Lemon Tart

Daring Bakers: French Macaroons

Lemon Raspberry Macarons

It's good to be back. Back at home. Back in my kitchen. Back with The Daring Bakers. I've been absent for awhile now, so when I was ready to get back to baking and blogging I was delighted to find out this months challenge was something that pulls at my heart simply due to what it makes me think of - Paris.

The 2009 October Daring Bakers’ challenge was brought to us by Ami S. She chose macarons from Claudia Fleming’s The Last Course: The Desserts of Gramercy Tavern as the challenge recipe.

French Macarons you see are a far cry from the Canadian version - those ubiquitous, sugary, coconut laden mountains that show up in coffee shops, church bazaars and cookie trays everywhere. Yet I have yet to meet anyone you actually enjoys them, although I think that is because so many of them out there are so bad. A future post perhaps - Macaroons rediscovered?

French Macaroons, or Macarons, are a different macaroon altogether. A meringue based cookie (sans coconut), light as air, is sandwiched between a filling of chocolate ganache, or buttercream, with endless variations from nutella to preserves. This creates a cookie that at first shatters on your teeth on contact, seemingly delicate and crackly, only to yield to a chewy interior layer followed by a creamy, flavour packed filling. 3 different textures, a single flavour or a mixture of contrasting flavours, makes these cookies a winner in my books. Not too sweet, delicate, but not too much, and oh so pretty make these a favourite tea cookie of mine. Of course they allow for so much creativity that it invites crazy combinations like green olive and olive oil, ketchup, matcha tea and everything in between.

Composed of a short ingredient list of egg whites, almond flour and sugar, they are a lot trickier than you would imagine. But then again a baguette is made up of the same number of ingredients and finding a good one is a lot more difficult than you would think should be. A challenge for those of us who like to bake, but also a gamble. Even if you've made dozens of these without thinking, most of them turning out near perfect, this is a cookie that eludes and sometimes just decides not to work out. So if you decide to tackle them, don't despair, it happens. Aging egg whites, grinding your own almond flour, sifting the almonds, letting the cookies air dry before baking. They come with a number of tricks and requirements. The good news is that once you get the hang of them, they are quick to make and even quicker to eat!

I began making these at home 4 years ago upon returning home from my first trip to Paris where they are as as common as the chocolate chip cookie or Nanaimo bar here. Back then a recipe for macarons was difficult to find, but I managed to find a couple and began baking (and selling) these little bits of Paris. These were cookies that inspired such smiles from people, especially fellow travelers and Francophiles. Reminders of beautiful times in the city of light. I was happy to bring that back for people and share something new for people who'd never heard of such a thing.

Now macarons have hit North American shores and I'm not sure if its for the better. I've seen them overpriced and stale at upscale gourmet grocers and just shake my head. Who would be so stupid to spend money on these? But apparently people do and I think I understand why. Food can often be as much about memory of time and place than the actual food itself. To me they have to taste good too, but to some people the purchase itself brings them back to happier times.  Recreating my little bit of a city I love is exciting and challenging.

They are also a huge trend internationally and you've likely come across them somewhere near or far from home. What started as a darling little cookie seen only in Paris or France, some people say, are the next trend threatening to derail the cupcake. I don't know about that, but when McDo's  (McDonalds) starts selling them, that's gotta mean its outgrown its humble roots. Although to be fare I can bet the Macarons at Mcdonalds in Paris are for certain going to be better than the sad ones at my local grocer.

Grape Bread: schiacciata con l'uva

Every year around this time, two of my closest friends have a Harvest Party. It's a great reason for a party and something I look forward to each year as the trees start to lose their leaves, the air turns crisp and the markets are still bountiful with squash, apples and plenty of root vegetables. Its a potluck affair, which seems fitting for an event centred around the harvest, so there's always a mosaic of different dishes and styles of cooking. The best part of the party is something called "Fruits of your Labour", where each guest must bring to the party something that they have made or grown themselves. The sideboard overflows with a unique mix of items brought with pride, and I am always excited to see the variety of items on display: creatively made cards, all manner of jams and preserves, coveted buttercrunch, homegrown fruits and vegetables, a handmade beehouse...each year it changes.  When its your turn you go up, admire all the possibilities, and pick something to take home with you. For a lover of all things homegrown and made, it's better than Christmas.

For the potluck part of the party I always bring the same thing. If I didn't, I fear there would be a lot of sad faces in the room. It's a grape Schiacciata - an Italian foccacia-like flatbread covered in grapes. Its a traditional bread seen all over Italy in September and October in celebration of  the grape harvest. Wine grapes are the norm there, the seeds providing the characteristic crunch although I always make mine with organic seedless coronation grapes. These sweet, incredibly intense grapes make this bread what it is and while it may be traditional to use wine grapes, I don't think we would appreciate that bit of roughage here. The grapes cook on top of the bread, bursting their juices into the dough which absorbs it, some of the juices caramelize on the outer edges providing a smokey caramel flavour to the sweet collapsed grapes on top. Rosemary infused oil adds a savoury note and a generous sprinkling of sugar and honey add to the flavour. What you end up with is a simple, puffy bread, full of the goodness of the grapes and one of those dishes that simply screams autumn. When you serve this alongside turkey dinner, forget the cranberry sauce. Some people might even say, forget the turkey.

I fear that divulging my recipe will render me unnecessary at 2010's harvest party, but I'm willing to take the risk to help more people see grapes as more than something to make wine from or have in a fruit bowl.

Gourmet Distraction

 

You might be wondering what's taking me so long to tell you about my time in Italy and France...well I've been distracted today, and have spent quite a bit of time on a certain website, pilfering as many recipes as I can. My time in a foreign country can wait, but a wealth of well written and tested, creative and classic recipes that I thought I would always have access to but might not - can't. So this is where you'll find me. Sifting, sorting, printing, sadly pining for a culinary institution.

This is old news by now, but the day I was wandering the streets of a French Riviera town, shopping for the perfect Cote du Provence, baguette, creamy Religeuse, and haricots verts for a garden lunch, Gourmet magazine was announcing its closing. Since I was sitting in a garden drinking wine, feeding the cat chevre and nibbling on pissaladiere, I didn't know it until my arrival home.

Gourmet magazine is the oldest running food magazine in America and at the ripe old age of 69 years it will close with its current November 2009 issue. Whether you buy Gourmet or not, you probably know of it. And personal opinions aside, its what many would consider the gold standard of food publications, made possible by some of the best food writers, stylists and photographers, not to mention a diverse and info packed website and perhaps the best food tv series I've ever come across.

Bonjour mes amis!

I left you last on my way to Italy, and come to you now directly from France, hence the language change. We have returned from 4 lovely weeks of a mixed bag of experiences and sites. Some small disappointments, some surprises, some familiar places, but all great. We are happy to be home with our Emma-dog, North American plumbing and inexpensive readily available Asian food, but will miss long lunches, beautiful romantic languages, Cote du Provence Rose, lack of sales tax and tipping culture and narrow, ancient European lanes. My report to come soon. 

Arrivederci!

As this is being posted, we are flyin' outta here, Italy bound. First stop, Venezia (Venice). This is our first trip to Italy and of course with anywhere that conjures up such romantic notions of place, I have high expectations for it as well as extreme curiosity for how its going to play out. As you know I have a rather undying love affair with La Belle France and it is hard to turn your back on your first love, but it feels right, Italy has been calling this year and I'm ready for Italian food, wine, art, history and people. I've been taking Italian classes this year and am hoping that some of that pays off in many ways.

Of course this means you won't be hearing from me in awhile. Since internet access for me will be spotty at best and I don't like to spend my escapist vacations running around from internet cafe to internet cafe, I'll be saving all the best for my arrival home.  I promise a more than adequate report. 

We'll be spending time in Venezia, Firenze, Toscana, Umbira and the Cinque Terre

What I excited about the most:

Getting lost in Venezia

Driving through windy Tuscan hills with roads flanked by Cypress trees

Eating fresh seafood in the Cinque Terre

The Markets, ah...the markets...everywhere!

Art in Firenze.

Eating late into the night.

Drinking beautiful wine

Long leisurely lunches.

After Italy, we'll be spending our last leg in a familiar spot, Antibes and the Cote d'Azur of France. It will be lovely to spend some time there again as it is familiar and lovely with so much to see, do and well, most importantly, eat! We have a very special lunch reservation and lots of exploring - old town Antibes, hill towns, Nice...

I look forward to sharing some of our experiences with you. Until then, enjoy harvest season and the beautiful days of September wherever you are.

Ci vediamo!

Homecanning and a Farewell to Summer

This week all over the country all those freshly sharpened pencils, shiny notebooks and back to school sneakers are being put to use as the first day of school is now behind us. Although I suppose  these days its more likely Laptops and iPhones. This summer went by in a flurry and I can hardly believe that's it- so long summer. I did manage to pack in quite a lot of summer fun and while August, the hottest month, left me shivering a bit, we had some fine summer sun here in "rainy" Vancouver with plenty of sun and heat. I'm thankful for long patio dinners and plenty of small town BC escapes, but am sad I did not have more picnics, perhaps my favourite summer activity. I'm off to far off lands soon and hope to make up for that on a Tuscan hilltop or a Mediterranean beach.

This was lemontart.ca's first summer and I had lofty ambitions of providing you with useful information, ideas and tutorials on my favourite summer activity - preserving and canning. But my summers are a flurry of activity in the kitchen and a race against the seasons which means less time to stop for photo shoots and even less for instructional documents. I hope to improve upon that next year.

From the first stocks of rhubarb put in freezer bags before I've eaten nary a pie, and fleeting local strawberries, to pickling cukes that show up bright eyed and ready for a fermentation,  every year the beginning of the growing season catches me by surprise. It feels like there are months and months ahead of fruits and vegetables in their prime but the bittersweet relationship of eating food in season is that it does indeed have a season and often a relatively short one. In order to feel like I can enjoy more than 3 weeks of strawberries that taste of those strawberry shortcakes written in novels or the memory of a peach dripping sweet from your chin, I preserve these beautiful gifts for a cold, grey, winters day.While the preserved product is not exactly as having that fresh juicy plum, its a fairly nice reminder of summers past.

Putting up, putting by, canning, preserving... Whatever you call it, it's an old idea, and obsolete really, considering modern refrigeration and easy, affordable access to preserved foods. What began as a way to make it through the winter, a simple matter of survival, before the days of refrigeration has now turned into a trend. Over the past few years canning  has been making a quite a resurgence and I find myself in company with more and more people giddy about their first batch of strawberry jam, canning peaches or braving pickling. In these days of corporate control of our food supply and fruit shipped from all corners of the earth, this small revolution of people taking a step into having control over the food they eat is something to be excited about Along with growing numbers of farmers markets and support of local produce it is another example of a powerful food movement across the country.

To me canning is simply something I do. I was raised in homes with kitchens full of peeled peaches, simmered salsas, crunchy dill pickles and and canned tomatoes and the sight of "cold rooms" full of shiny glass jars full of all manner of fruits, like jewels in showcases. I suppose I came to it by osmosis and I'm thankful for that knowledge that seeped into me relentlessly from my mom and my grandmother. Its important to me that at least some of my food in the winter was processed by me, it didn't take extra fuel to get to me, jars are being reused and  I know where the fruit or veg came from.

But while I may have let YOU down this summer, there is still plenty of opportunity to preserve something. Farmers markets and fruit stands are bursting with colourful fruits and vegetables. Tomatoes are in the prime, so why not buy a box and dry them, one of the easiest ways of preserving. Or try your hands at a plum jam, or freeze a bag of blueberries. Know someone who cans? Tag along and learn how easy canning a batch of pears is. Stay tuned next month and I'll show you have to make apple butter and sauce.

Ratatouille- August in a pan

 

Nothing says August to me like Ratatouille. A jumble of vegetables all at their peak in one dish. It's like Canada - a colourful melange of flavours, each ingredient still retaining their own personalities. Not sure if the French would agree, but that's how I like to think of it.

Ratatouille is a traditional vegetable dish of southern France. Using so many colourful vegetables, olive oil, bright tender herbs and garlic, this is a dish that easily conjures up the markets and landscape of that part of the world. My mind about this often dish was opened wide when I was served it by gentile, Ann-Marie, hostess of Chateau Juvenal in Provence a couple of years ago. The restored 19th century chateau setting, cicadas chirping in the night and the company all helped that Ratatouille taste better. After all a dish should taste better in the land it was born. But I knew there was more to it than that. After that glorious dish I came home with a new appreciation of this often mediocre side dish and a hope to recreate it at home.

At this time of year tables are bursting at the farmers markets, loaded with more fruits and vegetables than I can keep up with- everything in season at once. I  load up on these late summer beauties making double batches as often as I can, freezing some for November dull days.

Ratatouille is the ultimate make ahead dish. Its flavour and texture becomes infinitely better after a night's rest in the fridge. I'm fairly opinionated about that fact. And the versatility of Ratatouille is what makes it a great leftover dish. Straight up it's a wonderful side dish completing almost any meal from a roast chicken or grilled salmon, to a bowl of white beans. It can be mixed into pasta with a little olive oil, piled into a pastry case and topped with cheese for an impressive tart or used as an edible dish in which to bake eggs, my personal favourite. There are so many ways to use it, although that's if you have enough leftovers. I sneak spoonfuls straight from the fridge  a couple days later. It's better cold or at room temperature.

I've had my share of Ratatouille made from recipes that call for cooking all vegetables in succession, with a finally simmering. This produces a watery, overcooked, pale comparison of what it should and can be. If you loath Ratatouille, this is probably the version you've been exposed to. The secret to a great ratatouille, other than the obvious one of using great vegetables, is by cooking each vegetable separately and cooking just until tender. No final simmering is necessary, in fact its detrimental. A glaze made from the vegetable juices and a rest in the fridge will do all the marrying of flavours you need.

Julie and Julia

I thought this movie was a fitting one to be featured on this blog. It won't be the last as I rediscover some of my favourite movies in which food plays a supporting or starring role.

Julia Child is a hero of mine and a movie about her life was sure to be an anticipated movie event for me.  The idea for the screenplay of Julie and Julia was taken from food blogger, Julie Powell, and her year long trek through Mastering the Art of French Cooking. After a year of boeuf bourguignon, creme caramel, murdered lobsters and a deboned duck, she ended up writing a book about her experience, which then became the idea for this movie.

Julia was perhaps the single greatest influence on cooking in 20th century America (and Canada). Yup, those are big words, but it is entirely true. She was the first celebrity chef, a rare public persona to eschew the TV dinners and prepared foods of that time. But while many people know her name and know what she looked like, many don't really know "who" she was. This movie will make a whole new generation of cook's interested enough to pillage their mother's or grandmother's' cookbook collection, or send it into  another printing. It will make new cook's, and it will encourage people to cook French food they've  only eaten in restaurants.

Meryl Streep nails, or clevers, the spirit of Julia Child. Sure she has the voice down, the smile, and the scenes from "The French Chef" could have been original footage. But its what I like to call her "essence" that she portrayed which is uncanny. The flick of her head, the movement of her 6ft 2 figure, the wink of an eye. These small things are what make the movie worth watching and a fine tribute. The first scene of Julia's story takes place in Normandy. Paul Child and Julia have just landed in France and it is here that Julia has her first revelation about French food in a small rustic restaurant in picturesque Rouen. A simple fillet of local fish cooked in butter served in a copper pan. Streeps' portrayal of Julia's enthusiasm for this perhaps religious experience  is exactly as I pictured and I could feel how amazing that kind of culinary experience would be.  Julie's narration echoes that feeling in present day New York with her flitting around in the kitchen noting, "anything you've ever tasted that was good was because of the butter". So true...

Beat the Heat: Cherry Lemonade

Summer is in full swing these days and while some people are enjoying the beach or a far away vacation, you are most likely to find me  in the kitchen surrounded by jam jars, vodka, trays of frozen berries, and bubbling pots of fragrant jam, preserving something for the winter months. That's what I've been up to lately, madly scrambling to get it all done before the peaches and tomatoes turn up. But in between homemade jam, liqueurs and frozen fruit I'll retire to my peaceful, lush patio for a glass of something refreshing. I always like to incorporate whatever fruits we are enjoying at the moment into a  beverage, so with a fridge full of cherries I added them to a basic lemonade preparation. At first it turns  a beautiful pink blush and then deepens into an "all about the cherry" concoction. If your idea of lemonade includes opening a can of concentrate or stirring sugar crystals coloured yellow, you'll be surprised at the big flavour this drink offers. And other than getting someone else to do the grunt work (DG) of squeezing the lemons and pitting the cherries, this drink takes minutes to prepare. And best of all are the edible cherry garnishes that make it snack too. Stay cool and happy summer!

Fava Beans and "Whee"

 
"I ate his liver with some fava beans and a nice Chianti".

That was about as much as I knew about favas for many years- a famous line from Silence of the Lambs. I'm willing to wager that's as close as most people in this country have come to fava beans.

Now come with me to a little movie called Sound of Music. Remember the sorta cold, older sister, Liesl? The pretty one. The  sweet 16 in love with the soon to be Nazi? Well certainly you remember the dancing around the garden scene. There they are dancing around the garden, young and in love, flirting away, unbeknownst to The Captain. The sky opens up like it does only in the movies, and they quickly become soaked. Away they flit, they flit, they fly away into the perfectly placed gazebo, where they continue their dancing and singing foreplay-the only way to portray lust and sexual tension in a PG movie.  And just when you find yourself feeling you could get up and do those steps as if they were your own, Rolfe plants a big wet one on Liesl. The music stops, there's a climactic pause and its at this moment that  Lisel lets out the famous "Whee...". You must know the "whee..." It's so charming, so perfect, so silly, so WWII. If you are still with me (and I do thank you for your patience) you are wondering, "why the heck is she talking about fava beans and The Sound of Music".  Well, that "whee..." was my reaction when I arrived at my local Farmers Market on Saturday morning and saw a big bowl of bright, green fava beans at one of my favoute vendors. I was "wheeing" all the way around the market (the wholesome, joyful Whee, not the other kind). And it wasn't because of Hannibal Lector and his nice choice of wine pairing.

I get excited about most beautiful, lovingly grown, fresh fruits and vegetables, but some are just closer to my heart than others. Like fava beans. Their season is so small, they are expensive, require a lot of preparation and are in short supply here in Vancouver. And I love them! The only problem is that I can't get nearly enough of them to make me happy. Next year I'm hoping to employ a couple of gardeners to help me get my fix. Just wondering how many batch's of ice cream will get me  fava beans for a couple weeks?

Fava beans, also known as Broad beans for you Brits out there, Fèves to the French and Fave in Italian, are a popular part of  Mediterranean diet and are plentiful in places like Provence and Italy. I try hard not to think of the huge bag of fèves I purchased in Paris 2 years ago. They were so cheap I nearly  cried right there. They are a shelling bean and very tender new ones can actually be eaten raw, although I think that works mostly if you are picking them yourself. Otherwise they are cooked briefly and eaten as is or in salads, purees, and soups. Combined with corn they become Succotash.  

If you've never had a fresh fava bean before please seek a couple handfuls out and give them a try. If you were introduced to them in dry form or are thinking about those grey lima beans in Campbells vegetable soup, think again. Hard. Think more of a nutty pea, yet buttery, full flavoured and tasting of spring, even though for some of us in the world we don't get them in the spring but rather in early summer. 

Fava beans require a lot of trimming compared to other vegetables. Their pods look like really large beans with a tough skin. Once pulled open they have a moist fury interior holding snugly kidney shaped beans. Once shelled these beans must be blanched in order to facilitate peeling. Using your thumbnail you can easily pierce the the outer skin and gently squeeze the inner bean out. You are left with glossy, greenest flat beans. That glorious bright green will entice you. They only need about 5 minutes of cooking after that depending on their size.