Quick French Berry Tart

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So, the church was having a Pie Judging Contest, and my husband said, “Why don’t we bring a French pie–a French tart?”  Ever one to encourage individualism, especially at church, I agreed.

So we got busy and I made the tart crust (from the French Pear Tart recipe, found on this site), then the almond cream, because that was oh-so-delicious.  We picked up some raspberries, blackberries and blueberries on sale at our local grocer’s and carefully placed them all around.  A trip to another store and we found the red currant jelly for the glaze (recipe follows) and we carefully toted this off to the church social.

For some reason, it was awful. So, take two.

This time we followed Dorie Greenspan’s directions (recipe is from her book  Baking: From My Home to Yours–buy it!!)  and used the Pastry Cream for the filling, then put on our berries and glazed it.  Divine!  It was so good, we had to share it, so we delivered a plate to a friends who’d had a death in their family, a plate to our pastor (we call him a Bishop) and a plate to the woman (and her husband) who’d organized the church social.  Besides, we COULDN’T have all this yummy tart around–we’d eat it all.

Ingredients for French Berry Tart
We used two 6-oz containers of raspberries, one 6 oz-container each of blueberries and blackberries.  Taste your blackberries first to make sure they are young and tender–not all seedy and crunchy-ish (ick).
9-10 inch tart shell made with Sweet Tart Dough (see earlier post)
1 1/2 cups Pastry Cream, recipe follows (see note about quantity used)
1/3 cup red currant jelly mixed with 1 teaspoon water, for glazing

Smooth the pastry cream by giving it a couple of strong turns with a whisk.  Spoon enough of the pastry cream into the tart crust to come almost to the rim, then even the surface with a rubber spatula.  Carefully lay the berries on the cream.

[Dave’s method: place the raspberries about 1″ apart all over the surface.  Fill in with the blackberries.  Fill in, again, with the blueberries.]  If you are using strawberries, either halve them from top to bottom or slice them, depending on the size of the berries and your whim.

Bring the jelly and the water to a boil in a microwave oven or on the stovetop.  Working with a pastry brush, dab each berry with a spot of jelly, or glaze the entire surface of the tart, including the bit of pastry cream that peeks through the berries.

Pastry Cream
This makes two cups–you can pile it all on one tart (we did) or split it into two and make two tarts.  It keeps, tightly covered,  for up to three days in the refrigerator.

2 cups whole milk
6 large egg yolks
1/2 cup sugar
1/3 cup cornstarch, sifted (I didn’t)
1 1/2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
3 1/2 tablespoons butter, cut into bits, at room temperature

Bring the milk to boil in a small saucepan, stirring so it doesn’t scorch.

Meanwhile, in a medium heavy-bottomed saucepan, whisk the yolks together with the sugar and cornstarch until thick and well blended.  Still whisking, drizzle in a bout 1/4 cup of the hold milk–this will temper, or warm, the yolks so they won’t curdle.  Whisking all the while, slowly pour in the remainder of the milk.  Put the pan over medium heat and, whisking vigorously, constantly and thoroughly (making sure to get the edges of the pot), bring the mixture to a boil.  Keep at a boil, still whisking for 1 to 2 minutes, then remove the pan from the heat.  [Note: ours thickened up mightily at this point, so we jumped ahead.]

Whisk in the vanilla extract.  Let sit for 5 minutes, then whisk in the bits of butter, stirring until they are fully incorporated and the pastry cream is smooth silky.  Scrape the cream into a bowl.  You can press a piece of plastic wrap against the surface of the cream to create an airtight seal and refrigerate the pastry cream until cold or, if you want to cool it quickly,–as I always do–put th ebowl into a larger bowl filled with ice cubes and cold water, and stir the pastry cream occasionally until it is thoroughly chilled, about 20 minutes.

Halibut Steaks with Creamy Saffron Sauce

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When I was in high school, our Spanish teacher, Miss Azevedo, corralled the class to join her at another teacher’s house for some real paella.  She’d provide the ingredients, one of which was saffron.  We talked about this spice as she stood and stirred the seafood, the broth and the rice together, and she admitted that she couldn’t afford the REAL saffron.  Instead she had a packet of “fake” saffron that she’d bought in Spain on her last trip home and brought it back with her.

That idea–that saffron was expensive beyond belief–stuck with me for more than 40 years.  This belief was confirmed by sightings of jars of saffron in the store–a regular sized jar with a thread or two of saffron for a whopping price.  It never made it into my spice cupboard, until one day in Trader Joe’s I saw Spanish saffron in a small jar with a cork for a lid at a very affordable price.  I bought two.

So when I went hunting for a new recipe to make tonight with my frozen Costco halibut steaks, I found this in Mark Bittman’s book How to Cook Everything. Creamy Saffron Sauce.  Given that I was now the proud possessor of some actual saffron threads (as well as having leftover Greek yogurt from dinner at the beginning of the week) I was in business.  We enjoyed it–hope you will too, as it’s another quick and easy dinner.

Sauce:
1 cup yogurt, preferable whole milk
salt and freshly ground pepper
small pinch cayenne pepper
1 shallot, minced
1/2 teaspoon saffron threads
Juice of 1/2 lemon, or more to taste (roughly 1-2 Tablespoons)

In a small bowl, whisk the yogurt with some salt and pepper, the cayenne and the shallot.  Rub the saffron threads between your fingers to crush them, then stir it into the yogurt miexture.  Let sit for about 20 minutes.  [It’s like watching a Polaroid photo develop–the sauce starts to turn this fabulousy yummy shade of yellow from the saffron.  I kept giving it a whisk or two to help it along.]  Alternatively you can let it sit for up to 2 hours in the refridgerator.  Just before serving, add the lemon juice, then taste and adjust the seasoning.  It mainly needed more salt, in my estimation.

Halibut:
2 halibut steaks (about 3/4 pound)
1 tablespoon butter
1 tablespoon olive oil

If halibut is frozen, let thaw, then rinse and pat dry.
Sprinkle the halibut with salt and pepper.  Put the butter and olive oil in a large [nonstick] skillet over medium heat.  When the butter melts, swirl it around the pan, then add the fish and cook gently, turning once or twice until a thin-bladed knife meets little resistance when inserted into the thickest part; this weill generally be less than 10 minutes.

Note: we served this with Baked Asparagus and Pearl Couscous with Pine Nuts and Sultanas.

Baked Asparagus

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Sorry I don’t have a picture of the asparagus all on its own, but I forgot to take a photo.  But here’s what it looks like when I served it with Halibut Steaks with Creamy Saffron Sauce.

Rinse your bundles of asparagus until cool water, then lay on some paper towels to drain.  Snap off the ends, placing your hands close to the end of the stalk so as not to snap off too much.  It should naturally break where it needs to most of the time.  Don’t be alarmed if it goes higher.  If the asparagus is thick, use a vegetable peeler and peel off the outer skin on the lower edges, as shown.  It also provides such a lovely green color when they’re cooked.

Place them on a rimmed baking sheet and drizzle with some olive oil.  Grind on some pepper and salt, then slosh them around a little to recoat.

Slide into a 400 degree preheated oven, then turn the temp up to 425 and bake until the stalks are tender, about 10-12 minutes.  Check by seeing if a knife slides in and out easily in the stalk.  Serve immediately, or you can let them cool a bit and serve them room temperature.  This is a nice variation to the steaming, plus the color is much better (I think).

Pearl Couscous with Pine Nuts and Sultanas

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Same dish!  Different position!  It’s so you can see the Pearl Couscous up close, and see the pine nuts and sultanas–which are really just golden raisins.  You can buy all three of these items at Trader Joe’s (my apologies if you don’t have one. . . Mom?  Let me know and I’ll send you some).

Look for this box.  It’s called “Israeli Couscous” on the box, but I knew if I put that in a post, I’d be deluged with spam–not the eating kind.  Next to it is a bag of Toasted Pignolias (toasted pinenuts).  Don’t buy the un-toasted kind–this is so much better.

Ingredients:
1 8 oz. box pearl couscous, aka Israeli Couscous
1 shallot, finely minced
1 tablespoon butter
1 tablespoon olive oil
handful (about 1/4 to 1/3 cup) of pinenuts (can substitute shelled pistachios if you like)
handful of sultanas (golden raisins–I buy those at Trader Joe’s as well–much fresher)
1 can chicken broth (about 1  3/4 cup)

Melt the butter and olive oil together in a medium pan over medium heat.  Add the finely minced shallot and stir until tender, but not brown.  Add the package of couscous, stirring for 1-2 minutes until it is well coated and blended with the shallots.  Pour in a can of chicken broth, cover with a lid, and simmer over low heat for about 10-12 minutes until pearl couscous is tender.  You may need an extra minute or two–taste to see if it’s ready.

When couscous is tender, stir in the sultanas and the pinenuts, and recover for another 2-3 minutes (approx) until the raisins plump up and look integral to the mixture.  Yield: About 4 servings.

Memorial Day Barbecue, 2010

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The morning of Memorial Day found us out on the median of a major street, waving flags and cheering on the riders in West Coast Thunder 2010 as they rode up to our local VA cemetery.  We’ve tried to do this every since experiencing the rush of East Coast Rolling Thunder while we lived in DC.

Some of our neighbors were there, and on the spur of the moment, I invited them to a barbecue later that afternoon.  This was a good thing: I had to actually prepare a dinner, and we had to sweep the patio and wash off the outside furniture–items that we’d always been more than happy to put off for later.

The menu was:
Grilled Chicken Breasts in Spiced Yogurt
Lemony Potato Salad
Tossed Green Salad
Fennel Salad with Mint Vinaigrette
Corn on the Cob

and for dessert our friends brought Texas Sheet Cake.

Click on the links to head to the recipes.  To make corn on the cob, buy fresh corn.  Shuck it, rinsing off the silks.  Bring a pot of water to boil, drop in the corn and TURN IT OFF.  Set the timer for 4 minutes, take out the corn and slick it down with butter.  Pass salt and pepper at the table.  My dad bought me these nifty corn holders.  They nest into each other in the drawer so you aren’t stabbing yourself when you rummage around in there.  Yes, I retired the old holders.

There are a billion recipes for Texas Sheet Cake on the web, as it’s been around for upteem years.  That’s why it made me laugh when Pioneer Woman claimed if for her own.  Yeah, right.  Like you can claim this one. Follow her recipe, but instead of *milk* in the frosting, use *buttermilk.*  Then it’s correct.  We’re also a walnut-loving  family–so we use those instead of pecans.

Lemony Potato Salad

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Sometimes before I have to start cooking dinner, I’ll lazily browse through the website Epicurious.com, as it’s easier than browsing through all my Gourmet cookbooks, and the website has pictures.  This recipe is credited to an Ian Knauer, first published in Gourmet in July 2009.

I’d tucked this recipe away, saving it for a day I was intent on barbecuing–thinking it would be a nice addition to a summer meal.  The only thing I have to say about this is it takes more salt to balance the flavors than you think.  I’d also put the salt shaker on the table, even though we’re not supposed to in this day and age. I’d also cut back on the chopped celery to 3/4 cup.  A bit too much, if you ask me.

The flavor of this is light–not heavy–made even lighter by the use of Light Mayonnaise (NOT the Low-fat variety–ick!), although I’m sure that’s sacrilegious in some households (Dad?).  If you decide to go this way, look for the blue lid and blue label.  It’s tastes pretty close to the original, with less of the nasty stuff.

Yield: Makes 8 servings

Active Time: 15 min, Total Time: 45 min

Ingredients
3 pounds small boiling potatoes
1 cup chopped celery (about 4 ribs–again, I’d use only 3 ribs)
1/2 cup mayonnaise
1/4 cup finely chopped chives
1 teaspoon grated lemon zest
2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
1 teaspoon sugar
1 teaspoon salt
3/4 teaspoon pepper

Preparation
Cover potatoes with water in a large pot and season well with salt. Bring to a boil, then simmer until tender, 12 to 20 minutes.  While potatoes cook, stir together celery, mayonnaise, chives, lemon zest and juice, sugar, salt, and pepper in a large bowl.  Drain potatoes and cool completely, then halve or quarter. Add to dressing and toss to coat.

NOTE: I chunked up the potatoes before I cooked them, cutting them into pieces as shown above in the photo.  The trick to not having your potatoes fall apart, I think, is not BOILING them at a full boil overly long. Just SIMMER them, barely bubbling.  Mine cooked in about 12 minutes after they came to a boil; yours may take longer.

Gourmet says that the potato salad can be made 1 day ahead and chilled. Bring to room temperature before serving.  (Just be cautious about leaving out the mayo-based food for too long; food poisoning, you know.)

Grilled Chicken Breasts in Spiced Yogurt

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Sometimes I’ll got looking on the Epicurious website for quick recipes that are flavorful.  This is one of them, originally published in Gourmet magazine in August 2004.  I was trying to find another marinated chicken, one I’d made before, but couldn’t.  This one is just as good as the other that is now lost forever to the vagaries of the internet.  But it is quick: just whisk together the marinade, then while the chicken is marinating, stir up the yogurt-sauce topping and the mint “salad.”  Yep, I thought it was a strange name too–it’s really just a garnish for the chicken.  See the Memorial Day Barbecue post for how the whole thing looks with the sauce and the garnish on top.

Active time: 15 min Start to finish: 35 min

Yield: Makes 6 servings

Ingredients
2 cups plain yogurt (16 oz; preferably whole-milk–I used the thicker Greek yogurt and it was delicious)
3 tablespoons olive oil
2 1/2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
2 teaspoons salt
2 teaspoons chili powder
3/4 teaspoon ground cumin
3/4 teaspoon ground coriander
3/4 teaspoon black pepper
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
shake of cayenne pepper
6 skinless boneless chicken breast halves (2 1/4 to 2 1/2 lb total)
1 cup small fresh mint leaves
2 tablespoons minced shallot

Preparation

Whisk together 1 cup yogurt, 2 tablespoons oil, 1 tablespoon lemon juice, salt, and spices, then add chicken and turn until coated well. Marinate at room temperature 20 minutes.

While chicken is marinating, prepare grill for cooking. If using a charcoal grill, open vents on bottom of grill, then light charcoal. Charcoal fire is medium-hot when you can hold your hand 5 inches above rack for 3 to 4 seconds. If using a gas grill, preheat burners on high, covered, 10 minutes, then reduce heat to moderate.

While grill is heating, whisk together remaining 1 cup yogurt and 1 1/2 tablespoons lemon juice and salt to taste.  (I was like, yeah–how do I know how this is supposed to taste like?  But I just added some salt, and tasted it, then added some more.  You really can figure it out–it’s a balance.)

Grill chicken (discard marinade), covered only if using gas grill, on lightly oiled grill rack, turning over occasionally, until just cooked through, 10 to 12 minutes total. Transfer chicken to a platter.

Toss together mint, shallot, and remaining tablespoon oil in a small bowl. Drizzle chicken with yogurt sauce and top with mint “salad.”  Toppings are shown to the left.

Cooks’ note:
If you aren’t able to grill outdoors, chicken can be cooked in a hot lightly oiled well-seasoned large ridged grill pan over moderate heat.

Tossed Green Salad, 2010

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Part of our Memorial Day dinner was this salad, with LOTS of vegetables in it.  You can’t really taste the “secret additions,” but it adds crunch, texture and moisture to a standard tossed green salad.  I learned to add these while in Italy, staying at an Albergo, or hotel, on Lake Maggiore that had a restaurant attached.  Actually I should say the hotel was attached to the restaurant, because the food side of things had been going strong for about 120 years (the hotel had been built only a few years earlier).

So, in a large bowl place:
a varitey salad greens, cut into slices rather than torn
Chinese cabbage, sliced very thin, then cut into 2-3″ strips
1/4 zucchini, grated
chopped tomato

I also like adding:
a handful of pinenuts
a handful of craisins
some croutons

Toss with tongs (or your clean hands) to mix all the ingredients.

Then, over the top, pour anywhere from 3 Tablespoons to 6 Tablespoons olive oil, depending on the size of the salad you are making.  The one above, for 4-6 people, had about 1/4 cup oil drizzled over the top.

Give several shakes of red wine vinegar over the top of that.  Then grind on some salt–6-7 grinds (don’t skimp on this–it interacts with the vinegar to made it really yummy) and then grind on some pepper.

Toss it all again to coat the leaves.

I know we all used to use balsamic vinegar, but unfortunately the balsamic vinegars I can afford are much too strong, so I found the red wine vinegar to be a good substitute.  Now if your budget allows for the $15/bottle balsamics, use that instead.

Fennel Salad with Mint Vinaigrette

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I found this on the Simply Recipes website.  They are in my Google Reader and this recipe popped up a couple of days ago.  This morning, when in the grocery store, I saw some fennel (also known as “anise”) and decided to make this.  It was a great complement to the other items we served.  It’s also EASY, if you use a good quality sharp knife to cut the fennel.  I upped the sugar and lemon juice slightly from the original recipe; changes are below.

Ingredients
1 large fennel bulb (or 2 medium bulbs)
2 teaspoons sugar
3 Tbsp lemon juice
1/4 cup olive oil
1/2 teaspoon mustard
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 Tbsp chopped fresh mint
2 teaspoons minced shallot or onion

Method
Make the vinaigrette. Put the lemon juice, shallot, mustard, salt, sugar and mint in a blender and pulse briefly to combine. With the motor running, drizzle in the olive oil until it is well combined.

Using a mandoline, shave the fennel into 1/8 inch slices starting from the bottom of the bulb. Don’t worry about coring the fennel bulb, it’s unnecessary. If you don’t have a mandoline, slice the bulb as thin as you can. Chop some of the fennel fronds as well to toss in with the salad.

Toss with the fennel and marinate for at least an hour. Serve this salad either cold or at room temperature.

Serves 4-6.

Confetti Pasta Salad

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I first tasted a variant of this salad on an airplane in the glory days of airline travel, when they served real food with real utensils in-flight.  I was intrigued with the savory-sweet combo of the spices and onion against the corn kernels, and wanted to reproduce this.  It didn’t seem to really provide that perfect combination of flavors, but I couldn’t figure out what I was missing until my sister Christine came to visit: she added a shake or two of cayenne pepper to the pasta salad.  Eureka!  That was it.

Use Lemon Vinaigrette for your dressing and then gently shake the cayenne over the top of the salad, then blend in. Caution–a little cayenne goes a long way.

Salad:
1/2 lb. (1/2 of a box) orzo (a rice-shaped pasta), cooked and drained–you may need to use a wire mesh strainer instead of a colander to drain (it’s tiny!)
1 can black beans (15 oz.), drained & rinsed
1/2 bag bag frozen WHITE tender corn, approx. 16 ounces
1 red bell pepper, finely diced
1/2 red onion, finely diced (pieces are about 1/4″ size)–roughly 1/2 to 2/3 cup
fresh cilantro leaves, chopped, to yield about 1/3 cup

Place in large bowl: cooked orzo, beans, corn, pepper, onion and cilantro; pour vinaigrette over the top and stir gently.  As you toss it over the salad, add more olive oil if it looks dry. Season with salt, pepper and a small amount of cayenne, gently fold into salad.  Be cautious: you can always add more cayenne.  Sometimes I’ll just sprinkle that over the finished dish instead.

You can serve with grilled chicken breasts (marinate them also in the vinaigrette before cooking); garnish with lettuce leaf.

If you make it ahead and need to refrigerate it, bring it to room temperature to serve.  Serves 4-6 main dish servings.

For a variation: serve with crumbled mild Feta cheese and halved grape tomatoes.