Fall yard wrap up... and a recipe!
Oct. 22nd, 2023 09:41 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
which_chickSaturday I cut the grass for what is likely the final time this year. I cut some grass, but a lot of leaves were also chopped up. Native Pollinator people might be all "Leave The Leaves" about this, but look, I'm on 550 acres of forested land. The tiny amount of "yard" that I can mow in under an hour with a human-propelled push mower is not making a real dent in the native pollinator problem.
I cut the asparagus down and raked off the used-up horse poop. (Asparagus are heavy feeders. I own horses. After a season, the horse poop nutrients are all used up and the stuff looks like worm castings, very fine, very high organic content, but not... super nutrient-ish. Also if I keep doing that, in a few years the asparagus bed is like six inches higher than the dirt around it. So I rake off the top three inches or so every couple of years and move it over to the "tomato and pepper" area which is larger and can absorb the input.) I also cut down the peonies for the winter.
I made a tarte tatin for dinner for Lala and me. (Her kitchen table, not mine.)
It's easier to take my mise and the Good Butter over to her house and cook there than it is to transport a piping hot mess of apples and caramelized sugar.
Looks good, doesn't it? Wanna make one?
You will need ... a large, oven-safe pan. I use a Le Creuset that I got for xmas some years ago. It also makes spare ribs, red rice, and assorted pot roasts. A large cast iron skillet would work. The large, oven-safe pan that you use does not need to have a lid.
You will ALSO need a Flat Plate Or Cookie Sheet or Pizza Pan that fits over the entire top of the large oven-safe pan and lies flat. This is because you are going to take your brutally hot oven-safe pan out of the 400 degree oven when it's done and slap the Flat Plate Thing on top and then INVERT THE WHOLE THING so that the tarte can fall out and be right-side-up for the eating.
Make sure you have a good and sturdy Flat Plate Thing because it is not best to discover that what you picked will not work when the large, oven-safe pan is 400 degrees.
Also you need two sticks of decent-quality european style butter, 3/4 cup white sugar, 1 and 1/2 cup white flour, and apples (eight? Just get half a bushel and plan to eat the rest. Having insufficient apples is just sad.) of a good baking variety. I think Stayman Winesap apples are the only apple that one should ever use for any purpose involving human consumption, but do what you can. Something that holds texture well when baked is what you would like.
This is a four-ingredient recipe. Apples, flour, sugar, butter. That's it. With a four-ingredient recipe, the quality of the ingredients matters a lot. Flour and white sugar are refined products without a ton of variability.
Butter? Better butter makes better tarte. European style butter is better. This would be your Plugra or Kerrygold or something. Vermont Creamery is also pretty good. (These are available in Pennsylvania, US. If you live somewhere else, you're on your own. Ask your grocery store for help, maybe? Or other people who cook?) I adore Plugra but can't get it all the time where I live. *sigh*
Apples. Good baking apples. In my part of the world, that's the Stayman Winesap, from October to the end of November. The rest of the year there is no tarte because I can't get apples worth my time. I don't half-ass the food that sticks directly to my whole ass. It's not worth it.
How tarte gets from ingredients to Delicious is technique. Technique matters, here. You only have a little play in the ingredients and technique is gonna get you the rest of the way there.
Cut one stick of butter into 1 and 1/2 cups of white flour. Do not cut butter in so that you have a "cornmeal" style mixture. Leave some lumps of butter, up to the size of a pea. We are going for a rougher, "flaky" style pastry instead of a smoother "mealy/tender" style of pastry here. The bigger lumps of butter make the "flaky" instead of the "mealy". Add ice water to get pastry to hold together. Cover and chill in fridge until you need it.
Quarter, core, and peel your apples. It's easiest to do them in that order. Do not go smaller than quarters. Quarters is the right size.
Preheat oven to 400F.
Put your pan on a stove burner at medium high. Add one stick butter and 3/4 cup of white sugar. Faff about with that until the butter is all melty and it's all kinda liquid and started to bubble.
Add all the apples, on the side-sides so that they can snuggle together in a nice rosette around the perimeter of your pan. You will have to jostle them a little, maybe, to get the ones in the middle to work.
Cook, supervising, jostling, nudging, flipping, etc. Medium high is kind of what you want so that the apple juice boils off and the apples brown before the apples cook to mush. They should still hold together a little, but they will struggle with this if your heat is too low.
Continue cooking, being sure to check undersides of apples for browning. When the individual slices are brown, flip them so that the other sides can cook. If your stove burner or pan heats unevenly, you may need to shuffle things around to avoid burning stuff. Do your best.
If your apples shrink a lot, it is OK to add a few more quarters in there to keep full coverage. Nobody will know that they got less cooking. Trust me, it'll be fine.
When things are just a hair browner than you think is reasonable (people, including me, tend to "under-brown", so this is to help you not be afraid of the brown), remove from heat.
Roll out pastry dough into a reasonable circle-ish shape. Roll up into a scroll, air-lift over your piping hot apple mess, unroll to cover the apples.
Tuck edges of pastry in around apples. Poke a few holes in it. If this takes you more than thirty seconds, quit fucking around. This is a Rustic Farmhouse Tarte, not a fancy fancy pastry. Don't sweat it, nobody will be able to see the pastry because of the delicious caramel apples on top of it. Hustle up and get it sorted.
Pop in oven for twenty to twenty-five minutes, until pastry is lightly browned in some spots.
Remove from oven. Run a knife quickly around the edge. (As it is a circle, there is only one edge.) Place Flat Plate Thing over your hot pan with pastry and apples. Invert. Listen for the plop of the appley goodness falling out. Remove hot pan. Inspect for any apples that stuck... you can repaste them in place and nobody will be the wiser. Also scoop out all the glop that is left in the hot pan and put it on the tarte.
Et voila. It needs to cool down a bit before you eat it. Because the moisture content is so low, it's gonna be super fucking hot and you can totally burn your mouth. #askmehowIknow
I have (checking the archive) been making this instead of apple pie since 2012. Living my best life, over here.
I cut the asparagus down and raked off the used-up horse poop. (Asparagus are heavy feeders. I own horses. After a season, the horse poop nutrients are all used up and the stuff looks like worm castings, very fine, very high organic content, but not... super nutrient-ish. Also if I keep doing that, in a few years the asparagus bed is like six inches higher than the dirt around it. So I rake off the top three inches or so every couple of years and move it over to the "tomato and pepper" area which is larger and can absorb the input.) I also cut down the peonies for the winter.
I made a tarte tatin for dinner for Lala and me. (Her kitchen table, not mine.)
It's easier to take my mise and the Good Butter over to her house and cook there than it is to transport a piping hot mess of apples and caramelized sugar.
Looks good, doesn't it? Wanna make one?
You will need ... a large, oven-safe pan. I use a Le Creuset that I got for xmas some years ago. It also makes spare ribs, red rice, and assorted pot roasts. A large cast iron skillet would work. The large, oven-safe pan that you use does not need to have a lid.
You will ALSO need a Flat Plate Or Cookie Sheet or Pizza Pan that fits over the entire top of the large oven-safe pan and lies flat. This is because you are going to take your brutally hot oven-safe pan out of the 400 degree oven when it's done and slap the Flat Plate Thing on top and then INVERT THE WHOLE THING so that the tarte can fall out and be right-side-up for the eating.
Make sure you have a good and sturdy Flat Plate Thing because it is not best to discover that what you picked will not work when the large, oven-safe pan is 400 degrees.
Also you need two sticks of decent-quality european style butter, 3/4 cup white sugar, 1 and 1/2 cup white flour, and apples (eight? Just get half a bushel and plan to eat the rest. Having insufficient apples is just sad.) of a good baking variety. I think Stayman Winesap apples are the only apple that one should ever use for any purpose involving human consumption, but do what you can. Something that holds texture well when baked is what you would like.
This is a four-ingredient recipe. Apples, flour, sugar, butter. That's it. With a four-ingredient recipe, the quality of the ingredients matters a lot. Flour and white sugar are refined products without a ton of variability.
Butter? Better butter makes better tarte. European style butter is better. This would be your Plugra or Kerrygold or something. Vermont Creamery is also pretty good. (These are available in Pennsylvania, US. If you live somewhere else, you're on your own. Ask your grocery store for help, maybe? Or other people who cook?) I adore Plugra but can't get it all the time where I live. *sigh*
Apples. Good baking apples. In my part of the world, that's the Stayman Winesap, from October to the end of November. The rest of the year there is no tarte because I can't get apples worth my time. I don't half-ass the food that sticks directly to my whole ass. It's not worth it.
How tarte gets from ingredients to Delicious is technique. Technique matters, here. You only have a little play in the ingredients and technique is gonna get you the rest of the way there.
Cut one stick of butter into 1 and 1/2 cups of white flour. Do not cut butter in so that you have a "cornmeal" style mixture. Leave some lumps of butter, up to the size of a pea. We are going for a rougher, "flaky" style pastry instead of a smoother "mealy/tender" style of pastry here. The bigger lumps of butter make the "flaky" instead of the "mealy". Add ice water to get pastry to hold together. Cover and chill in fridge until you need it.
Quarter, core, and peel your apples. It's easiest to do them in that order. Do not go smaller than quarters. Quarters is the right size.
Preheat oven to 400F.
Put your pan on a stove burner at medium high. Add one stick butter and 3/4 cup of white sugar. Faff about with that until the butter is all melty and it's all kinda liquid and started to bubble.
Add all the apples, on the side-sides so that they can snuggle together in a nice rosette around the perimeter of your pan. You will have to jostle them a little, maybe, to get the ones in the middle to work.
Cook, supervising, jostling, nudging, flipping, etc. Medium high is kind of what you want so that the apple juice boils off and the apples brown before the apples cook to mush. They should still hold together a little, but they will struggle with this if your heat is too low.
Continue cooking, being sure to check undersides of apples for browning. When the individual slices are brown, flip them so that the other sides can cook. If your stove burner or pan heats unevenly, you may need to shuffle things around to avoid burning stuff. Do your best.
If your apples shrink a lot, it is OK to add a few more quarters in there to keep full coverage. Nobody will know that they got less cooking. Trust me, it'll be fine.
When things are just a hair browner than you think is reasonable (people, including me, tend to "under-brown", so this is to help you not be afraid of the brown), remove from heat.
Roll out pastry dough into a reasonable circle-ish shape. Roll up into a scroll, air-lift over your piping hot apple mess, unroll to cover the apples.
Tuck edges of pastry in around apples. Poke a few holes in it. If this takes you more than thirty seconds, quit fucking around. This is a Rustic Farmhouse Tarte, not a fancy fancy pastry. Don't sweat it, nobody will be able to see the pastry because of the delicious caramel apples on top of it. Hustle up and get it sorted.
Pop in oven for twenty to twenty-five minutes, until pastry is lightly browned in some spots.
Remove from oven. Run a knife quickly around the edge. (As it is a circle, there is only one edge.) Place Flat Plate Thing over your hot pan with pastry and apples. Invert. Listen for the plop of the appley goodness falling out. Remove hot pan. Inspect for any apples that stuck... you can repaste them in place and nobody will be the wiser. Also scoop out all the glop that is left in the hot pan and put it on the tarte.
Et voila. It needs to cool down a bit before you eat it. Because the moisture content is so low, it's gonna be super fucking hot and you can totally burn your mouth. #askmehowIknow
I have (checking the archive) been making this instead of apple pie since 2012. Living my best life, over here.
no subject
Date: 2023-10-24 02:56 am (UTC)Also, yum.