Apple Strumpet

Definitely liking this “Blogger from Word” add-in.  Makes things so much easier, and it seems smart, besides.  It knows it has a conflict with Outlook, and if Outlook is open, won’t open it’s own buttons in Word.  This is a good thing because 1) if I can open Outlook, it means I’m at work, and not only will Outlook be the first thing I open, but I really shouldn’t be blogging at work  and 2) it means that when the buttons are there I can blog and not worry about my browser going on the fritz and losing 45 minutes of me musing about something inane.  

Anyway.  On to the recipe.  I got a new cookbook this week.  I was introduced to this chef’s books while in England, and convinced to buy this particular cookbook through Amazon instead of lugging it home overseas in my suitcase.  It is called Appetite, and it’s by Nigel Slater.  You can find it here, although the Amazon site tells you next to nothing about it, and some of their randomly pulled quotes are quite wrong, out of context.  Anyway – I like Slater because he writes his books to be “real”.  In fact, Appetite is subtitled, “So what do you want to eat today?”  This weekend, I’ve been just reading the beginning of this book and it’s been pages on pages of philosophy of cooking, why not to adhere strictly to recipes, and how to have fun cooking food that you can easily make with whatever you’ve got.  His recipes are more like suggestions – “try a couple handfuls of this and that, and oh by the way, if you happen to have some of these lying around, so much the better, throw them in too”.

So, being that we’d just picked apples last weekend, we have a desperate need to make apple recipes.  And lo and behold – there are several recipes that you can add apples to in Slater’s book.  Here’s the one that we made on Wednesday that was gone by Thursday night!  (And, even the places where you think it sounds impossible, it really does work…  My comments follow in italics.)

A Warm and Crumbly Fruit Tart

Fruit – plums, about 10, or apples or pears, about 7 or 8  I used 8 large Courtland apples.
Butter – 5 tablespoons
Sugar – 6 tablespoons

For the pastry:
Butter – ½ cup (1 stick), cold from the fridge
Flour – 1 ½ cups
Egg Yolk – 1
Sugar – Granulated or confectioners’ – 2 tablespoons  I used confectioners.

You will need a heavy, deep, solid-bottomed metal pie plate or baking pan for this, around 10 inches in diameter.  I have used a metal-handled frying pan before now and it worked a treat.  We have nothing like that, so I used a round, deep-ish, pyrex dish we have.

To make the pastry, cut the butter into small chunks and rub it into the flour with your fingertips.  Stop when the mixture resembles coarse bread crumbs.  Drop in the egg yolk and sugar, and push the ingredients together to form a ball of soft dough.  You may need a little water to achieve this, though it will only be a tablespoon or so.  Much will depend on your flour.  You can do this whole job in a food processor if you are short on time or have no need of the pleasure that comes from making pastry by hand, in which case it will be done in seconds.  Somewhat chastised by this last remark, I used our hand-me-down KitchenAid.  It did require some water, but not more than a couple tablespoons, added very slowly.  Flatten the pastry somewhat, wrap it in wax paper or plastic wrap, and put it in the fridge.  This will allow it to rest.

Heat the oven to 375 degrees F.  Peel the apples or pears, cut them into quarters, and remove their cores.  I had to do eighths because of the size of the apples.  If you are using plums, simply halve and pit them.  Put the metal pie pan, baking pan, or frying pan over a low heat and let the butter and sugar melt in it until they form a rich, honey-hued caramel.  I kept expecting it to get all syrupy, but it didn’t.  Instead, the butter kind of steams off, and the whole thing remains quite granular and starts turning brown.  According to the pictures in the book, though, that’s what happened to him too!  I think it is worth mentioning that the caramel is likely to burn very easily at this point.  Remove from the heat and push the fruit, cut side up, into the caramel.  I then squeezed some puffs of cinnamon on top of the pile of apples.

Roll the pastry out so that it fits the top of the pan.  I can never find a rolling pin and tend to do this with the nearest wine bottle.  I actually had neither at hand so just kind of mashed it out into a rough circle the size of the top of the pan.  Lift the pastry up and place it over the fruit, patching any holes – I find they are inevitable – as you go.  Tuck the edges in between the fruit and the pan and place the tart in the oven, where you should leave it until the pastry is deep golden brown and the caramel and fruit juices are bubbling around the edge.  This will take the best part of an hour, but start checking after forty-five minutes.  You want the pastry to be soft and crumbly, the fruit caught here and there with burnt caramel.  Let the tart cool for a few minutes before you turn it out.

And more…

-Getting it out.  Let the tart cool in its tin for fifteen minutes or so.  This will give the hot juices time to settle.  Place a large plate over the tart and, fully armed with hot oven mitts, quickly turn the whole thing over, holding the plate and tart together firmly.  The tart should slip out onto the plate.  Beware the hot juices.  This is definitely the “no way in hell will this come out cleanly” part, but it did!!

-Getting the fruit to caramelize.  The whole point of this way of cooking a tart is to caramelize the fruit so that it turns appetizingly black here and there.  It is worth remembering that this is easier with apples and pears than it is with fruits that produce a lot of juice, such as plums or rhubarb.  We didn’t actually have ours blackened, but I don’t think it is absolutely necessary.

-On the side.  Traditionally, a pottery bowl of crème fraiche is offered here.  While there is nothing wrong with this, I do think a pitcher of rich cream, sweet and yellow, is somehow more appropriate.  We had some ice cream in the freezer that was a bit too “exciting” to go with the tart, but we scraped out the exciting bits so we had a few spoonfuls of vanilla to eat melting on the hot tart.  Delicious!!