FFwD: Crispy Crackly Apple Almond Tart

Last weekend, which was a long weekend, we spent Saturday taking a drive around the southeast corner of Connecticut, picking apples and visiting wineries. In other words, we had a perfect fall day. We'll tell you more about the wineries later, but as far as the apples go, we picked some big beautiful sweet-tart Winesaps and some deep dark maroon Macouns (considered by some to be the finest eating apple there is). Then we saw that this week's French Fridays with Dorie (in which we haven't been able to participate in some time) was "Crispy Crackly Apple Almond Tart," and we were totally psyched. How fortuitous!

The "French Fridays" Bible

A baking recipe, with a guardian angel for the baking-challenged.

Mise en place is fancy for "uncork the (French!) wine and let's get this recipe started"

Yes, it's fall, ya'll. And what says fall in New England better than apples? We have posted plenty of apple recipes over the years: recipes for doughnuts, pies (not one but two!), risotto, and other savory dishes (here and here), have featured apples and/or apple cider. But this fall, we were looking for something new, and Around My French Table (the book members of French Fridays with Dorie cooks from) had just what we needed.

Whisking together almond flour, sugar, egg, vanilla and heavy cream... 

...makes a heavenly almond cream topping for the tart.

Ooh la la - buttered and sugared sheets of phyllo dough!

After the cream is chilled...

it is carefully spread over the delicate phyllo.

While we can't give you the recipe (club rules!), we can tell you that it wasn't particularly difficult, even for the baking-challenged, and even with working with phyllo dough (which seems scary, doesn't it?). Dorie's direction are clear and straight-forward. We followed them strictly (except for using a different type of apple), and the finished product was incredible - both crispy and crackly, with a delightful balance of tart, juicy apple and sweet, nutty almond. The neighbors loved it, we loved it, and it made us that much more comfortable with baking and with using sheets of phyllo - that ever-versatile yet oh-so-elegant ingredient.  

Chris is a slicing wizard

Laying them perfectly over the almond cream.

It almost looks easy!

Some local apple maple jam makes a nice post-baking glaze.

We've said it before, and we'll say it again: buy the book and start making the recipes. From what we can tell, there isn't a bad one in the bunch.

Red Wine Short Ribs and Linguine

Amy writes: Chris is not a fan of short ribs, something which I just can't understand. What is there not to love about braised meat that is so tender and succulent that it falls right off the bone? Cooked in the right braising liquid, and these cheap cuts of meat become flavorfully restaurant-worthy. After our day on the Connecticut Wine Trail, I wanted short ribs braised in red wine. Chris would just have to deal.

I turned to Around My French Table, by the French food guru Dorie Greenspan (we've met!) for guidance. That book is my current end-all. If you don't have it yet, you should definitely buy it. And then join French Fridays with Dorie. But I digress...  Dorie (we've met, so I can call her by her first name, right?) has a recipe in that book called "Short Ribs in Red Wine and Port." Yeah, I thought, that's what I want.

Saute onions, carrots, celery, garlic and ginger in olive oil 

Once vegetables start to soften, add tomato paste

Stir and simmer until it looks like this

I followed her recipe as closely as I could, since I had way fewer short ribs (1 1/2 pounds versus the recipe's nine!), and I was missing a couple of ingredients (port, for example). Plus, I played with the measurements and left off the gremolata. We did follow Dorie's advice and made these one night ahead, leaving them refrigerated in the braising liquid overnight. I think that's a pretty important step. I had bought this great red wine pasta by Rossi Pasta a while back and thought that would go perfectly with this. So, on Sunday night, we had Red Wine Short Ribs and Linguine.

Get your herbs together -

parsley, thyme, bay leaves, rosemary, and star anise

Open some French wine and have a glass

Then put the herbs and some wine into the pot

We shared a bit with our neighbor, B. First she heard our foodie-like description, then she looked at it and said, "We call this beef and noodles in our house." But after she tasted it, she thought it was pretty schmancy. Chris took one bite and said, "I never knew short ribs could be so good." Yeah, Dorie Greenspan rocks.

Add short ribs (that you already browned)

Close the lid tightly, put it in the oven and leave it alone.

No peeking for two hours.

Then uncover it and cook it another hour, still undisturbed.

Let the whole thing cool then put it in the fridge for a day.

Make your side dish, strain and reduce the sauce, warm the short ribs, and...

I could give you the recipe, but that would be against the rules of French Fridays with Dorie, and although this post is not an official FFwD post, I'd rather you go buy the book. It's worth it, I promise. And no, I don't get anything for saying that.

...voila! Red Wine Short Ribs and Linguine!

Why You Shouldn't Be Scared of Souffles (French Fridays with Dorie)

Souffles seem scary, don't they? First, there's the French name. It sounds so mysterious and intimidating, like only chefs who trained in Paris can make them the right way. Then there's the whole falling factor: the mind imagines hours of cooking resulting in a sunken puddle of goo. Not much could be worse than that. So when we saw that this week's recipe for French Fridays with Dorie was Cheese Souffle, we were, admittedly, a little nervous. Neither of us had ever eaten, never mind cooked, a savory souffle before. This was unchartered territory. And, well, souffles are scary!

Still, we put our trust in Dorie Greenspan and forged ahead. Chris was late getting home so Amy gathered the ingredients and waited, since a souffle certainly has to be timed perfectly. Butter, flour, milk, cheese, eggs, salt, pepper, nutmeg. Could that really be it? We set to work when Chris came through the door. It wasn't too long before we made our first mistake.

Buttered souffle dish dusted with bread crumbs

"Oh, s*#^!" Chris swore, pointing out the eggs he had started to beat without first separating them. Luckily, the neighbor had an extra egg and we started over. "You're supposed to whisk the yolks in one at a time," he chided, as Amy was half-way through mixing six egg yolks into her bechamel all at once. Another oops. We were pretty sure this souffle was going to flop. Literally.

Bechamel sauce

Egg yolks

Egg whites

We kept checking it as it cooked, looking through the oven glass, willing it to rise. And it did! We ended up with a gorgeously fluffy, cheesy, nicely browned cloud of cheese, mistakes and all. It hadn't sunk in on itself, and it stayed puffed up until we cut into it. Served with a side salad and some crusty French bread, it was a refined meal that made us feel pretty fancy about ourselves. Guess souffles aren't so scary after all.

Adding the cheese

Folding in the egg whites

Our souffle actually rose to the occasion!

FYI - French Fridays with Dorie members agree not to post the actual recipes from Around My French Table, which is where this particular recipe can be found.

So fancy and French!

M. Jacques Armagnac Chicken (French Fridays with Dorie)

We haven't been able to participate in French Fridays with Dorie for some time for a variety of reasons. But last Sunday, when we purchased a super-fresh chicken (processed the day before!) from GourmAvian, a local farm, and we realized that this week's FFwD recipe was for M. Jacques Armagnac Chicken, we knew the timing was just right.

This recipe, which can be found in Dorie Greenspan's Around My French Table, was soooo super easy. And while this incredibly satisfying, hearty, deliciously roasted chicken dinner (in one pot!) was roasting, the most amazing cooking smells emanated throughout our entire house. Dorie calls this particular recipe "un petite marveille" and we must concur. With about 15 minutes prep time and only an hour of cooking, the results were truly magnifique!



Add vegetables
(we used carrots, onions, potatoes and one change to the recipe - a turnip)
and herbs to a large pot

The pretty turnip

Truss and season chicken with kosher salt and white pepper,

then place in pot atop vegetables. Pour in armagnac (or brandy), cover and cook!

Now, a little anecdote about armagnac. Dorie's recipe obviously calls for armagnac (a distilled spirit made from three different grapes), and we do have a bottle. Here's the story. Back in 2007, Amy organized a school trip to Paris and Rome and Amy's mother, who had never been abroad before, came along. A very nice (read: expensive) bottle of armagnac was on our list of things to buy, but we had bought and packed so many bottles of wine in Rome already, we couldn't fit it in our luggage. So we asked Mom to pack the armagnac in her bag. Easy enough, right? Well, everyone's bags were checked and as we stood in line to be screened through to the gates in Paris, we realized...Mom has the bottle in her carry-on. And there was that little problem of no liquids more than 3 ounces being allowed on the plane. Oh the humanity!We suffered through that line trying in vain to come to terms with the fact that our gorgeous armagnac was going to be confiscated (and probably consumed!) by the airport workers, but miraculously, it wasn't! Huzzah!

So, although we do in fact have a bottle, a very nice bottle actually, of armagnac, we just couldn't use a cup of it to cook a chicken, as good as that chicken might be. So we used brandy. And the chicken was still incredible. The end.

Our First French Friday with Dorie: Eclairs

Around Christmas, using some deep-discount coupon plus book rewards points, and justified as a present to "A Couple in the Kitchen," Amy bought the gorgeous then-new cookbook by author Dorie Greenspan, Around My French Table.  And are we ever glad she did. This is perhaps the most well-written, instructive, helpful and simply beautiful cookbook we own, bar none. A feast for the eyes and the foodie soul, this book, not only offers recipes, but hints, advice, and variations or suggestions for making the author's recipes your own, all with the expertise that comes from her many years of living in France. 

About a month after buying the book, we learned of the bloggers' group "French Fridays with Dorie," in which food blog enthusiasts vote on and make one recipe from the book each week and then blog about it on "French Fridays." This week is the first time we've had the time/means/energy to participate and boy did we choose a "doozie."  For this week's recipe is not just one recipe, but three recipes in one! To make eclairs, one must make the pastry itself, the pastry cream, and the glaze for the top. And it's a dessert, which means we have to bake!  (And we're not really known for our baking skills).

 Pate 
de
choux

To wit, it took us two evenings to make our eclairs. Not because of lack of time, but because the first night, we experienced Pastry Cream Fail. Yeah...we didn't boil the pastry cream quite long enough, so when we went to fill the eclairs, we had cream that was runny, loose, and tasted like corn starch. Not good. A bit frustrated, we stored our not-perfect-but-tasty pastries in an air-tight container and left the project for the next evening.

Pastry
cream

Meanwhile, Chris spoke to one of the chefs at his school, which has an amazing culinary program. He told Chris where we went wrong, and that night, we were back on task. We even did a little innovating with our recipe, adding a couple of teaspoons of Grand Marnier to our pastry cream, and making a chocolate ganache instead of the usual confectionary-sugar glaze for the top. Who doesn't love orange and chocolate?!?

Gan-

ache

The recipe (page 473 - buy the book. Really!) makes 20 eclairs, which the two of us certainly have no business eating. So we shared - a couple went to D and J, a couple went across the street to the "Bagel Fairy" who puts bagels in our mailbox on Sunday mornings, a bunch went to Amy's school (shhh...don't tell about the Grand Marnier!), and of course, one went to Chef. The response was overwhelmingly positive and we were quite proud of ourselves for (finally...) making a successful pastry from scratch. Thanks, Dorie!