A post-Valentine's Day recipe post
Feb. 15th, 2005 08:32 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
madbakerJust for you, two Resolution Recipes!
(or, Spinach and Ham Pie)
Dough:
2 cups flour
pinch salt
grated zest from 1 lemon
1/2 cup unsalted butter
3 egg yolks
1 beaten whole egg for glaze
Filling:
1 lb spinach, washed (this looks like an obscene amount, but it cooks down to a thin layer. Really.)
8 oz tomatoes, sliced
6 oz ham, chopped
1 lb mozzarella (I think we only used 12 oz, because that's what fit)
nutmeg, salt & pepper
Mix flour, salt, lemon zest. Cut in butter. Add egg yolks and work until mixture forms a ball.
Heat oven to 450. Cook wet spinach briefly until it wilts, adding no water but stirring to prevent it from sticking. Drain thoroughly, pressing with a spoon as needed to remove water.
Divide dough into 2/3 and 1/3. Grease a 9" tart pan, line with 2/3 dough. Spread the spinach over the bottom, then layer with tomato slices in concentric circles. Sprinkle with ham (and a bit of nutmeg) then layer on the mozzarella. Salt and pepper to taste. Roll out the remaining dough and cover the tart. Prick top with a fork and brush with beaten egg. Cook for 10 minutes, turn oven down to 300, bake for 30 more. Remove and let set for 10 minutes (or more) before eating.
Comments: I'm a bread baker, not a pie crust baker. There's a reason why they were different guilds in the Middle Ages (besides rampant bureaucracy, I mean) - they are different skill sets. I've gotten better with pie crust over the years, but I still have to add lots extra water to make the dough form a ball, which makes it tougher. (I usually end up adding just a bit too much extra water, and then have to work in extra flour to dry it out... which makes it worse.)
I cut out leaves from my extra pie crust to pretty up the top. It looked nice. It came out nice and puffy, then sank to half its height when I cut into it. Oh well.
Tasty, if a bit juicy; despite squeezing the spinach incessantly, there was a good quarter-inch of liquid from the tomatoes and cheese on the bottom, sogging up the crust. Maybe it's a good thing that my crust was a bit tough to begin with.
While it was good now, I want to try this again in tomato season. Fresh tomatoes from the backyard vines, maybe some high-quality bufalo mozzarella... drool.
Actually, I didn't make this for Valentine's Day dinner. I made Mignons de porc a l'ail instead.
Chocolate Raspberry Tart
Crust:
1 1/4 cups flour
3 Tbsp sugar
pinch salt
1/4 tsp baking powder
4 Tbsp unsalted butter
1 egg
Combine dry ingredients and stir. Cut butter into 6 or 8 pieces and distribute over the dry ingredients. Rub in the butter, using fingertips or a pastry blender, until it resembles a fine powder. Do not let the mixture to become pasty. Beat the egg into a small bowl and stir into the flour mixture. The dough should remain dry and crumbly. Turn dough into a 9" greased pan and distribute the crumbly mixture evenly around the sides and bottom, pressing into place with floured fingertips. Avoid pressing too hard or it will become thin in places.
Heat oven to 350 and bake the tart shell for 20-30 minutes, until dry and deep golden. Cool on a rack.
Filling:
1 cup cream
10 ounces bittersweet chocolate
2 Tbsp raspberry liqueur
3 small baskets raspberries
2 Tbsp powdered sugar
1/2 tsp unsweetened cocoa powder
Bring the cream to a boil in a medium saucepan over low heat. Remove from heat and add the chocolate all at once. Shake the pan so that the chocolate is submerged, and let stand for 3 minutes to melt. Add liqueur and whisk until smooth. Pour filling into a mixing bowl and refrigerate until thickened (but not hardened), about 20 minutes. Stir occasionally while it chills.
Whisk filling slightly to make it smooth and spreadable. (If hardened, say "I told you so", then stand the bowl in a larger one filled with 1" of hot water, and whisk until it's spreadable.) Spread filling over the cooled tart shell. Arrange raspberries over the chocolate filling, pressing down slightly. Do not refrigerate as the tart will harden but serve within a few hours. Just before serving, dust the raspberries with the powdered sugar, then the center of the tart with the cocoa, on top of the sugar.
Comments: sounded great. Sounded relatively easy.
Result: eh. First off, I have more problems with the pat-in crumble crust than I do rolled-out ones (see above). The crust had lots of small cracks when it came out of the oven. The recipe says to unmold it before filling with chocolate, but if I'd done that it would have leaked all over the counter. Le sigh.
The filling itself wasn't bad, but it wasn't great. Frankly, I'd rather make chocolate ganache coating with the cream and chocolate. It was pretty, with the berries, but will I make it again? Probably not. Oh well.
(or, Spinach and Ham Pie)
Dough:
2 cups flour
pinch salt
grated zest from 1 lemon
1/2 cup unsalted butter
3 egg yolks
1 beaten whole egg for glaze
Filling:
1 lb spinach, washed (this looks like an obscene amount, but it cooks down to a thin layer. Really.)
8 oz tomatoes, sliced
6 oz ham, chopped
1 lb mozzarella (I think we only used 12 oz, because that's what fit)
nutmeg, salt & pepper
Mix flour, salt, lemon zest. Cut in butter. Add egg yolks and work until mixture forms a ball.
Heat oven to 450. Cook wet spinach briefly until it wilts, adding no water but stirring to prevent it from sticking. Drain thoroughly, pressing with a spoon as needed to remove water.
Divide dough into 2/3 and 1/3. Grease a 9" tart pan, line with 2/3 dough. Spread the spinach over the bottom, then layer with tomato slices in concentric circles. Sprinkle with ham (and a bit of nutmeg) then layer on the mozzarella. Salt and pepper to taste. Roll out the remaining dough and cover the tart. Prick top with a fork and brush with beaten egg. Cook for 10 minutes, turn oven down to 300, bake for 30 more. Remove and let set for 10 minutes (or more) before eating.
Comments: I'm a bread baker, not a pie crust baker. There's a reason why they were different guilds in the Middle Ages (besides rampant bureaucracy, I mean) - they are different skill sets. I've gotten better with pie crust over the years, but I still have to add lots extra water to make the dough form a ball, which makes it tougher. (I usually end up adding just a bit too much extra water, and then have to work in extra flour to dry it out... which makes it worse.)
I cut out leaves from my extra pie crust to pretty up the top. It looked nice. It came out nice and puffy, then sank to half its height when I cut into it. Oh well.
Tasty, if a bit juicy; despite squeezing the spinach incessantly, there was a good quarter-inch of liquid from the tomatoes and cheese on the bottom, sogging up the crust. Maybe it's a good thing that my crust was a bit tough to begin with.
While it was good now, I want to try this again in tomato season. Fresh tomatoes from the backyard vines, maybe some high-quality bufalo mozzarella... drool.
Actually, I didn't make this for Valentine's Day dinner. I made Mignons de porc a l'ail instead.
Chocolate Raspberry Tart
Crust:
1 1/4 cups flour
3 Tbsp sugar
pinch salt
1/4 tsp baking powder
4 Tbsp unsalted butter
1 egg
Combine dry ingredients and stir. Cut butter into 6 or 8 pieces and distribute over the dry ingredients. Rub in the butter, using fingertips or a pastry blender, until it resembles a fine powder. Do not let the mixture to become pasty. Beat the egg into a small bowl and stir into the flour mixture. The dough should remain dry and crumbly. Turn dough into a 9" greased pan and distribute the crumbly mixture evenly around the sides and bottom, pressing into place with floured fingertips. Avoid pressing too hard or it will become thin in places.
Heat oven to 350 and bake the tart shell for 20-30 minutes, until dry and deep golden. Cool on a rack.
Filling:
1 cup cream
10 ounces bittersweet chocolate
2 Tbsp raspberry liqueur
3 small baskets raspberries
2 Tbsp powdered sugar
1/2 tsp unsweetened cocoa powder
Bring the cream to a boil in a medium saucepan over low heat. Remove from heat and add the chocolate all at once. Shake the pan so that the chocolate is submerged, and let stand for 3 minutes to melt. Add liqueur and whisk until smooth. Pour filling into a mixing bowl and refrigerate until thickened (but not hardened), about 20 minutes. Stir occasionally while it chills.
Whisk filling slightly to make it smooth and spreadable. (If hardened, say "I told you so", then stand the bowl in a larger one filled with 1" of hot water, and whisk until it's spreadable.) Spread filling over the cooled tart shell. Arrange raspberries over the chocolate filling, pressing down slightly. Do not refrigerate as the tart will harden but serve within a few hours. Just before serving, dust the raspberries with the powdered sugar, then the center of the tart with the cocoa, on top of the sugar.
Comments: sounded great. Sounded relatively easy.
Result: eh. First off, I have more problems with the pat-in crumble crust than I do rolled-out ones (see above). The crust had lots of small cracks when it came out of the oven. The recipe says to unmold it before filling with chocolate, but if I'd done that it would have leaked all over the counter. Le sigh.
The filling itself wasn't bad, but it wasn't great. Frankly, I'd rather make chocolate ganache coating with the cream and chocolate. It was pretty, with the berries, but will I make it again? Probably not. Oh well.
