Dinner Party Chez Moi - Cherry Tomato, Truffle Oil Tartines

I spent a memorial day weekend at a friend’s Lake House and found myself cooking meal after meal for up to 25 people. When we came back to our regular lives I felt a suden emptiness and decided to invite the group over for a sunday night dinner. Chez Moi.

I made homemade pizza dough from Bon Appetite and made a bunch of toppings. Meatballs from scratch, caramelized onions, blanched asparagus with barata cheese, olive oil, salt & pepper. I also made two tarts, a Meatball, mascarpone, asparagus and the other was a strawberry Rhubarb. Both I just whipped up. Which surprised me. Oh and I was nervous there wouldn’t be enough food so I made a bib lettuce salad with a homemade mustard vinaigrette. 

What’s pictured are tartines, the base is bread I picked up that morning from Scratch Bread. The best bread bakery and it happens to be around the corner from me. 

 Cherry Tomato, Truffle Oil Tartines

Ingredients:

• 8 oz Ricotta Cheese
• Fresh 8 Grain loaf of bread
• 20 Cherry Tomatos (one small create)
• 2 table spoons Honey
• Sprinkle Salt
• Sprinkle Pepper 
• 2 Table spoons of Truffle Oil

Instructions:

• Slice bread into somewhat bite sizes
• Spread ricotta cheese
• Slice cherry tomatos and place on top
• Drizzle honey, salt & pepper
• Top with Truffle Oil

Plum Frangipane Tart

A friend of mine posted the most beautiful plum tart on Facebook and I just couldn’t help myself but try one myself. I brought it into my office, paced it in the kitchen and it barely lasted an hour.

Ingredients

Crust

• 250 Grahams AP Flour
• 1/2 teaspoon Salt
• 1/2 teaspoon sugar
• 135 grahams very cold butter, cut into small piece
• 1 large egg mixed with 1 teaspoon of cold water

Filling

• 1 cup toasted almonds
• 1/3 cup sugar
• 5 tabelspoons of unsalted butter, room temperature
• 1 egg
• 1 tabelspoon flour
• 1 teaspoon almond extract
• 1/2 lemon juiced
• Pinch of salt
• 4-5 small plums

Glaze

• 2 tablespoons of honey
• sprinkle smoked salt (or any coarse salt)

Instructions

Crust

1. Sift flour, sugar, and salt onto work surface
2. Add the cubbed butter to the flour mixture and cut into flour with fork (or pastry scraper) until the butter is the size of little peas.
3. Form a well in the center of the mixture and pour in the water-egg mixture. Working until just incorporated and the dough holds together. (You may need to add more ice water). Working any piece into the dough with your palm.
4. Gather the dough into a disk and wrap in plastic
5. Refrigerate the dough an hour or up to 24 hours
6. Flour a work surface, roll out the dough to a 10 inch circle that’s about 1/8 inch thick
7. Lightly wrap over rolling pin and place in pie dish
8. press into dish and cut excess dough
9. Place a piece of parchment paper over the top and add pie weights
10. Bake at 350 degrees for 40 minutes, remove pie weights and let cool

Filling

1. Place the almonds, sugar, room temperature butter, egg, flour, almond extract,  lemon juice and a pinch of kosher salt in a food processor.
2. Spread the almond mixture into the prebaked crust.
3. Top with the sliced plum arranged decoratively.
4. Bake in the 375 degree F oven for 30-35 minutes.  It’s done when the almond cream is puffed and light brown.
5. Once cooled, warm 2 tablespoons of honey and lightly brush the top of the tart, and sprinkle with smoked salt
   

Lemon Madeline

I’ve been piping Madeline at Craft but I hadn’t yet made the batter and I’ve been dying to try. Over the 4th of July weekend I kept wanting to try but I didn’t have the ingredients or the tools. So Wednesday night I decided I wanted to do a google plus hang out in my kitchen and make David Lebovitz Lemon Madeline. I just made some slight changes.I also decided not to make the glaze he suggests because its really hot and humid in NYC and I didn’t think it would travel well.

Lemon Medeline

Ingredients

• 3 large eggs, at room temperature
• 130g granulated sugar
• rounded 1/8 teaspoon salt
• 175g flour
• 1 teaspoon baking powder (optional)
• zest of one small lemon
• 120g unsalted butter

Instructions

1. Place the Madeline Mold in the Fridge
2. Brown the butter by placing it over medium/high heat and stirring just till it changes color. It will take about 12 minutes and as soon as it becomes a warm amber color take it off the heat
3. Strain the butter into a glass bowl and let it cool.
4. In the bowl whip the eggs, granulated sugar, and salt for 5 minutes until frothy and thickened.
5. Spoon the flour and baking powder into a sifter or mesh strainer and use a spatula to slowly fold in the flour as you sift it over the batter. 
6. Add the lemon zest to the cooled butter, then dribble the butter into the batter, slowly folding until just incorporated
7. Using a rubber Spatula scoop the batter into a medium pastry bag (I did two small bags) and seal the back end of the bag. (A Tip I learned at Craft: Place the bag over a bain (or large deep cup) when pouring in batter and it will be easier to fill the bag without making a mess!)
8. place the batter in the fridge for an hour or up to 12 hours.
9. Baking the madeleines, preheat the oven to 425 degrees.
10. Pipe batter (directly perpandicular to the pan) placing the tip in the center of each indentation and putting in batter till its about 3/4 full.
11. Lightly but firmly tap the tray on the counter to release any air bubbles
12. Bake for 8-9 minutes or until the cakes just feel set.

These are best eaten day off, but they made it to two offices the next day and were enjoyed greatly. Though a lot of people didn’t know what Madeline were. I mean, Proust. I guess in America to have the same Proust reaction I’d have to bring around funnel cakes or something of that sort.

Brown Butter Raspberry Tart

I went home to my mom’s in New Canaan, CT for the long holiday weekend. Right after she picked us (me, my brother and our friend Monica) up from the train we went directly to the local market. I decided I’d bake whatever looked the freshest, and tasted the best.  Raspberries were it and so I attempted this Brown Butter tart.

Brown Butter Raspberry Tart

Ingredients

Crust

• 250 Grahams AP Flour
• 1/2 teaspoon Salt
• 1/2 teaspoon sugar
• 135 grahams very cold butter, cut into small piece
• 1 large egg mixed with 1 teaspoon of cold water

Filling

• 1/2 cup sugar
• 2 large eggs
• Pinch of salt
• 1/4 cup all purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, diced
• 2 6-ounce containers fresh raspberries

Instructions

Crust

1. Sift flour, sugar, and salt onto work surface
2. Add the cubbed butter to the flour mixture and cut into flour with fork (or pastry scraper) until the butter is the size of little peas.
3. Form a well in the center of the mixture and pour in the water-egg mixture. Working until just incorporated and the dough holds together. (You may need to add more ice water). Working any piece into the dough with your palm.
4. Gather the dough into a disk and wrap in plastic
5. Refrigerate the dough an hour or up to 24 hours
6. Flour a work surface, roll out the dough to a 10 inch circle that’s about 1/8 inch thick
7. Lightly wrap over rolling pin and place in pie dish
8. press into dish and cut excess dough
9. Place a piece of parchment paper over the top and add pie weights
10. Bake at 350 degrees for 40 minutes, remove pie weights and let cool

Filling

1. Whisk sugar, eggs, and salt in medium bowl to blend.
2. Add flour and vanilla and whisk until smooth.
3. Cook butter in heavy small saucepan over medium heat until deep nutty brown, stirring often, this will take about 6 minutes.
4. Immediately pour browned butter into glass measuring cup.
5. Gradually whisk browned butter into wet mixture until well blended.
6. Place raspberries close together in  circles in the bottom of cooled crust. 
7. Place tart on rimmed baking sheet.
8. Carefully pour browned butter mixture evenly over berries.
9.  Bake tart until filling is puffed and golden and tester inserted into center comes out clean, about 40 minutes.
10. Cool tart completely in pan on rack. (I found this tasted better on day 2.)

White Chocolate Cherry Tart

I made this on the fly at Chez Bushwick after finding some fresh cherries and having left over white chocolate, which I had used for some ice cream. It was really yummy, though I think it needs some salt and the filling measurements I did would work for two tarts.

Ingredients

Crust

• 250 Grahams AP Flour
• 1/2 teaspoon Salt
• 1/2 teaspoon sugar
• 135 grahams very cold butter, cut into small piece
• 1 large egg mixed with 1 teaspoon of cold water

Filling

• 1/2 cup half and half
• 1 cup whole milk
• 1/3 cup brown sugar
• 4 egg yolks
• 6 ounces white chocolate
• 1 cup + 3 tabelspoons all purpose flour
• 1 1/2 cups of cherries, pitted and sliced in half.

Instructions Crust

1. Sift flour, sugar, and salt onto work surface
2. Add the cubbed butter to the flour mixture and cut into flour with fork (or pastry scraper) until the butter is the size of little peas.
3. Form a well in the center of the mixture and pour in the water-egg mixture. Working until just incorporated and the dough holds together. (You may need to add more ice water). Working any piece into the dough with your palm.
4. Gather the dough into a disk and wrap in plastic
5. Refrigerate the dough an hour or up to 24 hours
6. Flour a work surface, roll out the dough to a 10 inch circle that’s about 1/8 inch thick
7. Lightly wrap over rolling pin and place in pie dish
8. press into dish and cut excess dough
9. Place a piece of parchment paper over the top and add pie weights
10. Bake at 350 degrees for 40 minutes, remove pie weights and let cool

Filling

1. Mix half and half, cream and sugar over medium heat until just simmering
2. Temper Egg Yolks, by adding some of warm milk to eggs, mixing and then adding the egg/milk mixture back into the sauce pan. 
3. Chop white chocolate and place in a medium bowl
4. Warm up milk/egg mixture again till just simmering, and pour over white chocolate
5. Add in flour, mix until incorporated
6. Place cherries in crust
7. Pour mixture over cherries, add additional cherries on top if needed.
8. Bake for about 40 minutes or until set at 350 degrees
   

Cherry Blondies for a date that never was…

This guy Adam asked me on a date. I said yes. I usually say yes when that happens. He didn’t believe that I really bake as much as I said I do, so I decided to bring a treat on our date. I decided to make these in a muffin tray because I wanted to be able to throw a couple in a Tupperware in my bag. It also needed to stay in one piece through a day of consulting around NYC.  I decided to play with this recipe because I knew my brother would love them. I reduced the white chocolate to make them less rich and my brother diggs cherries. 

Well, Adam decided to make plans, confirm plans and then never respond to me with the details of the plans. So by 5 PM the day of the ‘7PM’ date, I decided to eat the blondies. It was the right choice.

Cherry Blondies

Ingredients

• 150g Good Quality White Chocolate
• 75g Butter
• 125g  Sugar
• 2 eggs
• 1 tsp Vanilla extract
• 150g Plain Flour
• 150g Fresh Cherries
  

Instructions

1. Pre-heat oven to 350oF.
2. Grease a muffin tray
3. Pit and chop the cherries in half.
4. Break up 75g of white chocolate and melt  over a bowl of simmering water 
5. Cream together the butter and sugar in a medium mixing bowl until light and fluffy.
6. Add the eggs one at a time and make sure they are completely combined after each 
7. Mix in the vanilla.
8. Add the melted chocolate and stir through.
9. Sift the flour over and fold into the chocolate mixture.
10. Roughly chop the remaining chocolate
11. Add the chopped chocolate and cherries and fold through the blondie mixture.
12. Spoon the mixture into the muffin tins about 3/4 of the way full and then gently tap the tray on the counter to flatten and smooth.  
13. Bake for 30-40 minutes in the oven or until toothpick comes out clean

Baklava for a fun Greek Themed Dinner Party

photo credit: Nico

I went over to my friend Phil’s for a fun feast of Greek food. Everyone brought or made something from salad to lamb and I of course brought dessert. Such a fun night, from the cooking, and the drinking to the dancing and the chatting. It’s such a great way to build friendships and experiment with cultures.

I’m not in love yet with this Baklava recipe. I don’t like how the Phyllo Dough curved on the edges and was very hard to cut. BUT it did taste nice, which was great. It also took a long time for me to get it to cook accurately. There was a lot of food in a small oven which might have been the issue. I’ve not worked with Phyllo Dough before and definitely need to get use to it.

Recipe:

Ingredients:

• For the filling:
• 1 lb. walnuts, coarsely ground (ground separately from the almonds)
• 1/2 lb. almonds, coarsely ground
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1 tbsp. ground cinnamon

• For the syrup:
• 2 cups water
• 1 1/2 cups sugar
• 10 whole cloves
• Juice of half a lemon
• 1 lb. phyllo pastry sheets
• 1/2 lb. unsalted butter, melted

Instructions:

1. Mix the walnuts, almonds, sugar, and cinnamon in a bowl. Set aside.
2. Preheat the oven to 325 degrees.
3. Carefully remove the Phyllo roll from the plastic sleeve.
4. Cut the sheets in half to make two stacks of 9 x 12 inch sheets. To prevent drying, cover one stack with wax paper and a damp paper towel while working with the other.
5. Using a pastry brush, brush the bottom and sides of a 9 x 12 rectangular pan.
6. Layer six sheets of Phyllo making sure to brush each with melted butter.
7. Add half of the nut mixture in an even layer.
8. Flatten with a spatula
9. Continue layering another 6 sheets of phyllo. Add the remaining nut mixture in an even layer.
10. Top with the remaining phyllo sheets.
11. Before baking, score the top layer of phyllo . Place in the freezer for 30 seconds and it will make it easier to score.
12. Bake in a preheated 325 degree oven for about 45 minutes or until the phyllo turns a rich golden color.
13. Prepare the Syrup While the Baklava is Baking:
14. In a medium saucepan, combine the water and the sugar and mix well. Add the cloves and simmer over medium high heat for about 20 minutes. You want the syrup to be slightly thickened.
15. Remove from the heat and discard the cloves.
16. Stir in the juice of half a lemon. Allow the syrup to cool slightly.
17. When the baklava is out of the oven and still warm, ladle the syrup carefully into the pan.
18. Baklava can be refrigerated or stored at room temperature.