Individual Potato and Onion Tartes Tatin

If I could take one indulgent, calorie and fat-laden ingredient and make it good for you without changing the makeup or taste of the product at all, it would be puff pastry. Unless of course I could choose the entire category of cheese, but if I had to choose just one cheese, I would stick with puff pastry.

Its rich buttery flavor and flaky layers are totally addictive and such a good complement to so many sweet and savory applications. I love using it as an easy tart crust, rolling it into palmiers or using it for a simple dessert. Not only is it delicious, but all the hard work is already done or you. You just cut the pastry to size and use as desired.



That ease of use is what makes these individual tartes tatins so brilliant. It’s an exercise in slicing more than cooking. Onion and potato slices are placed in individual pie pans and topped off with puff pastry. You can assemble them in about 15 minutes and after 30 minutes in the oven they emerge with the onions meltingly tender and sweet, and the crust perfectly puffed and golden. The hardest part, at least for me, is trying not to cut yourself on the mandoline as you slice the potatoes. I always cut myself. I probably need to give in and order a set of these to save my hands from total annihilation.



While I love any reason to purchase a new kitchen product, I actually could not find any 5-inch pie pans. Not even my trusted Surfas had them in stock. They are available online, but if you do not want to purchase small pie pans, I found that disposable 5-inch tins worked well (and only $3.99 for 15 of them).



Individual Potato and Onion Tartes Tatin
Adapted from Martha Stewart

4 T butter, cold and cut into small pieces, plus more for the pans
1 package puff pastry (17 ¼ oz)
4 medium yellow onions, peeled and cut into ¼-inch slices
5 small new potatoes
Salt and pepper
¼ cup balsamic vinegar
Pinch of sugar

Preheat Oven to 425*
Generously butter six 5-inch pie pans (or 5-inch disposable tin pans). Cut six 4 ½-inch rounds from the puff pastry and place in the refrigerator to chill while you finish the tarts.

Place two to three slices of onion on the bottom of each pie pan. Use a mandoline to cut the potatoes into ¼-inch (or thinner) slices. Lay the potato slices in a circle covering the onions, overlapping the slices as pictured above. Generously sprinkle the potatoes with salt and pepper. Place the puff pastry rounds over the potatoes and bake until golden (20 minutes in Martha’s oven, closer to 30 in mine).

Invert the tarts onto a serving platter or individual plates and allow to cool slightly while you prepare the glaze. Heat the balsamic vinegar and sugar in a small saucepan. Simmer until slightly reduced and syrupy, about four minutes. Whisk in the cold butter, one piece at a time. Season with salt and pepper. Using a pastry brush, brush the glaze over the onions topping each tart and serve warm.

Candied Kumquat Tart

There was a kumquat tree in my front yard when I was young. Unfortunately, it met the chopping block when my parents re-landscaped the front yard. I’d like to think the gardeners lovingly transplanted the tree elsewhere, but this was the eighties and sustainability wasn’t exactly “in” at the time. Sadly, I didn’t enjoy kumquats when I had an abundance of them at my fingertips. My young taste buds couldn’t appreciate the tartness of the tiny citrus fruit and something about eating the whole thing, rind and all, was off-putting to a six-year-old.



I’m certain I have eaten a kumquat at some point between the time the tree was removed and now, but the moment escapes me. So, this weekend when there were bags upon bags of kumquats available at the farmers’ market, I couldn’t resist the opportunity to try them again.

It turns out that my adult taste buds very much appreciate the balance of sweet and tart along with the convenience of eating the entire fruit, rind and all. In fact, I started popping the little suckers like candy. I knew I needed to make something with them before I worked my way through the whole bag.



I was already working on a tart crust made primarily of quinoa flour and almond meal for my first experiment in gluten-free cooking. I don’t have any problem digesting gluten, but I have girlfriends who do and to be honest, I was more curious than anything. I still needed something to fill the tart and the kumquats, with their bright orange color, promised to at least make the tart look appetizing if nothing else.

Appetizing indeed. I candied the kumquats which turned out to not only be delicious, but the process actually intensified their orange color. The crust was a partial success. It was tasty and imparted a peanut butter flavor to the tart, but it was a bit crumbly and could have held together better. This may have been my fault for rolling the dough out too thinly in an attempt to stretch it between two tarts. Either way, it was good enough to try again. Will I be giving up my all purpose flour and butter and lard-laden crusts? Absolutely not. But this will be a nice alternate to have on hand, especially when my gluten-free friends are coming over for dinner.



Candied Kumquat Tart
Crust adapted from a Whole Foods recipe
Filling adapted from Epicurious

Crust
1 cup quinoa flour
1/2 cup almond meal
1/4 cup sugar
1/2 t xanthan gum
1/4 t salt
1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter
1 egg yolk

Filling
1 lb fresh kumquats
1 cup water
2 cups plus
2 T sugar
1 t fennel pollen
2/3 cup ricotta
1/3 cup sour cream

Crust
Place the quinoa flour, almond meal, sugar, xanthan gum and salt in a food processor and pulse to combine. Cut the butter into small cubes and add to the food processor. Pulse until the mixture looks like wet sand, but the butter is not fully incorporated. Form the dough into one disc for a round tart or two oblong discs for two smaller rectangular tarts and chill for 30 minutes.

Preheat oven to 400*
Remove the dough from the refrigerator and roll out to the shape of your tart pan. In order to keep the dough gluten-free, use quinoa flour to dust the dough while rolling it out. Transfer the dough to your tart pan and use a fork to prick the crust all over. Bake the crust for 15 – 20 minutes until golden brown. Remove from the oven and allow to cool on a wire rack.

Filling
Thinly slice the kumquats and remove any seeds. Bring the water and 2 cups of sugar to a boil and simmer for 5 minutes. Add the kumquats and simmer for 10 minutes. Drain the kumquats through a strainer set over a bowl to catch the syrup. Reserve the syrup for another purpose (I’m mixing mine with mineral water for drinks).

Combine the remaining sugar and fennel pollen with the ricotta and the sour cream. Spread the ricotta mixture evenly over the cooled tart shell. Place the kumquat slices in rows over the filling until the tart is fully covered. The crust is very delicate so slice carefully when serving.

Shaved Beet Salad

Occasionally I look at a menu and find a dish that sets off a craving. It happened to me this past weekend when I spotted a roasted beet tower on the appetizer menu of a restaurant where I was enjoying a sunny Sunday afternoon on the patio. I envisioned layers upon layers of red, golden and bulls blood (pink) beets. What showed up was three very thin beet slices, each separated by a solid inch of an avocado and tomato mixture. Don’t get me wrong, I love avocados, but when I was expecting roasted beets, a plate of guacamole was pretty disappointing.

Lucky for me, the folks over at Clarkson Potter recently sent me a copy of the new Everyday Food cookbook – “Fresh Flavor Fast.” I subscribe to the Everyday Food magazine and buy their books because they have simple, get-down-to-business recipes. I may love spending hours on a dish on a quiet Saturday afternoon, but Monday through Friday, I need realistic recipes that take into account the maybe 30 minutes I have to prepare a meal.

Fresh Flavor Fast is everything I love about Everyday Food. It’s packed with new ideas to get you out of the cooking ruts that are so easy to get into when speed and simplicity are top priorities. I wasn’t expecting a side dish or salad to be the first recipe I made from the book, but upon arriving home from my disappointing roasted beet tower experience, I opened up the book and found this recipe for shaved beet salad.

The salad took no more than 10 minutes to put together and totally satiated my beet craving. Raw beets are not for everyone so make sure you slice them thinly. I used a mix of red and golden beets, but feel free to use all red or any combination you prefer. If you are using a mix, make sure you toss them with the dressing separately or the red beets will turn everything else red too.



Shaved Beet Salad
Adapted from Fresh Flavor Fast

1 pound beets, sliced thinly on a mandoline
1 t orange zest
2 T fresh orange juice
2 t white wine vinegar
1 T olive oil
1/2 t sugar
Coarse salt (kosher or Maldon) and pepper

Whisk together the zest, juice, vinegar, oil and sugar and season with salt and pepper. Toss the beets with the dressing. If you are using different colored beets, toss each color separately so that the red beets don’t bleed their color on the lighter beets. Arrange beets on individual plates and serve.

Prosciutto Corn Cakes

I love corn. I love corn on the cob, cornbread, corn pudding and I certainly love a coarsely ground cornmeal, cooked for at least thirty minutes while liquid is slowly introduced, turning the whole mixture into what is known as polenta.



This love of corn is why I get excited anytime I see a recipe that resembles cornbread or calls for some kind of ground corn product. It’s why I turned my mother’s cornbread recipe into madeleines so I could snack on them at tea time, or anytime really. It’s also why these little corn cakes caught my eye in a recent Donna Hay Magazine.



They’re quite simple really. An instant polenta mixture is seasoned with sage and poured into waiting muffin tins lined with prosciutto. The most complicated part of this recipe was locating instant polenta. If you live in Southern California let me save you the trouble of going to the four grocery stores that I visited during my search (yes I said four and yes I am aware that I have possibly the most patient boyfriend a girl could ask for). Gelson’s in Marina del Rey carried the instant variety and I’m willing to bet that their other locations do to.



If you can’t find instant polenta, do not try to substitute regular polenta here as it will completely throw off the cooking times. If you don’t feel like putting in the effort to find the instant variety than try what I am going to do next time – whip up a batch of my mother’s cornbread and use it to fill the prosciutto-lined muffin tins. I can’t make any promises about the state of the prosciutto after a longer cooking time, but I love my mother’s recipe so much that I’m willing to give it a try.



Prosciutto Corn Cakes
Adapted from Donna Hay Magazine

1 cup of instant polenta
1/2 cup of flour
1 t baking powder
1/4 t baking soda
2 T of chopped sage + 12 sage leaves
Salt and pepper
1 1/2 cups sour cream
2 eggs, lightly beaten
12 slices of prosciutto

Preheat the oven to 350*
Place the polenta, flour, baking powder, baking soda, chopped sage, cream and eggs in a bowl and mix well to combine. Season with salt and pepper. Place extra sage in the bases of 12 lightly greased 1/2 cup capacity muffin tins. Line each tin with prosciutto and fill with polenta mixture. Bake for 15 - 20 minutes or until cooked. Let cool slightly before serving.

Using Up Leftover Pasta

There is an Italian restaurant near my house that I frequent when I am looking for a no frills carb fest. The atmosphere is not great and the décor definitely leaves something to be desired, but the food is outstanding - great pasta dishes with rich, sometimes creamy sauces and gargantuan portions. They fit so much pasta on one plate that two maybe three people could share just one dish.

This past weekend I started craving a no frills carb fest about halfway through a seven-mile death march, I mean really lovely hike through the Santa Monica Mountains. Truth be told it was a lovely hike, but one that left all three hikers absolutely famished. Immediately after we returned home we headed off to gorge ourselves on carbs to refuel our bodies.

Starving and unable to agree on dishes to share, we each ordered our own. Not surprisingly, this left us with three to-go boxes, enough for at least another meal per person. The next day, determined not to let all those leftovers go to waste, I threw a half pound of leftover pasta with marinara sauce into a frying pan with eggs and cheese and made myself a pasta frittata.

Frittatas are always a great way to clean out the veg bin and use up leftover ingredients, but this pasta frittata is now by far my favorite. The pasta gives it a heartiness that just isn’t present when a frittata is eggs and veg alone, and if you love the sauce your favorite Italian restaurant uses on your pasta, why not give it a second chance to shine?

I’ll be heading back for more carbs shortly, and I will be denying any requests to share. From now on, I’ll be making sure we come home with leftovers.

Note - Any frittata recipe should be thought of more as a guide then a strict set of rules. The whole idea is to use up what you have on hand. No parsley? Try any number of fresh herbs, decreasing the amount you use depending on how pungent the herb. No crème fraiche? How about goat cheese or sour cream? You get the idea. Throw in what looks and sounds delicious and it will turn out well.



Pasta Frittata

1/2 pound of leftover pasta with sauce
5 eggs
1/4 cup chopped parsley
Salt and pepper
1/4 cup crème fraiche
1/2 cup grated parmesan

Preheat the broiler. Place the pasta in medium sauté pan over medium heat and warm through. In a separate bowl, whisk the eggs and parsley until combined and season with salt and pepper. Drop mounds of crème fraiche into the egg mixture, but do not combine. Pour the egg mixture over the pasta in the pan and cook until almost set, about six to eight minutes. Sprinkle the grated parmesan on top and place the pan under the broiler until the frittata is set and starting to brown on top. Serve with a side salad for a delicious little meal.

Grilled Zucchini Rolls for a Rainstorm

As we head into a weekend with nothing but rain on the docket, it’s easy for my mind to wander to soups, stews and braises. Something that will keep the oven on all afternoon and produce a dish that is warm, comforting and filling. It is easy for my mind to wander there, but I’m not letting it. I’m sticking with fresh, bright flavors in hopes of using my taste buds to pull myself out of this rainy weekend.

These little appetizers of grilled zucchini wrapped around fluffy fresh goat cheese, basil and citrus should be enough to remind me of warm evenings spent outdoors post-time change (even if the grill marks on the zucchini came from my grill pan and not the outdoor BBQ). The recipe comes from Ellie Krieger, but I’ve taken quite a few liberties with it including doubling the amount of goat cheese. After all, I wouldn’t want things too healthy - it is raining outside. If you want to read the original, and slightly more healthy version of the recipe, just click on her name below.

If all this rain continues, that duck confit I’ve been threatening to make will definitely come to fruition, but for now I’m counting on these light fresh flavors to satisfy me. Actually, even if the rain doesn’t continue, the duck is definitely coming to fruition. Perhaps after I let my mind start to wander again.



Grilled Zucchini Rolls
Adapted from Ellie Krieger

3 zucchini
3 oz goat cheese
1 T freshly minced parsley leaves
1/2 t lemon juice
1/3 cup basil leaves
Salt and pepper
Cooking spray

Thinly slice the zucchini on a mandolin and discard the outermost slices. Season with salt and pepper. Place a grill pan over medium heat and spray with cooking spray. Cook the zucchini until tender and grill marks appear (about four minutes per side).

In a small bowl, combine the goat cheese, parsley and lemon juice, and season with salt.

Put a small spoonful of the cheese mixture on each zucchini slice and top with a basil leaf. Roll up and place seam side down on a platter. Repeat with remaining zucchini slices.

Gougères with Duck Confit

Pâte à choux is a wonderful, versatile dough that should be part of every cook’s repertoire. I’m a bit embarrassed that it took me as long as it did to try my hand at it, but now that I’m on board, my new favorite past time is coming up with pâte à choux variations.

Variation number one was made immediately after consuming every last one of the cream puffs drizzled with dulche de leche. I had leftover dough and, knowing that they were simply pâte à choux with cheese mixed in, gougères, in other words cheese puffs, seemed like the next logical incarnation. After all, we were all suffering from a pretty bad cream puff sugar high and needed something savory to get our feet back on the ground.



While researching pâte à choux the first time around, I read that a friend of Michael Ruhlman’s used up leftover duck confit by piping pâte à choux over little mounds of it. I had been obsessed ever since and figured if I was already adding parmesan to the mix, why not throw some duck confit in there as well?

Excellent idea friend of Michael Ruhlman! These were even more addictive than the cream puffs. Something about the warm dough wrapped around the salty parmesan and rich duck was totally irresistible. Next up, I am going to have to make my own duck confit so I have a supply at the ready whenever the craving hits – not to mention the added benefit of avoiding the $13 per leg of duck confit.



Gougères with Duck Confit
Ratio from Michael Ruhlman

2:1:1:2
(Water: Butter: Flour: Eggs)

1 cup (8 oz) water
4 oz butter (a bit less than a stick – weigh if you can)
4 oz flour
4 eggs (large eggs are about 2 oz per egg)
1/2 cup finely grated parmesan
1/2 cup of shredded duck confit (one duck leg will yield close to 1 cup)

Preheat oven to 425*
Place the butter and water in a medium saucepan and heat over medium heat until the butter is melted and the liquid is simmering. Add the flour and stir vigorously with a wooden spoon until the dough pulls away from the side of the pan. Transfer the dough to a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment. Add one egg at a time, making sure each egg is fully incorporated before adding the next. You can mix the eggs in by hand, in the same pot if you prefer. Stir in the parmesan.

Place the dough in a piping bag with a plain tip or a large Ziploc bag with one corner cut off. Place 1 t mounds of duck confit about two inches apart on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper. Pipe the dough over the mounds so the confit is completely covered and place in the 425 oven for 10 minutes. Lower the heat to 375 and continue cooking until fully cooked - about 20 more minutes depending on the size. Just look for them to be golden brown all over and you’ll know you’re done.

When The Cream Is Worth It

Sometimes the cream is worth it. Actually, in my book the cream is often worth it. However, as the January leanings towards a healthier diet continue into February, sometimes I find myself doing silly things like replacing all the cream in a recipe with low-fat buttermilk.

Perhaps you have found yourself doing the same thing. In theory I think it’s a good idea. After all, low-fat buttermilk has a thick texture that is similar to cream. Unfortunately, in practice, all that missing fat is noticeably missing.



I realized this recently while making a zucchini and goat cheese tart. All the shredded zucchini that the recipe called for seemed too healthy to bury under a mountain of cream and frankly, I did not feel like consuming most of my daily calories in one sitting. I replaced all of the cream with low-fat buttermilk and hoped for the best.



Even with the buttermilk, the tart ended up just fine. In fact, a friend who doesn’t eat a lot of rich food thought it was delicious, but for me, there was something missing (mainly all that fat).

I’m including the recipe as it was originally published in the current issue of Donna Hay. The next time I make this I will likely replace some of the cream with buttermilk, probably a third at most and see if I can be satisfied with that compromise.



Zucchini and Goat’s Curd Tart
Donna Hay Magazine Issue 47
Serves 4 - 6

2/3 cups butter, melted
8 sheets phyllo dough
5 zucchini grated
9 eggs
1 1/2 cups single cream
Salt
Pepper
7 oz goat’s curd or goat cheese

Preheat oven to 325*
Butter the base of a 12” x 15” pan (I ended up using a 9” x 13” brownie pan and it worked perfectly). Layer the sheets of phyllo, brushing butter between each sheet. Place the grated zucchini in the pan on top of the phyllo. Lightly beat the eggs and cream together, season with salt and pepper and pour over the zucchini. Top with spoonfuls of goat cheese and bake for 45 – 50 minutes until set. Let cool slightly before slicing.