Apple Tarte Tatin

DSC_0448.JPGA delicious Apple Tarte Tatin, free from the frequently-seen puff pastry nonsense, lightly caramelised for stunning golden looks.

Tarte Tatin is an upside-down cake, with a topping of caramelized apples on a shortcrust base (but made upside down, crust on top). You need a fire-proof frying pan for it, one with a metal handle (or take off the plastic handle), as it needs to go into the oven.

Shortcrust base:

Mix 150g white flour with 70g soft butter. Add a pinch of salt, and mix thoroughly until you have fine crumbles. You can do this in the blender or using a hand mixer and a tall bowl. Now add one whole medium-sized free range egg, and a tablespoon of cold water. Mix until it forms a homogeneous glue.

Place a layer of cling film on your worktop, big enough to cover the frying pan. If necessary, have two strips of cling film overlap. Place the dough in the middle and flatten it out by hand as much as you can, then cover with the same sized cling film arrangement.

With the dough between the cling film sheets, roll it to an even 3mm.

Put flat into the fridge to rest. I never have space in my fridge for this, so I simply put it flat down onto a cool stone or tiled floor.

Topping:

Peel five firm and aromatic apples. Braeburn, Kidds Orange Red, Ped Pippin or Jazz are my favourites. Cut into quarters, remove cores. Sprinkle juice form half a lime all over, then set aside.

Preheat your oven to 190 Celsius.

Preheat your frying pan on fairly high heat on your gas or electric cooker. Mix 80g white cane sugar (= 4 tablespoons) with the seeds from one vanilla pod (keep the remaining pod for later). Heat this vanilla sugar mix, just to the point where the first sugar crystals start dissolving. Add a generous knob of soft butter, then add the leftover vanilla pod, and then distribute the apples into the mix. Remember your looking at the underside, so make the apply core cut-outs face you.

Add 100ml of Armagnac, Calvados or Brandy and give it a little shake to dissolve the sugar. Take care nothing catches fire (I’m serious! There’ll be a cloud of combustible alcohol vapor, so do take care).

This should now be bubbling away merrily. Allow to bubble for a couple of minutes, depending on the amount of liquid produced. You’re done when the caramel begins to get a golden colour and some of the excess liquid is evaporated, maybe after 3 minutes or so.

Remove pan from heat.

Baking:

Take dough out of cling film, and cover the apples with it. Tuck it in around the edges so that it makes an upside-down cake.

Put into the oven at 190 Celsius for approximately 30 minutes.

Remove from oven and immediately turn upside down onto a suitable cake serving plate. Don’t wait for the pan to cool – turn over immediately!

Service with or without vanilla ice cream (with optional plum and Calvados mix-ins).

Artichoke Stir-Fry

DSC_0079.JPGA crisp and delicious quick stir-fry from fresh artichoke hearts, packed with flavour.

Most books discuss preparation methods which involve submerging the artichoke, or parts of it, in boiling water for some time. I prefer the stir-fry method, which doesn’t water-down the delicate taste.

Trim the artichoke by removing the stalk, most of the leaves, and the hairy carpet (which is called the choke). For this dish, where you’ll slice the hearts, it is easier to trim stalk and leaves first, then slice heart and choke combined, then remove the choke in slices. You’re left with an enormous amount of compostable waste (which the Guinea pigs only eat in the absence of other fresh food), and you have the artichoke heart. Cut it into slices 5mm thin, then cut those into halves. Irregular shapes also look nice, but will take different cooking time due to the varying thickness.

Lightly sprinkle with lime juice right away, and toss about in the lime juice occasionally until you’re ready to cook.

To cook, simply heat a good quality extra-virgin olive oil in a pan or wok, and stir-fry the artichokes for 3..4 minutes, adding more lime juice as you go along, and adding salt and black pepper to taste only in the last minute.

I usually also add capers, sometimes olives, or sauteed potatoes.

We love this stir-fry to accompany white fish, such as a pan-fried sea bass or sea bream fillet with crispy skin. Add a lime mayonnaise, or a Rouille, or a Sauce Vierge, and you’ve got a winner, a champion, a superstar on a plate.