A new take on tart

I didn't waste any time putting my pastry lessons into practice, because soon after, five Wellington food bloggers came to my place for a pot luck Sunday lunch.  Heather brought me this fragrant basket of herbs and lemons from her garden and her own grapefruit marmalade.

The day before, I girded my loins and set about making my own short pastry BY HAND, using Dean Brettschneider's recipe from his terrific new book, Pie (Penguin Books). I took the precaution of buying a commercial packet too, just in case it didn't work - but it did, so well I was incredibly pleased with myself. (One thing did go wrong, but I'll come to that.) And though it took time, it was not difficult.

Basic short pastry 
(pâte brisée)
(My comments are in italics.)

160g standard plan flour
120g butter
good pinch of salt
50ml cold water

Put an ice cube into 50ml of water in a small Pyrex jug, let it melt, then pour out the excess.
The butter should be chilled but not hard. Cut it up into little dice.
Place flour, butter and salt in a large mixing bowl. Using your fingertips, gently rub these ingredients together until they resemble rough breadcrumbs. Do not overmix, otherwise the butter will begin to melt from the heat of your fingers.

Add water and mix until a dough is formed.
(This is a bit unclear - I needed to add enough water so that the crumbs stuck lightly together, put it on the bench then gather it up lightly into a ball of dough.)
Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate for (at least) 30 minutes or overnight.
Gently rework pasty before using, taking care to ensure it remains cold and firm.
On a lightly floured surface, roll out pastry into a sheet about 3mm thick, or as stated in your recipe.

When I rolled it out, the pastry was surprisingly resilient - it didn't crumble or tear easily as I thought short pastry would - so I was a bit worried. I had the oven on ready, so I baked a bit of trimming first as a trail, and was hugely reassured when it came out beautifully light and crisp.





I went ahead and blind baked an oblong tart case using a Swiss roll tin (see previous post for blind baking) and put it carefully away in an airtight box to be filled and baked again in the morning.
Everything worked, EXCEPT that my carefully pressed in sides, sticking up just a little as Sebastien showed us, shrank down. I worked out that I shouldn't have used the fan in the oven - straight "bake" would have been better. Fortunately I put in a shallow filling, so it didn't matter.

For the filling, I adapted the Harriet Harcourt recipe I've already written about here. She doesn't say to blind bake the case first, but I think it works well to do that if there's time. On top of the grainy mustard, instead of potatoes and brie, I spread bits of the roasted garlic I'd made the day before when I baked the case. (You trim the top off a head of garlic, drizzle a bit of olive oil over it, wrap it in foil and leave it in a 200C  oven for 45 minutes, then squeeze out the soft garlic inside - very satisfying.) Then I crumbled over bits of goat's cheese...

....and topped it all with the thyme and the  mixture of eggs and creme fraiche in the original recipe.

With a green salad and French bread, it went down very well. Then we moved on to Lucy's cheeses. with honey and hazelnuts ...

 ...and the four French desserts (sorry, I snapped only three of them - there were also chocolate eclairs!). Of course, we had to sample them all, but there were no complaints about this (as if). I laughed more than I have for ages, it was merveilleuse. Merci!

Getting my goat

What I eat when I'm having dinner on my own varies enormously. The one constant is that I try to work out what I fancy in time to produce it that night.
        On Tuesday I didn't have much in the fridge. There was some bacon, so I considered spaghetti carbonara, but somehow that didn't hit quite the right note. So I went down to the shops to see what spoke to me, and at Gamboni's I saw their goat's cheese, fromage de chèvre, and some tinned cherry tomatoes. A different kind of pasta, then?
         But when I got home I had another idea. How about a light, delicious goat's cheese soufflé? I had a look at the internet and found several recipes, but it was this one that appealed most - especially as I just happened to have a couple of courgettes. From Jan Gardner (who's based at Meola Kitchen in Westmere, Auckland), it was broadcast on Nine to Noon about a year ago.
          I've given the original quantities below, but I halved them. That made me one medium soufflé (I scoffed the lot) and two small ones to reheat later as an entrée for my neighbour and me (not strictly proper, I know, but who cares, they still taste wonderful).

Goat's cheese and zucchini soufflé (slightly adapted from Jan Gardner)
4 zucchini, coarsely grated

Zest of 2 lemons

125g goat cheese, cut into small dice

80g butter

350ml milk, warm

60g plain flour

1 tablespoon cream

1 tablespoon grated Parmesan

salt and pepper

nutmeg

4 eggs, separated - you will need 3 yolks and 4 whites
Tiny pinch of cream of tartar

Set oven to 180°C and butter 6 x 150ml ramekins (or one large soufflé dish, or two medium ones).

Place 20g butter and zucchini into a medium heavy-bottomed saucepan and sauté for 3 minutes. Remove from heat and place mixture in a sieve over a bowl so some of the excess liquid can drain out.

In the same pan, melt the remaining 60g butter over low heat. Off the heat, stir in the flour. Cook, stirring constantly, for 4-5 minutes.  Whisk in warmed milk and stir until it thickens. 

Remove from heat. Stir in zucchini, lemon zest, goat's cheese, cream and Parmesan, and cool for 5 minutes.

Add 3 yolks to mixture, one by one.  Season with salt and pepper and a few gratings of nutmeg.

Whip whites to soft peaks, adding pinch of cream of tartar halfway through. (This is the equivalent of beating the whites in a copper bowl - it helps to hold the air in.) Fold gently into mixture. 
Place in ramekins or straight-sided soufflé dishes and bake 12-15 minutes until firm and puffed, or longer for larger dishes - the soufflé should be well risen and should wobble only very slightly when nudged.
(If in doubt, I stick a very long, thin, warmed knife blade in to see if it comes out clean. It makes a few dishes, but I washed up while it was cooking, so I didn't have to face them afterwards.)
To serve, gently part the souffle into each portion with two large metal spoons.

  As you can see, my larger one didn't rise brilliantly. I think that was partly because I put in the second egg yolk (halving everything, I was using only 2 eggs), and partly because the eggs were a bit small, so there was less egg white than there should have been to raise this much mixture - especially as it was a bit weighed down with the cheese and zucchini. It tasted wonderful all the same - very light and delicate, but completely satisfying (with a bit of good bread and butter on the side). And with the veges neatly built in, I didn't need anything else - except, of course, a glass of wine.