Slim Pickins' Pork

Making pasta the old, old fashion way

2009-12-07T20:22:00.004-05:00

It should be no surprise that my latest cookbook swing, Cooking by Hand, an Italian guide to that country's rustic cuisine, should have a number of homemade pasta recipes.

I've made pasta before, but not for a while, and I decide to do it by hand, armed only with a rolling pin (the long, thin kind with no handles, critical for pasta making).

I'm making a standard semolina dough-15 ounces of flour, 6 ounces of water. Kneed for a bit, wrap up and rest, and then the hard part: rolling it out. I remember reading once that homemade pasta should be transparent-mine wasn't, but that doesn't mean I didn't try.

After rolling it into flat sheets, I roll it up and cut it:

To see if the darned stuff tastes any good, I pair it with a simple sauce of onions, red wine, tomatoes and Italian sausage:

Not bad, but I'm even more excited about the gnocchi I made. More on that in a bit...

Slow rabbit

2009-12-02T13:39:00.005-05:00

I'm sortof starting a new cookbook adventure with Cooking by Hand, a great Italian book for do-it-yourselfers (no prepackaged pasta here). I say sortof because with the holidays here, things are a bit more hectic than normal.

Anyway, my first foray is a simple braised rabbit dish, designed to highlight the delicate flavor of the rabbit (at least I assume so since there isn't any piggy in this recipe).

The most difficult part of this recipe may be procuring a rabbit, but with plenty of Asian markets around here, that isn't a problem. One rabbit, cut up and ready to braise:

Toss it in a heavy pot, cover with about a cup of olive oil and a cup of water (I used duck stock), scatter with onions, season with salt, and let it simmer for about two hours.

I pulled the rabbit when it was tender, and then reduced the cooking liquid, fortifying it with a bit of heavy cream.

The whole business gets served over some egg noddles (storebought this time):

The rabbit was good, if very mild, but the sauce was excellent; I suspect most of the rabbit's flavor was given to the cooking liquid. Anyway, something fun and a good start to a new cookbook; can't wait to get stuck into the piggy chapter!

More Feet!

2009-11-25T22:08:00.005-05:00

I'm more or less winding down my foray into The Zuni Cafe Cookbook, and since the time between Thanksgiving and Christmas is a busy time filled with its own cooking adventures, I won't start a new book until after the New Year.

So, for now I decide to make use of the pig's feet I've got kicking around the freezer. And what better cookbook to turn to than Au Pied de Cochon, the cookbook from the pork and foie gras crazy restaurant of the same name in Montreal (I'm still kicking myself that I didn't hit the place when I was in Montreal a few years back).

The cookbook itself is pretty wild and lots of fun, though I think if I cooked steadily from it for more than a few days, one of us would probably have a heart attack. Let's just say its heavy on the animal fat (not a bad thing, but I gotta be realistic).

The pig's feet recipe is pretty standard-the feet get simmered for a few hours, then separated from the shanks, which are braised with tomatoes to make a nice sauce. The pig's feet, on the other hand, are fried. I decide to serve both the feet and shanks over polenta. The whole meal turned out pretty darned good (yup, that's some Surly in the background, thanks to Reils, my Minnesota connection):

Not sure I'll give the foie gras stuffed pig's feet a try, but if I do, you'll know I'll blog about it.

Have a great Thanksgiving!

Squid-o-Rama

2009-11-17T20:29:00.004-05:00

This post is really inspired by two trips I took this year. The first was to Jungle Jim's, the amazing grocery store outside of Cincinnati, where I had a great time grabbing new food. The second was my August trip to San Francisco. And while I did visit the Zuni Cafe (basis of my recent cookbook foray), I have to say that the most memorable meal was in Oakland at Oliveto.

The common thread in both these trips? Squid-I picked up a bunch of frozen squid at Jungle Jim's (although the stuff is pretty much everywhere now), and the best part of the Oliveto meal was the red-wine braised squid dish.

The Zuni Cafe Cookbook has a pretty similar looking recipe, so I decide to give it a try. Pretty basic stuff-squid sauteed quickly, then slowly cooked with red wine, mirepoix, and plenty of roasted peppers. The results, while different from the meal at Oliveto, were outstanding:

Because I had some extra squid left over, I might as well make my wife happy and fry up some calamari. Of course, if I've gone to the trouble (and mess) of deep-frying, it can't hurt to make some pomme frites (that's fries to the great unwashed):

Deep fryer? I don't need no stinkin' deep fryer, my cast iron dutch oven works just fine, thank you:

All in all a good, hearty meal. If you haven't given squid a try, I hope you will-squid are cheap, delicious, and you can even eat them guilt free.

Beer and Beef

2009-11-12T20:10:00.003-05:00

Apparently I'm an alchemist at heart, because I'm always attracted to recipes that take humble ingredients and transform them (usually through low heat and lots of time) into something sublime.

My most recent foray into The Zuni Cafe Cookbook is just such a recipe: beer braised short ribs. The recipe is nothing more than browning short ribs (after they've been seasoned a couple of days ahead of time, a common strategy in this book), then, with the addition of thickly sliced onions, braised in beer and chicken stock until tender.

Not much more difficult than this, and with some buttermilk mashed potatoes, an immensely satisfying meal:

Like I said, a few ingredients, a bit of time, and some low heat can be magical.

Roast Chicken, Zuni Cafe Style

2009-11-09T20:17:00.009-05:00

Among other things, Zuni Cafe is famous for its roast chicken (which requires a 45 minute wait). When I went in August, I didn't give it a try, so with the cookbook in hand, I figured I'd better make amends.

I'm not a huge fan of chicken in general, but roast chicken in something that, when done well, is one of the most satisfying things to partake of. Deceptively simple, it is often the measure of a cook since there isn't anything fancy to hide behind; sort of the culinary version of the agony and the ecstasy, I guess.

But I digress; I've had plenty of luck with Alton Brown's version of roast chicken, something to stack up again the recipe from The Zuni Cafe Cookbook.

The recipe for looks very simple, a plus in its favor. It does require that you season the bird and stuff a few herbs under the skin a couple of days in advanced, but that's not a big deal.

The bird gets roasted in a preheated cast iron skillet (always a plus in my book) in a 475 degree oven:

Flip it on its breast after 20 minutes, then on its back again for another 15, and voila, its ready to eat (after a nice rest, of course):

Apparently the chicken is paired with a savory bread salad of sorts, but its getting to be neigh-on Thanksgiving around these parts, and we are awash with sweet potatoes. Thus, I decide to give the book's sweet potato hash recipe a spin; they tasted great, but looked pretty awful.

We've also got plenty of apples, so I also made up the apple tart recipe in the book, which has one of the easiest pastry recipes I've tried. It too tasted better than it looked, but here's a picture for posterity's sake:

Bottom line is the chicken was abosolutely declicious, so I've now got another roast chicken recipe in the repertoire, which is never a bad thing.

New Book (Zuni Cafe) and for the love of sage

2009-11-02T15:55:00.006-05:00

After a few days off, I decided that my next foray into the world of cookbooks will be The Zuni Cafe Cookbook by Judy Rodgers, who owns and runs the restaurant of the same name in San Francisco (which I happened to visit in August).

Like any good San Francisco cook, Judy Rodgers worked in Chez Panise under Alice Waters, and, unsurprisingly, this cookbook reflects her passion for local ingredients and simple foods. Unlike most new American cuisine how-to manuals, the cookbook and cafe tilt a bit more Italian than French, although her experience in French restaurants certainly is evident as well.

If I'm going to tackle what many of those in the know consider one of the best restaurants in America, I might as well go big, as in pig big:

That's a fresh picnic ham from this guy, which I've want to roast for quite a while now. I've had plenty of luck with Paula Wolfert's slow roasted version, but this time I go with Judy's version of porchetta. In Italy, porchetta is basically street food-a whole deboned pig, stuffed with herbs, slow roasted and then served on bread.

Typically home versions use the pork shoulder, but that picnic ham looks so good, I gotta give it a try.

Deboning it was surprisingly easy, and then it got stuffed with a variety of herbs (rosemary, sage, fennel), as well as garlic and capers:

After tying it up, I use Paula Wolfert's technique for roast picnic ham-a hot oven (450) to crisp the skin, and then low and slow (225 for 4 hours) to finish it up.

I'm ready to eat:

For some reason, I managed to pick up all the sage recipes in the book: sage and bacon peas (super fantastic) and sage and onion polenta (also good), so why not tie the whole meal together with some sage pesto? I decided to forgo the food processor and made it the old fashioned way:

The dinner was great, but on some homemade foccacia bread with ricotta cheese, the leftovers are even better:

Back to the Grill

2009-10-25T20:24:00.005-04:00

My grills are mad at me, and for good reason. My recent adventures with The Cooking of Southwest France did not afford many opportunites for cooking over the open flame.

To rectify that, in the break before my next cookbook adventure, I went back to a classic, beer butt chicken.

The particular recipe I use is pretty basic, so and any rub recipe will work (I like mine, which uses summer savory, a great addition):

Once they've been rubbed, you know the drill-in goes the beer can, and off to the grill they go. I don't think my sense of humour is that juvenile, but this sight always makes me crack up:

I've gotten into the practice of misting the chickens with a mixture of probably 6 parts beer (Yuengling), to one parts olive oil and balsamic vinegar.

I can't make beer butt chicken without my wife's favorite side, sweet potatoes roasted directly on the coals:

I also make a batch of buttermilk biscuits, and, like always, they fail to impress (maybe since I was born a couple of hours from the Canadian border, I'll never be able to make true Southern staples). Whatever the case, the meal as a whole went off well.

Today was a good day

2009-10-23T21:09:00.003-04:00

Cheers!

Saving the Best for Last: Cassoulet and The Cooking of SW France

2009-10-18T21:21:00.006-04:00

As the title indicates, after reading The Cooking of SW France it become apparent that cassoulet, more than any other dish, personifies this region's culinary soul.

Hearty, simple, complex, rustic, elegant, are all words that come to mind when tasting a good cassoulet. The problem, as Wolfert notes, is that there are as many versions of this simple meat and beans dish as their are French grandmothers.

I decide to give the slightly unorthodox Catalan-version a try: duck confit? non, sausage? oui (let's not get crazy, this isn't some fusion cassoulet here), and finally, lamb:

That's about 3 lbs. of lamb shoulder browned, then simmered with pancetta, onions, plenty of garlic, some diced tomatoes, and white wine until tender.

Meanwhile, the real star of the dish, white beans, are simmered with bacon rind and sausage. The beans, lamb, and sausage get layered and then baked until a crust forms on top. Very simple, very delicious:

I've made other cassoulets in the past, and this one was right up there, a fitting end to a great cookbook. I'll embark on a new cookbook adventure shortly, so stay tuned.

Duck + red wine + fried cornmeal=Heaven

2009-10-15T17:45:00.003-04:00

Sometimes there are recipes that are so rich, so unctuous, that they practically jump off the page screaming "cook me!"

My most recent foray into The Cooking of Southwest France resulted in precisely one of those dishes, duck cooked in red wine, referred to as a salmis (the recipe can be found here).

Like some other dishes I've cooked, this requires little more than meat, red wine, and time. The actual component that sent it over the top, however, wasn't in the dish itself, but in the pan fried polenta that served as the basis of the stew:

Good? You bet; this one's definitely going on the steady rotation.

The Happiest Time of Year

2009-10-11T20:04:00.006-04:00

Is there any doubt that fall is the best time of year, especially if you love to cook? The farmer's markets are still overflowing with summer's bounty, but with the cool weather, heartier soups, stews, and other fare are back on the table (literally).

The one thing I enjoy more than cooking in the fall is getting outside to enjoy the cool air and beautiful foliage. This Sunday we decided to combine the two with a picnic at Highbanks Park, one of many beautiful metro parks surrounding Columbus.

Tops on my list of picnic foods are rillettes, shredded meats (yum) bound together by fat (yummier). This time I went to The Cooking of Southwest France and its version of duck rillettes.

These are pretty simple to make; combine cut-up duck thighs, chunks of pork, salt, pepper, shallots, a bit of wine, and some rendered lard and cook in a low oven for about four hours:

When the meat is falling apart, shred and blend with some fat, making sure to season aggressively, a necessity since these are served cold.

While the kids went with peanut butter and nutella sandwiches, both the wife and I enjoyed the rillettes (but especially my wife):

After a long hike in the cool outdoors there are few better ways to warm up than with a big bowl of soup. In keeping with the spirit of the season, I cranked out some butternut squash soup, also from The Cooking of SW France. This, along with a rich dunkelweizen, completed what I hope to be one of many fine fall days:

Bloody sausage

2009-10-09T20:40:00.002-04:00

A while back, just after getting my whole hog, I decided to give a shot at blood sausage, or blood pudding as my relatives in Scotland would say (here's the original post).

While I've become more adventurous in my eating (thanks in part to my wife, who is Asian, and therefore will eat just about any type of food), blood sausage has always been something I've enjoyed.

So, when I came across a recipe for blood sausage, potatoes, and apples in my latest project, The Cooking of Southwest France, I had to give it a try, especially given how easy it was.

Fry some quartered tart apples (I used ones I picked myself), add some sauteed thinly sliced potatoes, and cook in a 400 degree oven for 15 minutes, then top with thin slices of blood sausage for five minutes:

One thing you'll notice is that the diameter of the sausage is rather small. I've been using the standard 32/35 mm casings and have been a bit dissapointed that they shrink while cooking. I'm going to upgrade to a larger size and see if that helps.

Trotter goodness

2009-10-02T11:48:00.000-04:00

As I note on the description of my blog on the right, one of my goals is to convince my kids to eat pig's feet. Well, not only can I cross that off of my to-do list, I better add trotters to my regular rotation, because both boys, especially the younger one, absolutely devoured them (I'm so proud, I'm getting a bit misty).

Again, this recipe is from The Cooking of Southwest France, the book I'll be working through over the course of the next couple of weeks.

The first step is, of course, scoring about four trotters (mine were from the Old Spot, but an Asian Market is probably a good start, and with this economy, more supermarkets are carrying them as well):

After soaking them in cold water and a tablespoon of vinegar for a few minutes, toss them in a large pot with some aromatics (onions, carrots, bay leaves, peppercorns), cover with water, and simmer for about three hours, or until tender.

When the trotters are cool enough to handle, remove skin (keep intact if you can, I didn't), meat, and all the other gelatinous goodness. Lay the skin flat on a piece of aluminum foil, sprinkle the rest of the trotter on top, roll up into a sausage, and return to poaching liquid for about five minutes.

Toss in a ice bath to cool off, and refridgerate it for up to three days (we ate it right away, but the flavor gets better over time). When ready to serve, slice thin:

We ate it with dijion mustard and potatos slow roasted in lard (also from the book, and also delicious). I was fortunate enough to capture my youngest's enjoyment on film before he devoured the lot:

Veggie tart and pie

2009-09-30T11:49:00.009-04:00

Although I earlier lauded The Cooking of Southwest France as a homage to pork and duck fat, for my first recipe from the book, I'm going vegetarian.

I've always been a sucker for savory pastry dishes (Cornish pasties in particular), so the recipe for the leek and mushroom tart was a no-brainer.

The recipe itself couldn't be easier; it begins with a pretty standard pastry dough , although she calls for whole wheat flour (any savory pastry dough would work).

For the filling, saute about a pound of cleaned, thinly sliced leeks in butter until softened and the butter is absorbed. Spread evenly on pastry, add eight ounces of thinly sliced mushrooms, and top with about a half cup of creme fresche (I used sour cream). Add the top layer just like a standard pie, brush with egg wash, and bake in 425 oven for 15 minutes, drop the oven down to 375 and back for an additional 20 minutes:

We had friends out this weekend, and to show them the finer side of central Ohio, we took them to a nearby apple orchard:

When life gives you apples (20 pounds worth), you'd better make apple pie:

Cookbooks? Yea or Nay? (the start of a new project)

2009-09-28T13:42:00.001-04:00

Ever since I started cooking seriously, I've been a sucker for cookbooks. Pretty pictures and lots of pork fat? I'm there. Recently, however, there have been some discussions, like Micheal Ruhlman's post, on what function cookbooks serve in actually teaching us amateurs how to cook.

A major critique of cookbooks that has emerged from this conversation is that they teach people how to follow directions, but not the techniques needed to allow one to create a unique dish wholly your own. Thus, the logic goes, we should be learning techniques at cooking school and limiting our reading to texts like those produced by the the Culinary Institute of America.

I agree with both these arguments: most cookbooks aren't particularly good at teaching, and aspiring home cooks should have sound fundamentals. That said, I think there are a number of "cookbooks" that are tremendously useful and instructive, and I myself have learned a lot from many cookbooks (oftentimes when I least expected it).

Therefore, in defense of cookbooks, I am going to begin a project whereby I immerse myself in a cookbook for a couple of weeks and report how it has changed/improved my approach to cooking. This is not a "cook the book" model, but rather an excuse to spend quality time with some really first rate cookbooks.

The first book was really a n0-brainer, Paula Wolfert's The Cooking of Southwest France. Paula Wolfert is perhaps the most gifted author in capturing a sense of place when writing about a specific cuisine, and it doesn't hurt that she makes liberal use of pork and duck fat in many of her recipes. Look for cassoulets, using a whole duck, beak to tail feathers, and other creations!

Sausage Day

2009-09-25T12:29:00.000-04:00

Despite the brief uptick in temperature, Autumn's arrived again in Central Ohio, and that means that soon enough it'll be time for me to get another pig from Dave at Spring Hill Farm. Problem is, I still have some of the Old Spot I got last year still in the freezer

Part of the remaining piggy parts literally chilling in my freezer is simply a large package of various meat trimmings labeled "sausage." Since I'm not one to argue much, let's grind us some meat!

I reckon there is nearly 15 lbs. of trimming, so I decide to go with three different sausages: a Toulase sausage recipe from Paula Wolfert's The Cooking of Southwest France, a simple fresh sausage similar to Rulhman and Polcyn's fresh garlic sausage recipe from Charcuterie (subbing roasted garlic for fresh).

The final recipe is inspired by what has been the most memorable sausage I've ever eaten, a simple fresh pork and leak sausage my wife and I enjoyed while we were in Wales.

Although I didn't have a decent recipe to start with, my Scottish butcher connection John provided some valuable insights on where to start.

The day started with a dark omen when I broke the blade on my super duper meat grinder. Fortunately, the KitchenAid proved to be a reliable substitute.

After much grinding and stuffing, my kitchen was strewn with sausage:

As a bonus, I ground about 15 lbs. of fat back and rendered it down into lard. I'm not messing around with this stuff; I'm storing it in gallon containers to be used whenever I get the deep frying itch (which is pretty often).

Grilled sausage obviously rules, but now that I'm awash in pork fat (not literally, at least not while I'm typing this), why not confit a few for cassoulet:

Yes, that, my friends, is a bunch of sausage swimming in pure pork fat-life is good!

Epic Fail

2009-09-23T21:27:00.004-04:00

In my previous post, I passed off the "busy" claim as a reason for my lack of activity. The real reason, however, was much more serious-you see, I had a food-related failure so epic, it took about a month to crawl out of my cave of self-pity.
It all started innocently enough with my Old Spot's head (you can see what he looked like pre-butcher here):

Anyhoo, instead of making a nice and simple head cheese/brawn/coppa di testa (which really just requires boiling the bugger), I decided to fly close to the sun with this technique for porchetta di testa posted by Chris Cosentino, noted offal enthusiast:

That's right, lots of cutting, folding, fussing.

Long story short, I didn't have the chops to pull it off and produced a nasty bit of meat. I did learn my lesson, and next time I'll be much more modest in my endeavours in the kitchen. To that end, look for an uplifting post about sausage coming shortly.

Back into It

2009-09-18T20:17:00.003-04:00

I've been MIA for a while, mainly catching up with various work-stuff and getting adjusted to another school year. Anyway, I was inspired to post by my first real sampling of pancetta I made with my Old Spot Hog documented here. I don't have a picture, but take my word when I say it was luscious-the fat to meat ratio was perfect (meaning most of it was pure fatty goodness).

Anyway, it provided the perfect base for a quick pasta dish: saute a diced onion and a coupled of minced garlic cloves in a couple of tablespoons of olive oil, add about a 1/4 lb. of diced pancetta, cook on very low heat until all the fat has rendered, and then toss in a large can of good quality canned tomatoes and cook down. When served over pasta, the fat coats everything in a porky goodness.

San Francisco

2009-08-12T12:10:00.003-04:00

My profession's annual conference was in San Francisco this weekend, and although I had plenty of work-related things going on, I did manage to sneak out and enjoy one of the best cities in America. The two highlights had to have been Oliveto and the Ferry Building.

Oliveto is a great rustic Italian restaurant in Oakland, and the food was fantastic. They had a wood fired brick oven, so I had to get the pizza, which was very nice. My favorite dish was the red-wine braised squid, absolutely perfect (sorry, no camera, so no pics). Incidently, I've not heard a lot of great things about Oakland, but the neighborhood where Oliveto is located was really very charming, and altered my perception of the city.

The Ferry Building is a great market with an amazing array of food; great cheese, bread, and produce (I think I ate about fifty fresh figs, which are a bit hard to come by in Ohio). My favorite place, not surprising, was Boccalone, just a great array of cured meats. Truly an homage to the humble piggie.

I also managed to hit the Zuni Cafe and enjoyed a great meal (as well as my first sampling of West Coast oysters-I found them much brinier and less sweet than the ones I'm used to in New Orleans).

San Francisco is, of course, a great beer town, and although I didn't get to go to the Anchor tour (which I've done in the past and is amazing if you can get in), I did manage to hit two great beer bars, the Toronado, and Rouge Public House.

Finally, although it caused me to be late to a professional meeting (thanks Steve!), I did take the BART to the In-and-Out Burger in Dade City, which puts every other fast food joint I know to shame.

It'll probably be five long years before I get back to San Fran, but I think I took enough good food to last me.

Beans and sausage

2009-08-06T06:54:00.004-04:00

Pork and beans are, to me, one of the most delicious combinations in the world-baked beans, cassoulet, and a whole host of other hearty dishes make use of the simple bean and humble piggie. One of the reasons why this is such a great peasant dish is that the beans (cheap and healthy) quickly take on the flavors of the pork, making it a great way to make a little meat go a long way.

One of my favorite (and easiest) combinations is from Rick Bayless's Mexican Everyday; cook up a pound of loose chorizio, and a pound or so of cooked black beans, and simmer until it is one big delicious mess. Smear a crusty loaf with some guacamole, add beans/sausage mixture, and enjoy:

All around good stuff.

Ohio's Bounty

2009-07-27T15:40:00.006-04:00

Although cool (no complaints here), summer is in full swing in Central Ohio, and the farmers' markets are beginning to abound with the produce. This weekend we all headed down to the North Market's farmer's market to see what we could rustle up. Not surprisingly, there was summer squash, eggplants, and peppers aplenty:

Lately I've had a hankering for a simple grilled veggie salad, so I fired up the brinkman. Since a meal consisting of grilled veggies seemed a bit one-dimensional, I all grilled up some flatbread (standard pizza dough) and hunks of provolone cheese, which I combined into a cheesy, bready pile of smokey goodness:

I also made up a quick roasted garlic sherry vinaigrette that went very well with the meal, using the standard 3 parts oil to 1 part vinegar/acid ratio. I'm looking to a few more of these harvest feasts before the end of summer.

Jambalaya

2009-07-24T08:01:00.003-04:00

I've never made any secret of my love of cajun and creole food, and look forward to to my once-every-three years visit to New Orleans. In fact, Emeril's Louisiana, Real and Rustic, was one of the first cookbooks I bought.

After visiting Couchon this spring in New Orleans, I was particularly excited about Donald Link's first cookbook, Real Cajun, an homage to the rustic food that, in my humble opinion, is one of the best regional cuisines in America.

The first recipe I tried was the chicken and smoked sausage jambalaya, which didn't disappoint:

I added some tasso along with the andouille, since a dish probably can never have too much smoked meat. The recipe was a bit more involved than others I've tried, but the results were well worth it; I look forward to many more great meals from this book. If you're hankering for more great New Orleans food, check out Nola Cuisine.

The Craftsman in Minneapolis

2009-07-19T10:29:00.005-04:00

We're finally back from the great white north, but now that I have access to high speed Internet (actually, it already feels slow), I wanted to write one final post about a great restaurant in Minneapolis, The Craftsman. This place is one of many around the country that is happily embracing both piggies and the nose to tail ethos.

With four carnivores, we decided to share dishes, and the menu didn't disappoint. Obviously, the chacuterie platter is a must, and this one didn't disappoint:

Home cured salami, lamb pate (yum), chicken liver pate were all great, as was the local artisan cheese, including a great funky blue.

One of our favorite entrees was the confit rabbit leg with polenta:

Pork belly is a mandatory entree, and it was also excellent:

Given my wife's love of steak, we ordered the grass fed hanger steak, which was grilled to perfection and accompanied by some great frites:

All in all a must-eat place for the discerning carnivore.

Bastille Day Tart

2009-07-15T15:10:00.008-04:00

In honor of Bastille Day, Reils and I decided to make a French-themed dessert. Reils suggested cake, but given the whole, "let them eat cake" thing (apparently Reils is a closet monarchist) we went with a tart:

We used this recipe from Epicurious as the base, with a few minor tweaks.

First, for the lemon curd we substituted some homemade lemincello for the lemon juice. Then, because we wanted a red, white and blue tart, we used a mixture of raspberries and blueberries, macerated in a bit of rum. All in all, not a bad effort for a couple of Francophiles