An Honest Tarte Tartin...

The end result!

Something from Tuesday evening - Why a Tarte Tartin I hear you ask. Well, having seen the contestants on Celebrity Masterchef last week make a bit of a hash of it I uttered the words beloved of insurance companies everywhere…”How hard can it be?”

After all, caramel, apples, pastry, oven...nothing to it is there?

Well the answer to the question is not as hard as some of them made it look, but, not quite as easy as I thought it would be either…

To start off we need to make some caramel. Fine thinks I. Frying pan, 3 tablespoons or so of water and then add 150g caster sugar. Mix the sugar into the water and then gently heat until the mixture starts to caramelise. Mistake number 1: If you are going to add cinnamon, don’t do it now as the mix instantly turns a caramel colour and you can’t tell what the sugar is doing… Anyway, unable to see what it was doing I kept it on the heat stirring it to try and see when it got to the right consistency. What happened - the sugar crystalized all of a sudden. I assumed I had let it get a bit too dry so added some apple brandy to the pan and most of the sugar did seem to dissolve again. Mistake number 2 and disaster averted (a point to which I will return).

At this point off the heat and add the slices of apple to the pan. I suspect that apples such as Cox’s or Granny Smith would probably work best but I used what I happened to have (Mistake number 3), a mix of 2 overly ripe Braeburns and 2 Pink Ladies. In hindsight something a little less juicy would have been better. Try to arrange the apple slices neatly as they will be seen remember! (Mistake number 4).

Once done add the pastry on top of the apples. I used puff pastry from the supermarket but you can use shortcrust or even make your own if you are feeling daring! Once the pastry is in place put it in the oven (190C for 30 mins or until the pastry is golden).

So, at this point I’m feeling fairly smug; caramel rescued, cinnamon to go with the apples and a boozy little kick from the apple brandy. Sounds good to me anyway. So, having got it in the oven in the nick of time I could sit down and watch Great British Bake Off (I promise I don’t just watch cookery shows). First thing they have to make: Tarte Tartin! OK, lets see how they do? Some of them looked divine, others...not quite so sure. That said I’m not feeling quite so smug anymore as Paul Hollywood explains to one of the contestants that the reason their sugar crystalized is because they were stirring it. Apparently you just give an initial stir to mix the sugar and water, after that leave it alone!

You stand accused of stirring the sugar...How do you plead? Guilty M’Lud…

Anyway, 30 minutes is up and I get it out of the oven. Pastry looks nicely looked, certainly smells good. Get a plate over the pan and quickly turn it over...and dribble hot, runny caramel over the worktop. Could have been worse - could have been my foot and at least all this caramel (which I presume has come from the juicy apples) has dissolved all the sugar. The other problem is that this liquid is now turing what was a nice crispy top into a soggy bottom!

So why am I blogging this? Well, I’m not a professional chef and I don’t claim to be perfect in a kitchen. Secondly, you can learn from my mistakes. Thirdly, despite the above, it tasted great - lovely caramel apples, cinnamon and a bit of warmth off the brandy. So what if the pastry had gone a bit soggy, I still enjoyed it!

So, what would I do differently next time?

• Add the cinnamon later…
• Don’t stir the sugar…
• Less juicy apples and, having done a bit more reading, slice them the day before so they then can dry out a bit in the fridge. yes they will discolour but you won’t see that once cooked in the caramel...
• Arrange the apples nicely...

Bakewell Muffins

I'm putting this post up as a friend has asked for the recipe. Unfortunately, I haven't made these for a while (and a diet means I'm unlikely to in the near future) so no photos, but, hopefully the explanation will be clear enough.

The idea was for a muffin which played upon the idea of a Bakewell Tart or Pudding. i.e. an almond and raspberry muffin. The basic almond muffin was based upon a recipe off the WWW but I can't remember where I found it now to credit it. Sorry. Anyway, here is the recipe:


Ingredients:
(for 12 muffins)

250g plain flour
120g granulated sugar
100g ground almonds
2 tsp baking powder
½ tsp bicarbonate of soda
½ tsp salt
250mls milk
90 mls corn oil
2 tsp almond essence
1 egg
~3 tbsp raspberry jam
100g white chocolate

Method:

1) Mix together the flour, sugar, almonds, baking powder, bicarbonate of soda and salt.
2) In a separate bowl beat the egg and stir in the milk, almond flavoring and corn oil. Mix well.
3) Combine the wet and dry ingredients until evenly mixed.
4) Line a muffin tray with paper cases. Use half the mix to cover the bottom of each muffin case.
5) Put a small blob of raspberry jam in the middle of each muffin case on top of the mix that is already there. About a ½ tsp per muffin.
6) Use the rest of the muffin mix to fill the cases ensuring the jam is covered.
7) Put in a preheated oven at 200C for 20-25 minutes.
8) Place on a rack to cool.
9) When cool they are read for the topping. Place the chocolate in a ban marie and gently melt. Once melted put a blob on each muffin and spread evenly over the top. Allow the chocolate to cool and set again.
10) Eat and enjoy!


Hopefully I've not offended any Bakewell Tart or Pudding purists. This isn't meant to be "authentic", merely a really good muffin that has been inspired by the real thing.

A Croque-Madame…

Croque-Madame

...my take on a French classic. The croque-madame is one of many variants of the traditional croque-monsieur, a grilled ham and cheese sandwich (typically with a béchamel on top). 

Now, my version isn’t exactly grilled...or a sandwich...I suppose if I was going to get cheffy about it I would call it a deconstructed croque-madame as I have taken the elements and put them together my way. Whatever you want to call it, it is also the most decadent and indulgent breakfast going!

The first thing to do it get a béchamel going. For this dish I keep it really simple. Large knob of butter and a tablespoon of flour to make a roux and while stirring slowly add milk until you get a thick but pourable sauce. Pinch of black pepper and the sauce is done. Keep it on a very low heat to keep it warm and give it an occasional stir while making the rest of the dish. Do keep an eye on the sauce though as you may well need to add a dash more milk at some point to save it thickening up too much (which is what happened to me with this one).

Next up is the toast. Take a couple of slices of thick white bread (possibly the only time I will recommend using a sliced white), cut the crusts off and butter it liberally on both sides. Get a hot frying pan and fry off the bread on both slides. It needs to be hot to get the bread nice and crispy. Remember “croque” comes from “croquer” - “to crunch” so it needs to be crispy!

Put the toast on a oven proof plate, put some sliced ham on top of the toast along with a little bit of grated cheese and then put this in the oven at 100C to keep it hot and start melting the cheese.

Back to the frying pan. Add a little vegetable oil and then fry a couple of eggs. If you like your yolks runny (and, frankly, is there any other way) fry them until they are just cooked.

Quickly get the plate out of the oven (turn the oven up to 200C at this point) and put the eggs on top of the cheese and ham. Then pour the béchamel over the top and put back in the oven for 5 minutes.

Out of the oven and serve. Pure indulgence on a breakfast plate.

Fish Pie and Béchamel Sauce.

Fish pie - I don’t know about any one else but this is indulgent comfort food for me. One of those lovely warm comforting dishes that is just great on a cold day. This is my generic fish pic recipe and will vary slightly each time depending on what ingredients I’ve got at the time. It’s actually quite simple, even though I know some people break out in a cold sweat at the mention of words like “Béchamel”.

I’ll describe the Béchamel sauce first then go on to describe how I do the fish pie.

Béchamel is one of Escoffier’s five mother sauces of French cuisine. Start off with a saucepan of milk and add a quartered onion and a few cloves. Bring to the boil and then simmer for 20 minutes. Strain out the onion and cloves and keep the milk to one side. In another pan add equal quantities of flour and butter. Mix the flour into the butter as it melts and keep stirring on a low heat for a couple of minutes - you need to cook the flour out but you don’t want it browning. At this point slowly add in the milk whilst continuing to stir the mixture. The ratio of milk to flour and butter will dictate how thick the sauce is - adjust to suit as you prefer. 

Why is this called a mother sauce - whilst it is a sauce in itself, it is also the base for other sauces. Add some grated cheese to your Béchamel and it becomes a Mornay sauce for example.

Fiddly - maybe, but I think it is worth the effort.

Difficult - No!

Right, onto the fish pie. I’m not giving out any specific quantities as they will vary depending on the size of your pie dish and how many people you are cooking for. And, to be honest, I only measured out one thing at the beginning - I three quarter filled the pie dish with milk in order to see how much sauce I needed. That milk then went in a saucepan for the Béchamel.

Next, add some veg to the bottom of the dish. Yes, you read that correctly, vegetables! I like to add a bit of colour and texture and it makes the pie more of a complete meal in itself. Usually this will be some peas and a carrot which has been diced up into ~ ½ cm cubes. On top of this put the fish - put enough to cover the bottom of the dish and vegetables. Here you can use any fish you like. In this case I used some haddock, salmon and smocked pollock and then put the rest of the vegetables on top along with the onion I had strained out of the béchamel (remember to throw the cloves away though - don’t add them to the pie!).

Pour your Béchamel sauce over the top and give the dish a few gentle taps on the work top to make sure the sauce distributes evenly. Finally add mashed potato over the top of the sauce - just try not to make it too “thin” as I did here - bit too much milk added hence the way it looks. Whoops! Still, no one’s perfect and it tasted good.

Now just pop it in the oven. 45 minutes, 180C Fan and enjoy.

Ingredients:

Bechamel:

Milk

Onion

Cloves

Butter

Plain flour.

Fish Pie:

Fish (I used salmon, haddock and smoked pollock here but use whatever you like. Cod, prawns also work well)

Veg - your choice but I find peas and a diced carrot work well.

Béchamel sauce

Mashed potato