Absolutely Homemade Tarte Tatin

Finally, more success in making tarte tatin. Our pilgrimage back home to learn the art of French home cooking has not been in vain!!!

A few thoughts why I love home cooked food so much:
1. They do not always look dressed up like in restaurants, but they certainly look and smell yummy.
2. The pleasure starts even before the meal is served at the table -- especially the anticipation as the aromatic smells of whatever that's cooking on the stovetop or baking in the oven fills the kitchen and dining area.
3. They give you a warm fuzzy feeling, as they are cooked with love and joy.
4. They are usually (though not always) healthier.

Back to our lesson on tarte tatin. Being lazy, I did not take note of the recipe as the dessert was being made. In fact, I don't think Rémi's maman referred to any recipe at all, as this is probably as easy as frying an egg to her. As she was peeling and slicing the apples (that came from her garden), she was passing some to a greedy me, and baby Pablo. At the same time, she was also making a blueberry tart (as we couldn't agree on which to have for dessert since they are both nice, she decided to make both), so it wasn't a structured tarte tatin lesson per se.

Despite a lack of a precise recipe (which I never follow anyway), I managed to take down some notes and came up with some guidelines/tips/steps that contributed to our last night's tarte tatin success.

Steps to making tarte tatin

Dough:
Pate Brisee (salty tart dough)
You can also use premade filo pastry bought from the supermarket

To make the apple filling
5-6 apples (or enough to pack up tightly the base of the tart tin), peeled and sliced into thick pieces.
Butter (according to your fat conscious. I used about 25g or less but feel free to use more)
Sugar (50g + another 50g or less to sprinkle over the base of the tart tin)

Put apples, butter and sugar into a frying pan and simmer for 30 to 40 minutes, until the sugar has caramelised and the apples are cooked (do not overcook the apples though). Add a little water if necessary.

Grease the tart tin with more butter. Sprinkle the other half of the sugar over the base of the tart tin. Pour the caramelised apples into the tin. Pack tightly.

Cover the apples with the rolled up/flattened tart dough, with the edges tucked into.

Baked in preheated oven of 190 degrees for about 20-25 minutes, or until the dough is golden brown.

Invert and voilah! You have a nicely delicious apple upside down tart!

Our next plan is to replicate this success, and make a tarte tatin dish with blood! This is not a joke. Boudin noir aux pommes is another French classic dish of black pudding (blood sausage) with apples. And at a restaurant in Lyon during our trip, we had a wonderful boudin noir cooked in tarte tatin. What a delightful combination. Now we only have to find out how.

French holiday + Financier recipe

We have just concluded a month-long holiday of being fed good food everyday.

The trip started off with 3 days in Paris. Despite being in the fashion capital of the world, and suffering from severe withdrawal symptoms for the lack of retail therapy in Wellington (even suburban malls in Singapore offer more variety), I did not have the time and chance to step into a single boutique.

My only shopping conquest: 2 silicon cake moulds from Mora, a specialised cooking equipment shop, one for making financiers, another for cannelés. We also accompany our friends on their weekend grocery shopping at a local Saturday market.

Our main objective for the 3 days was to catch up with family and friends in Paris. So even the search for the best baguette in Paris took a back seat. We did however find a really nice traditional artisan bakery Du Pain et Des Idées in District 10 close to where we were staying. We dined at restaurants only twice, the memorable one being Les Aubergeade (17 Rue de Chaligny), a tiny neighbourhood restaurant packed with locals. The rest of the time were mostly spent enjoying homecooked lunches and dinners hosted by friends and family.

The feeding continued as we headed south back home to Grenoble followed by Corsica. I got to be reacquainted with familiar French home cooking as well as discovering new dishes. Like discovering osso buco (a stew of veal shank, tomatoes, onions where the highlight is digging out the tiny marrow in between the bones and enjoying it with bread). Or several lessons in tart making, from tart tartin to blueberry to lemon tarts. Oh yes, we have 2 new lemon tart recipes to try out. The lemon tart we used to make uses too much butter and is way too oily. Out it goes. There was also this chicken cooked in homemade lemon confit that was so heavenly we almost can't stop licking our plates. Other favourites include bouillabaisse (Corsican fish soup), rabbit with mustard, wild boar stew, fiadone (Corsican cheesecake) and more (everyday is a big feast). Even spaghetti bolognaise tasted so simply wonderful in the delightful company of the big extended family.

The last two weeks were spent in mostly Singapore and the feasting continued. I managed to satisfy many but not all of my cravings for local food. Brought back with me two local cookbooks, one specifically on steaming. I think my upcoming kitchen experiments will have a lot of steamed dishes, aside from the ongoing French project.

Below is an almond 'flat cupcake' recipe -- Financier -- from our Parisian friends' cookbook, which we had helped in baking while staying with them. It is very easy and fast to make.

Financier
Makes about 10

135g sugar
125g almond powder (correction: should be ground almond, pardon my bad translation)
70g salted butter
about 20g butter for buttering mould (omit if you're using silicon moulds)
2 eggs
20g flour

Preheat oven at 190deg (must be precise!!).

Melt down butter.

Mix sugar, almond powder and eggs together. Add melted butter gradually, followed by flour.

Butter mould generously and fill in the mould with batter. The tin and batter must be level when you put into the oven.  Bake for about 10 to 12 minutes.

Note: Financier is only about 1 cm thick. If you do not have the special mould, use a cupcake mould, but fill each mould with batter to not more than 1 cm in thickness.