a fork to poke holes in the bottom of the crust so

it won't puff up too much.

Thinly slice your fruit and lay it in the crust only one layer thick. The french do this really beautifully in a spiral... but that's too much work. I call this art.

Bake for 10-15 minutes.

Meanwhile, beat together the egg, cream, and sugar (plus the vanilla and almond powder until

smooth, if you're using them). No fancy mixer necessary, a fork and bowl will do fine. Pour this over the tart and put it back in the oven for 20-30 minutes, until it browns a bit.

Mayonnaise

FINALLY. Good lord, this has taken me a million tries over two years and any number of hours reading all the detailed directions online. I may be exaggerating, but I've failed a good handful of times!

All the while my french friends tell me "oh its so easy...!" or "I make it all the time, of course I'll show you." but no one did. Curse the gods of mayonnaise!!

And then, in an extreme anti-climax, Karen showed me sunday. I am now very angry at all those sites that tried to tell me it was difficult, that i should buy special equipement, tricks, tips... I feel so betrayed.

You will need a bowl and a whisk. An egg, a spoonful of dijon and a spoon of red wine vinegar (optional). And about a cup of oil. Vegetable oil, probably.

I. Put one egg yolk in a bowl. Add a generous tablespoon of dijon mustard. Stir.

II. Add a small glug of oil. As in, a tablespoon or two. Choose your oil according to your personal taste because your mayonnaise will taste like the oil you use. Sunflower seed oil worked well. Vegetable oil seems to work well, too. Olive oil, Karen tells me, is a little harder to get to "climb" but it can work. Whisk until it goes from looking like little white bugs in oil to looking like mayonnaise. Its called emulsion, but thats not important.

III. Add another glug of oil. Repeat. A couple times.

IV. Add a tablespoon of vinegar oil for flavor along with your next glug of oil. Continue adding a glug at a time and whisking.

V. When it starts to look more white than yellow, and you have about a cup and a half of mayonnaise, you can call it finished.

I am not going to add all the tips and tricks here, because they only confused me for a long time. I can see why people added them, but good lord! way to throw me off my game, bloggers... But there is one good trick. If all is going well and then suddenly it breaks down into a bowl of oil and you can't get it to "remount," break another yolk into another bowl and start over, adding this "broken" mayonnaise instead of oil.

Tarte au Chocolate

I feel like I just conquered the world. That is the kind of chocolate filling this is. I feel like I just surpassed the
whole chocolate industry (by not melting a bar of chocolate and calling it homemade) and I want to sing. The kind of singing where birds fly around you as you spin, your skirts twirling outward. Yes, I

imagined the opening scene of The Sound of Music in describing my

feeling.

Takes a good 30 minutes to make, an hour if you make a homemade crust, but my mind is

already flying with the possibilities of this...

I.

4 tablespoons of coco powder

3 tablespoons of corn starch

1/2 c sugar

a pinch of salt

II.

1 1/2 c cold milk

III.

1 egg yolk

1 tablespoon butter

1 teaspoon vanilla

AND one pre-cooked crust

1/ Set up a double boiler; boil a big pot of water, turn it down to a simmer and put another dry pot or bowl - i set a bowl in a colander that will fit in the pot of water - on top. Put all your ingredients in this second bowl, making sure that no water from the first ever gets into it. Google this for all the possible configurations.

2/ Put I. in the boiler and add II half a cup at a time, stirring to avoid clumps.

3/ Let this thicken for 15 to 20 minutes, stirring frequently with a whisk to keep it homogeneous.

4/ There will be a point when you say "shit, this is really thickening!!" Take it off the heat then and stir in III, whisking vigorously when the egg yolk goes in.

5/ Pour into your pre-baked crust, or find some other beautiful use for it, like the filling between layers of a cake. Or just eat it with spoons from little cups. 'tis wonderful

There will be another tarte au chocolate to follow that Estelle taught me (you know its good if it came from Estelle...), but I have to make it first...

Chocolate Fondant: Cake...? Brownie...? Heaven.

Forget everything you ever knew about chocolate cake. Leave your brownie recipes behind. Fudge? psh. Follow this pide piper of chocolate into a fluffy, yet dense chocolate luxury.

Its like laying your head on a firmly packed down pillow and still sinking just enough. But its your mouth. and chocolate.

Or biting into the deep chocolate flavor of fudge, but finding instead a truffle sitting lightly on your tongue

I'll admit that the recipe is slightly advanced, with two non-standard techniques for the usual box-cake lovers, but they are two skills that will really open up your recipe options in the future, leaving you will more fine deserts and more complicated palates of flavor.

Ingredients:

200g baking chocolate, or about 7 oz

125g butter, 1/2 cup plus one tablespoon

150g sugar, or 3/4 cup

6 eggs separated

a tad bit of butter and flour for preparing the pan

a pinch of salt for beating the egg whites

a cakepan somewhere around 9x9 inches

*There is lots of wiggle room with the size/shape of your baking pan. I made a half recipe with a bread pan and it was perfect, I made one full recipe and put it in silicone muffin pans, which was great, and even made a half recipe in a 9x9, which was also great, though it made much thinner pieces. So play as you will, and just be conscious to take it out of the oven a few minutes early (really, just a few, once it passes the toothpick test) if it is spread thinner. 15 minutes did it for my half recipe, but my oven is really strong.

Technique:

1. Take the eggs out of the fridge at least an hour ahead of time and let them warm to room temperature. Preheat the oven to 200ºC/390ºF and butter and flour the baking pan.

2. Double boil your chocolate and butter, melting until homogeneous. Set aside to cool.

How to: To melt chocolate, people-in-the-know use a double boiler, or a baine marie. It melts the chocolate without changing the liquid ratio. Not to mention, putting your chocolate straight in a pan on the stove will lead to a way-too-thick, gooey texture, often with lovely little chunks to boot.

Instead, heat a pot of water to a low simmer and find a bowl that fits nicely over top of the first, almost or just barely sealing the rim. Put your chocolate and butter in this second bowl. The french actually float their bowls in a low 2 or 3 inches of water, but if you try this be SURE that not a single drop of water gets over the sides of the bowl and into the chocolate! The steam from the heating water in the bottom bowl will heat the second, melting the chocolate gently. Melting the butter with the chocolate also gives you more room for error.

Remove the chocolate as soon as it is 90% melted, or so, and continue stirring. It will all smooth out nicely within a minute or two of pulling it off the heat, ensuring that you dont overcook it.

Alternatively, but not preferably, you can break the chocolate into small chunks, throw it in a microwave safe bowl and add a tablespoon of water per 100g of chocolate. Microwave for 30 seconds at a time, stirring vigorously with a fork after each 30 seconds until it is almost completely melted. Then stir till homogeneous. If you are using the microwave method, melt the butter and chocolate separately, mixing afterward.

3. Separate your eggs, placing the egg whites in a large bowl for step 3. Mix the sugar with the yolks and once well-blended, stir in the melted chocolate and butter.

4. Sprinkle a pinch of salt over the egg whites that you placed in the very large bowl and beat them into soft peaks, or into "snow" as the french call it.

How to: Annoyingly tiring for the arm, and kind of intimidating, but really not that hard if your bowl is big enough. This video (yes, I know its in french, but I am about to tell you the only important parts, and his method is simple and pretty to watch) is a great tutor. And after you learn the technique, you can use it in almost any other baking recipe you have if you want a lighter, fluffier texture! This is also THE secret to French Mousse...

It is important to use egg whites at room temperature. Sprinkle them with a pinch of fine salt (aka table salt), tilt your bowl with your non dominate hand so that the egg whites pool on one side, and begin beating with a whisk at a steady rhythm. Listen to the beat that develops in the video - it is a little slower than I was using when I failed at this method the first couple times. Not quite as vigorous as when you beat eggs for an omelet. Instead, it keeps the egg whites moving, but allows them to pool in the bottom between beats so that you get it all moving together. They should start forming fairly quickly.

There are two versions: soft peaks and stiff peaks. The only difference is that soft peaks form first, and if you keep going, stiff peaks form. If you keep going too far past stiff peaks it all starts to break down. Not good. To test, stop beating and using your whisk, use a scooping motion to lift some of the egg whites out of the bowl. If they barely hold onto the whisk and melt back into themselves in the bowl, its soft peaks. If they pull apart and hold a very distinct peaks, its stiff. Thats what she said.

If there is ANY liquid left in the bottom of the bowl, you are not done. Keep going. In fact, they shouldn't move at all if you turn the bowl upside down.

Alternatively, a hand mixer will do this for you in just a few seconds.

5. Whip the batter from step 3 into the egg whites, pour in the buttered and floured pan, and throw it in the oven for about 20 minutes.

Test to see if it is finished with the toothpick test: stick a toothpick, or a knife, in the middle (stuff is always more cooked around the edges) and if it comes out clean, the cake is done.5. LET THIS CAKE COOL for at least an hour! It puffs up majorly during cooking and you want it to sink way back down before cutting into it. You can see the cool shapes it made in my oval muffin pans when it sank down!

Our consensus was that the larger pans made for better desert because the outside gets flaky, but it is really the fluffy yet fudgy middle that is so amazing. Therefore, cutting squares out of a larger pan yields the perfect chunks of heaven.

Smoked Salmon, Goat Cheese and Zucchini Lasagna

Ill admit, this is a lot of work, but if you make each component in a medium quantity, you will have a TON of lasagna on your hands that you can freeze, or great sauces to make a bunch of leftover meals. And the soft, creamy lasagna with the slight flavor of smoked salmon permeating the entire dish is SO worth it.

Or... just buy your tomato sauce and lasagna (cook before assembling!), and use fresh cream instead of the béchamel. I feel I am obligated to prefer the from-scratch version, but that would cut about 2 hours out of the prep time for this recipe. Hannah's got your back.

Step 1: Make the tomato sauce

1 1/2 white or sweet onion, chopped
2ish cloves garlic, cut up
4-ish tomatoes, diced. Perhaps a can of whole tomatos, diced?
basil leaves
italian seasonings of choice
salt and pepper
a tsp or two of brown sugar and/or baking soda to cut down on the acidity of the tomatoes.

Sauté the onion in butter or olive oil and when they are almost translucent throw in the garlic for a few more minutes. When this is well cooked, but not burning into crisps, throw in your seasonings and give it a good stir before throwing in the tomatoes. Simmer on medium heat for 20 minutes or more until the tomatoes soften into a "sauce" texture. Sprinkle with baking soda and enjoy watching it fluff up (who knew sauces could fluff!?) and then salt, pepper, sugar it until the desired flavor is achieved.

Set aside for layering.

Step 2: Zucchini

1 shallot, thinly sliced
3 medium sized zucchini, diced

So simple. Sauté the shallot in butter or olive oil then add in the diced zucchini over medium heat. Stir with a wooden spoon every 5-10 minutes until they are soft with translucent edges.

Set aside for layering.

Step 3: While this cooks, the pasta!

Alternatively, boil lasagna strips, cut into desired shapes, and set aside.

Fresh pasta is really, absolutely wonderful and fairly easy in a lasagna. Since there is practically no cutting/shaping, you don't need an expensive pasta machine and it is also a good chance to practice your dough-making skills before moving up to spaghetti or linguini!

2 eggs
2 cups of flour, or so
a pinch of salt
any fresh herbs you'd like to throw in

There are suggested flours for making pasta and pizza dough, but I enjoy adding density of whole wheat, or the nuttiness of country wheat, etc. As you like!

There are plenty of wonderful online tutorials for making pasta, so I won't pretend to be an expert here, but do google the process if it is your first time. Here is my favorite.

In any case, using a well in the flour and a fork, slowly whip together the eggs and flour

Let sit 20 minutes, covered, to let the flour soak up the moisture.

Knead the dough and roooool out into large sheets, half the dough at a time, making sure to use plenty of flour to keep it easy.

Cut dough into the shapes of the pot you will be using to bake your lasagna, and keeping in mind that it so does not have to be perfect in any way what-so-ever. I suggest making all your shapes before making the béchamel in step 4 because it will start to get lumpy if you leave it sitting while you roll out more dough.

Set aside for layering. (see a pattern here? makes this long and complicated recipe much more manageable...)

Step 4: Assembling

Sauteed zucchini (above)
a chunk of goat cheese
Tomato sauce (above)
Pasta (above)
one package smoked salmon
frozen spinach, thawed, slightly cooked, and salted
béchamel (below) or about 3/4 c cream
swiss cheese, grated (or cheese of choice)

The béchamel sauce in step 5 is finicky and won't stay smooth long after cooking, so its best to set up and start the assembling beforehand, making the sauce only at the last second.

layer the bottom of your baking dish with the following:

1. zucchini
2. chunks of goat cheese
3. pasta layer

Go ahead and assemble your work space with the smoked salmon, cut into strips, the tomato sauce, and any other vegetable layer you want to use (I highly suggest sautéeing and salting some spinach leaves... ahem... I just thawed some frozen ones...), cheeses and lasagna strips.


Step 5: le béchamel

This sauce makes the lasagna, I do believe. It is a basic French sauce, and an unfathomable boon to your cooking repetoire. It inexplicably has that thick, cheesy flavor despite the fact that it is made with butter, flour and milk, and it is eternally flexible for any genre of sauce you want to make. Curry, basil, fish sauce, veggie sauce... n'importe quoi!

50g butter, or a little less than 1/4c
50g flour, or a little less than 1/2c
50cl milk, or about 1/4 a cup
~actually, i've been converting this wrong and adding more like 2 cups of milk, and its great! same thing, but with a lot more of it!

In a sauce pan, melt the butter. Then, while whisking furiously, plop all the flour in at once.

This will create something of a greasy ball of flour that should also be consistant and smooth. This much can be made earlier and set aside.

Off the heat, whisk in the milk one good splash at a time, whisking until it is homogeneous before each consecutive splash. Once all is incorporated and homogeneous, put the pot back on the stove and continue whisking - without stopping! - for about 5 or 10 minutes and all the sudden you will literally feel it start to thicken.

Continue whisking until it is the consistency you desire. As a basic level of reference, when a wooden spoon dipped in and lifted out of the sauce keeps a thick coating, and when swiping your finger across this coating leaves a distinct tract, it is sufficiently thick.

Salt and pepper, and if you want to be french, a pinch of freshly ground nutmeg. I am not french.

Immediately start spooning it into your baking pan over the first layer of lasagna.

Continue layering.

Below is the sequence of layers that I used, but honestly, I don't think you could go wrong, with the one exception of having an uncovered lasagna layer on top. Finish with a veggie layer, and cheese!

(already layered:
zucchini and shallots
goat cheese
lasagna layer)
béchamel
smoked salmon
swiss cheese
lasagna
spinach
tomato sauce
lasagna
béchamel
zucchini and shallots
generous swiss cheese


Bake @ 395ºf (200ºc) for 30+ minutes, uncovered. The time could vary, so go until the cheese starts to brown and the liquid bubbling on the sides starts to subside, leaving a dark edge. I highly suggest these little serving size ceramic cups! They're (imagine the pinched voice) high fashion right now in Paris, but I like especially like them because you can cut out the circles of your pasta with the lids, they keep all the liquid in so they cook perfectly, AND you can just pop them in when your guests arrive and they're done just 20 minutes later!

This recipe makes a TON, so just keep layering till you're out of ingredients, or keep some tomato sauce to the side for pizza, or some pasta for spaghetti night, or just freeze the extra portions!

Financiers. The yummy alternative for the 99%

Rejecting Wall Street? Eat yummy financiers instead.

The dense, very nutty flavor of these makes them one of my favorite French recipes. It also means I am not sure how to classify them.

This recipe, which is unique in part because it uses honey, comes from a video I recently found from a very cute French chef who, unfortunately, has since closed down his little cafe on the Ile de France to find "new adventures." oo la.

Here is the video if you'd like to see the method, or just brush up on your french, or simply watch cute french chefs at work. And here is the translation.

100g or between 1/2 and 1/3c butter
100g or 1 cup confectioners sugar
40g or 1/3c flour (I like the nutty flavor of alternative flours, such as whole wheat or country blends)
40g or 1/3c almond powder
50g or about 1/5 c of honey
3 egg whites
a pinch of salt (not sea salt!)

Note: You'll notice the guy in the video uses only a whisk for all of the steps listed below. Stick it to the man and tell him that people were cooking long before they had a kitchen appliance for each possible movement of the hand.

1. Put the butter on the stove in a small pot and heat it "au noisette," which means (as far as I have understood it) over a medium flame until it starts to take some brownish color, but not burned!! My guess is that this gives it a nice nutty flavor, but I am yet to confirm it.

2. Mix the sugar, almond powder and flour

3. Sprinkle a pinch of salt on the egg whites and beat them well, but not quite "en neige," which is when they start to fluff up into a foam for mousse or other fluffy deserts. The pinch of salt will help them fluff a little, instead of just becoming the well-beat eggs you would use in an omelet.

4. Whip 2&3 vigorously and add the the honey. Without letting up whipping all of the above, pour in the melted butter. As the butter is hot, and there are raw eggs in the mixture, if you pour it in without stirring, you'll get lovely scrambled eggs in your delicate french desert

5. Leave all this in the fridge for 3-4 hours so it will thicken and be much easier to put in the molds. I have not dared to test this method to see if it is simply easier to get them in molds, or actually helps the recipe... in any case, its convenient for inviting guests!

6. Spoon the batter into a plastic bag, cut off the tip and squeeze it into your molds. You can use almost any size or shape, but you might have to adjust the cooking time. The mold in the movie is meant to give tiny versions that he can serve with coffee, which is usually served after desert in the scheme of courses of french cooking. Mine were in muffin sized, oval silicone molds. Silicone is highly recommended. Probably you should butter the mold if not.

7. Bake for 12 minutes at 185ºC/365ºF

8. Let cool for 5-10 minutes in the molds, then gently remove and serve. I actually liked them better the second day because they have a very dense, nutty flavor that seems to melt into itself.

yields 30 tiny financiers, 8 of these large muffin sized financiers, or whatever. Note: If you're using a metal cupcake pan and there are unfilled sections, fill each empty spot about half way with water. This keeps the temperature of the pan even and the can often do nice things to your baked goods! Its the secret to crunchy-outside-soft-inside bread!

Happy Birthday Karen!
Also pictured here are brownies from the Smitten Kitchen, which is by far the most wonderful food blog I've ever seen, and a "Real Proper Custard" recipe from the BBC that I found to use the 3 egg yolks I had left over from this financier recipe... I suggest upping the sugar to 50g and eating it cold the next day!

Tarte d'oignon

You, too, can savor sauteed onions with cooked cream in a buttery pie crust. Just pretend you're french and call it dinner.


Ingredients:

1 pie crust: pâte brisée
2 HUGE sweet onions, or 3 smaller ones (500g)
~maybe yellow or white onions would work?
1 Shallot - optional
2 Tbs or more butter for sautéing

2 tablespoons of flour
about a cup of milk (I will go less next time)
1/2 cup of cream (again, I will go way less next time, but hey, thats a french recipe for you!)
salt and pepper

optional: grated cheese for toping - a hard white cheese is recommended, like swiss or gruyère

1. Make your crust. I tried a number of fancy recipes recently, but I came back to the fairly simple recipe I posted and linked above from my host mom Estelle. Roll it out, put it in your tart pan (I am using a square silicone cake pan... seems to work fine to me!) Use a fork to punch holes in the bottom and throw it in the oven for about 15 minutes at 180ºC/355ºF

2. Meanwhile, slice all of your onions - and your shallot! not necessary, but its as ubiquitous in French cooking as garlic is in ours, and it really does good things to any savory recipe - into fairly thin rings and turn your heavy bottomed metal pot on a medium high heat.

3. Once its hot, throw in the butter and the onion rings and stir every 2-3 minutes until there is lots of nice browning and the onions have gone limp. Sprinkle the flour over top, stir in and cook for another couple minutes. Then, pour in the milk and the cream, just a big splash at a time, and using your wooden spoon to rub some of the yummy brown off the bottom of the pan. Stop adding the milk/cream when it is as creamy as you'd like it. You can leave it on the heat until it is the thickness you'd like. Salt and pepper.

*probably, the milk is completely optional...

4. Pour the onions into the cooked crust, pour grated cheese over top if you're using it, and pop it back in the oven for about 30 minutes.

Really, seriously a rich dinner. Salad goes nicely with...

Crème Vanille

Kind of a re-post, as the recipe is almost the same as crème chocolat and crème caramel... but "same same but different," no? Besides, its the details that make a recipe good.

1/2 liter milk
80g vanilla sugar
(use regular sugar if you must, but the more vanilla you pack in, the richer the flavor!)
1 stick of vanilla
1 heaping tsp corn starch
1 egg

~makes 4 servings~

*Slice the vanilla stick in half lengthwise and scrape the vanilla grains into the milk (these grains are what give french vanilla ice cream, for example, those little black specks. Personally, I'm not a fan of the ice cream, but it makes such a better flavor than vanilla concentrate!)

*Add the sugar to the milk and throw in the stick of vanilla that you just scraped. Heat this just enough to dissolve the sugar.

*Cool the milk. Whisk together the corn starch and the egg until there are no lumps

*While continuously whisking the egg mixture, add the milk mixture, pour in a small splash of the milk mixture. If this doesn't leave lumps you can continue to add the milk, a splash at a time until the color is more white than yellow. This is meant to bring the egg up to the temperature of the milk without cooking the egg, leaving scrambled-egg looking lumps in your crème.

*Once all the milk is added, put the entire mixture back over a medium heat and continue to whisk gently. At this point the crème feels more like milk as you stir, giving easily and even splashing. Over the next 5-10 minutes there will be a slow but very noticeable thickening of the mixture into a crème.

*When a wooden spoon dipped into the crème comes out with a coating on it, and when running your finger over this coating leaves a clearly defined track, it is well thickened. Of course, you can leave it on the heat more or less as you like, but it will start to lump if you leave it for too long.

*Pour into serving containers (individual cups, or one big bowl, as you like) and let cool to room temperature before moving to the refrigerator to set.

Yogurt: Crème de Marron and Yogurt Tatin

Last week I finally broke down and bought a cuisinart yogurt maker and fromagerie (cheese maker)!!!! Begin frantic cooking.

The recipe for making yogurt at home stays pretty constant, though you have your choice of starters ranging from one cup of industrial yogurt to packets of powdered "yogurt starter." ...and then there are your thickeners, which vary from powdered milk to rennet or magnesium clorate (ide?) to absolutely nothing. But the recipe remains: sterilized milk, a starter stirred in, keep warm for about 8 hours, refrigerate.

But that simple line "keep warm for about 8 hours" can be a pain. I've tried wrapping the bowls in towels, heating pads, leaving the pots in the oven with only the pilot light on. I find them all fairly troublesome, especially when there are appliances that will do it for you. They are available for as cheap as ten bucks, but I opted for the nicer cuisinart because it has a probe to keep a constant temperature AND I can now make various soft cheeses!

The cooked-and-caramelized apples in this recipe are generally considered "apple pie" in the US and "tatin" here in France. Basically it is the same simmer-butter-and-apples, add-sugar-to-caramelize process, but with different crusts and reputations in the two countries. In the US its "down home" or "classic" american, while here it is almost gourmet. Heaven in a crepe... Either way, learning to make the simple basic recipe is SO useful because it can be thrown into so many different desert crusts, cakes, or simply thrown in with yogurt or whipped cream.

The Crème de Marron is another French specialty that these days, most people buy in cans. Marron is actually chestnuts, so this is a sweet paste of chestnuts, and yes, you really can roast them on an open fire. But oh do I suggest making this confection instead. The best part is you can preserve it like jelly etc., and have a year long supply! Thats my plan, but this was just from the first batch, so the blog post will come with the next round. sorry :)

So here we go: this is the recipe that fills my 6 125ml yogurt pots. Increase or decrease to fit what you are using!
The Caramelized Apples
makes just enough to cover the bottom of 2 or 3 yogurt cups. multiply as you like.

1 apple
1 generous pad of butter
about 1/3 cup sugar, brown preferred (it doesn't burn as easily)
a packet of vanilla sugar
dash of cinnamon

*The vanilla sugar is not necessary, but its a great addition to many desert recipes. If they don't sell it where you are you can make it yourself simply by keeping a separate jar of sugar in the pantry with a stick of vanilla in it. You end up with vanilla flavored sugar, which is great for absolutely anything you can think of. Coffee and cakes included.

1. peel and cut up the apple and put it in a pot over medium high heat with the butter. The apple will start to cook down after a few minutes, softening

2. sprinkle sugar over top (including vanilla sugar) and stir in, watching carefully after this point so that you don't burn the sugar. Not only does it stink if you burn it, it sucks to clean. Add the cinnamon. The sugar will start to "blond," which means it is caramelizing

*NOTE: the more sugar you add, the more caramel you will have with your apples. Also, I choose not to use it, but some corn syrup will help keep it soft and gooey and not burnt.

3. at this point, it takes more experience than actual directions to know when it is done (I am sadly not quite adept at this, yet, and often burn my caramel... oh well) but it seems to go a lot smoother with the butter and apples than plain caramel does. The apples will start to puff up and make a slight whining sound like when you sautée potatoes and the inside will soften.

4. when you deem the sugar duly caramelized, the apples duly cooked, and the flavors properly melded, its done! This took about 10 or 15 minutes for my one apple.

Crème de Marron: post coming soon.

Pots of Yogurt

My yogurt maker has 6 pots that come with it, so I put a scoop of the caramelized apples in each of 3, and crème de marron in the other 3.

The yogurt, I must say, is extremely simple once you get the method.

1/2 liter of UHT milk
1 cup of previously made yogurt, homemade or bought
sweetener of choice; I used a couple spoonfuls of sweetened condensed milk
firming agent of choice (not necessary, read online for options. The easiest is a bit of powdered milk or a couple drops of rennet)

NOTE: a quick word on the milk choice. At first I was upset that they didn't have much fresh milk here in France for making yogurt, but it turns out UHT milk is WAY easier. Fresh milk you have to heat to almost boiling to sterilize, and make sure to sterilize all your utensils as well. In addition, it is more prone to leaving pockets of whey in the yogurt and a skin on top.

UHT milk you can buy and use at room temperature with no heating or cooking involved, skipping all of the sterilization, and the product is often more firm! Plus no grose skin on top.

Stir. Pour in the pots, on top of the marron and tatin, place in yogurt maker (or warm oven etc.) for 8 hours. Refrigerate for at least 2 hours before eating as they will continue to firm.

Voilà!!

Chocolate Rice Pudding

Ingredients:
80g sugar
200g milk chocolate (150g will do it for most, but Estelle's husband is a fool for that rich chocolate flavor)
1L milk
100g rice
~ I'd love to try this recipe with sushi rice! Just think... those imagine the thick morsels drenched in chocolate...)

Utensils:
Pan, wooden spoon, serving size containers (I guess you could use a larger pan and scoop out servings, but the way the rice settles, its nice to have your own little cup. You can use recycled tomato sauce jars or whatever you have around.)

1.Heat the first three over medium heat to melt the chocolate and sugar, and then turn the flame way, way down.

2.Rinse the rice 3 times in warm water for good Iranian sufi love, drain as well as you can wet rice and add to the mix.

3.Heat for about 45 minutes, stirring every 10 minutes or so to keep the rice from sticking together at the bottom

4.Pour into serving size containers and refrigerate to let it cool and set before serving.

Pictures to come!

**Note** whole grain rice kills this recipe...

Hachis Parmentier Olivier

This blog is seriously lacking in main dishes etc.. long live sugar!

A traditional french dish that it seems is usually made with beef, but Olivier had some "good turkey breast" that his mother had brought from her province. The potato puree that starts the dish, he says, is "key!"

Steps:
1.Cook and shread meat
2.Make purée
3.Cover with grated swiss cheese
4.Bake

Meat:
*cook in butter in the form that is best for your chosen meat, in form of your choice and cut/chop/pull/cut into small pieces

Purée
ingredients:
3 small potatoes per person, plus two
save the water when you boil them
tons of butter
Parsley and Chives (persille et ciboulette)
extra virgin olive oil


*Boil potatoes, which is made much easier by a pressure cooker
*Mash (écrase) the potatoes with the liquid from boiling them (more flavor! always a plus)
**DONT USE MILK
*Add a bunch of butter (60g when he made this large casserole)
*stir in the parsley, chives and meat (mélange)
*more butter (40g this time)
*drizzle with olive oil

*Cover with grated swiss cheese (gruyere rapée)

*Bake at 225C for 15 minutes

Pâte Sablée, Sandy Crust

#2 in the french crust series: Sandy Crust

150g flour
20g sugar
~100? 80? g butter

1 egg yolk
water until the dough is malleable

mix
knead
roll out on wax paper
(it will stay crumbly)
put in mold
poke with a fork
200C for about 25 minutes if filling with an uncooked filling

good for chocolate tarte, apple tart

la Crème au Chocolat

diiiiiiivine

1 L milk
200g dark chocolate
80g sugar

40g corn starch
2 eggs

1~ Heat the first 3 ingredients over med low heat, melting the chocolate.
2~ Blend well the corn starch and eggs and pour into the milk mixture JUST as it gets hot, but BEFORE it boils. In this way, you DONT COOK THE EGGS
3~ From the moment you add the egg-starch mixture you MUST keep stirring until you turn off the heat at the end. If not, zoo vill COOK THE EGGS
4~ Continue until it is welllll thickened, turn off the heat, and pour into your serving size containers. Let cool until room temperature, then throw in the fridge.

Note: this makes kind of a lot of crème... a half recipe will do for most occasions!

Tarte Tatin

#2 of Essential French Deserts

Ingredients:
1 Pie Crust
~ don't press it into a mold, this will be something like an upside down cake
Bunches and bunches of apples, depending on size...
butter and sugar
cream for on top (or vanilla ice cream, anyone?)

1* Peel and quarter apples
2* Using a pie pan on your stove (probably should be a gas stove) melt a big clump of butter and place apples with their rounded side down in the pan.
~ Use LOTS and LOTS of apples here, because they will shrink as they cook and you want a completely packed top of apples when you finish. See pictures
3* Sprinkle with sugar, cover, and let caramelize. This could take a while, maybe 20 minutes or so. Watch and see when they soften and there is caramel that collects in the bottom
4* Preheat oven to 225 C
5* When the apples are ready, put the crust on top of all of this, tucking in the edges if needed
6* Bake for 25 minutes
7* Before the caramel hardens to the bottom, flip the pie onto your serving plate, observing how I was right to tell you to use lots of apples.
8* Eat with sugared cream on top!

Beurre Blanc

An intensely buttery sauce. Perfectly Parisian, and perfect for company.
Probably you will never make this, one because it is hard to do and not healthy, but also because it requires a very specific instrument that apparently is no longer in production...

*Cut into slices 250g butter and set aside to soften for a few hours

*Dice 3-4 shallots (we only had 2 last time and added a small onion, I liked it better, I think!) and put them in a sauce pan

*Add just enough liquid to cover them and make them float, using half red wine vinegar and half water.

*Simmer on very low heat just until all the liquid is gone. Place in your fancy french sauce making machine that is no longer in production...

Yes, I know I am giving you an impossible recipe, but oh it is so good! Maybe one day...

NOTE: This sauce should be made at the very last second possible before serving, so if you need to you can stop here and this can sit until you are ready

*Turn on your saucerie and when it is warm (eschalots already added) add the butter one strip at a time, waiting until the last is completely melted before adding another.

Eat over steamed white fish!