Strawberry thyme galette...

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my small act of rebellion!

"Cooking is like love, it should be entered into with wild abandon, or not at all." This is a quote from the late great Julia Child. I try to cook with abandon, but more often than not I find myself not trusting my instincts and relying on a recipe or something I've made before. I had some strawberries on hand that I wanted to use and thought I'd make a pie. As I was getting everything together for the pie it occurred to me that I could make a galette instead. A galette is just a free form pie. They're quick and delicious and I love the way they look, charming and rustic. Plus you don't need a pie pan, so one less step to making them. I pulled out my well-worn copy of Baking with Julia to get the crust recipe. The recipe in Julia Child's book is for a mixed berry galette (which is superb) but all I had on hand was strawberries. In her recipe, Julia says not to use too many strawberries in your mixed berry tart because strawberries are too watery. Uh oh...I very nearly went back to my original plan for a fresh strawberry pie. However, feeling just tad rebellious at the time, I decided to  make the galette with the strawberries, in spite of Julia's warning. My berries were still firm and not overly ripe so I thought I'd just go for it. I also have a pot of the most gorgeous thyme on my patio. At the last minute I decided to throw a little of that in the crust and with the strawberries. Since I'd ignored her warning about the strawberries, I figured Julia would certainly approve of my wild abandon, devil may care attitude when it came to adding the thyme! The galette tasted wonderful, I'm quite sure that Julia would have eaten it with gusto and not minded a bit that I didn't follow her advice about not using strawberries.  

Strawberry Thyme Galette
Printable recipe
 Crust: 

(Source: Baking with Julia)
3 Tablespoons sour cream (or yogurt or buttermilk)
scant 1/3 cup ice water
1 cup all-purpose flour
1/4 yellow cornmeal
1 teaspoon sugar

1 teaspoon fresh thyme leaves (optional)
1/2 teaspoon salt
7 Tablespoon cold unsalted butter, cut into 6 to 8 pieces

Stir the sour cream and the water in a small bowl and set aside.
Put the flour, cornmeal, sugar, and salt into the food processor, fitted with the metal blade. Pulse to combine. Add the chopped butter and pulse 8 to 10 times, or until the mixture is speckled with pieces of butter that vary in size from bread crumbs to peas. As the machine runs, add the sour cream mixture and stop the processor once the dough forms soft, moist curds.
Remove the dough, divide it in half. Squish the ball down flat and wrap it in plastic and chill for at least 2 hours.

Filling:

1 1/2 cups strawberries, stems removed and sliced (don't use overly ripe strawberries, as they may be too watery.)
2 Tablespoons white sugar
1 teaspoon corn starch

1 teaspoon fresh thyme (optional)

a squeeze of lemon

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
Clean the strawberries, remove the stems and slice them lengthwise. Place the sliced strawberries into a bowl add the sugar, lemon juice and cornstarch. Gently stir the strawberries until the sugar and cornstarch evenly cover the berries.
Roll out the galette dough into about an 11 inch circle that's about an 1/8 inch thick. Layer the berries in center the crust leaving at least one inch from the edge. Fold the edge of the dough over the strawberries. You will have to make pleats(folds) in some places. Brush the dough with a little water and sprinkle all over with 1 tsp. sugar. Bake for 30-35 minutes.
Remove from the oven and let it cool for 5-10 minutes before slicing.

Feeling reckless?!

Onion Tarts and the OSS

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I have been a long time fan/admirer of the late great Julia Childs. She's an icon here in the U.S. for making french cooking accessible to anyone willing to learn. Julia Child's spent the greater part of her life teaching others to cook, through both her cookbooks and her TV series.
When I was growing up, my mom would get out Julia's Mastering the Art of French Cooking cookbooks, and read them like they were novels. Of course unlike a novel, when mom pulled out those books we got a pretty amazing meal! Still to this day those tattered books are my mother's go to cookbooks. Almost every time I ask my mom a cooking question, I get a response that starts, "Well Julia says to..." So I guess Julia is responsible for helping me to learn cook as well.
This week we found out that Julia was not only a master chef, but a spy for the OSS as well! Wow she was one amazing woman.

While my husband and I were living in Germany, I fell in love with the onion tarts we had there. We visited the Alsatian region of France several times and Julia Childs recipe for Alsatian Onion Tarts are just like the ones I loved. Now that I know she was a spy, I can't help but wonder if Julia ate these tarts while working on missions for the OSS.

Alsatian Onion Tart

Baking with Julia

1 sheet puff pastry
4 lg onions, diced
1 cup chicken broth
3 tbsp cream
1/4 pound slab bacon (I used sliced bacon)
salt and pepper, to taste



Roll out puff pastry until it is 1/8-inch thick and cut into a 10 to 12-inch circle.
If you want to make indivdual tartlettes, use a 2" round cutter and cut out rolled out pastry.
Place on a parchment or silpat lined baking sheet. Prick the dough all over with the tines of a fork and refrigerate at least 30 minutes, or up to several hours.
In a medium saucepan, combine onions and chicken broth. Cover and bring to a boil. reduce heat and cook until onions are very tender - about 25-30 minutes. Drain onions and let cool.
Preheat oven to 350F.
Toss onions in cream and a bit of salt and pepper. Spread onions on rolled pastry all the way to the edge. Top with the bacon pressing the pieces down a bit so they flavor the onions. Bake at 350F for 30 minutes for the 10 inch tarts and about 20 min. for the 2 inch tartlettes, until light gold.
Serve immediately.

I had some puff pasrty leftover so I did what Julia suggested andnput a few blueberries on top of the pasrty and baked it until golden brown. Then brushed the tops with apricot jam that I heated and thinned with a little bit of water. A tasty way to use up those pasrty scrapes.

Strawberry Lemon Curd Tart

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I'm so excited! I got my first pint of strawberries from my parents farm this week. (It doesn't take much to excite me) Their berries are just starting to get ripe and in a couple of weeks we'll have more berries than we know what to do with! I've had the berries I froze last year that I used all winter. They're great, but the first fresh berries are something I look forward to all year. After eating a handful, I wanted to use the rest for a dessert. Strawberries and lemon are one of my favorite combos. Sweet and tangy, they just beg to be together. Having just gotten my own copy of Baking with Julia last week, I wanted to make her version of lemon curd. Yes I just got my own copy of Baking with Julia. In the past I've just called mom. She's pulled out her copy that's got pages that have fallen loose in the middle from use, and given me Julia's recipes. I decided a few weeks ago that I really needed my own copy, so having just gotten it, I wanted to break it in. In Julia's version of lemon curd, you use the whole egg rather than just the egg yolk. The end result is a very fluffy almost creamy, lemon curd. It's really wonderful!
I like Dori Greenspan's sweet tart dough. It's easy and always great. So after making the tart dough I filled it with the lemon curd and chilled it for several hours then topped the tart with the strawberries and freshly whipped cream. Perfection! The lemon curd recipe makes quite a bit. I had some leftover so I guess I'll just have to make some blueberry muffins or scones to use it up. Poor me! Check out other great strawberry recipes at the Strawberry Seduction round-up at Mike's Table.
The Curd
4 large eggs
1 cup sugar
2/3 cup fresh lemon juice
grated zest of one lemon
1/2 stick (2 ounces) unsalted butter, at room temp cut into 8 pieces

Choose a saucepan that will hold the bowl from your mixer (or a heat proof mixing bowl) in a double-boiler arrangement. Fill the pan with 2 to 3 inches of water and bring to a simmer.
Put the eggs and sugar in the mixer fitted with the whisk attachment and whip at high speed until very light and fluffy. Still whisking, add the lemon juice and zest. Set the bowl in the saucepan, making sure the the bottom of the bowl does not touch the simmering water, and cook the mixture, whisking constantly by hand until smooth, thick , and custardlike. Be patient; this can take a while. Remove bowl from saucepan and whisk in butter piece by piece. Cover the curd with plastic wrap pressed to the top, and refrigerate until chilled and set. I put mine right into my pre-baked tart shell and refrigerated until set. Don't stir the curd again once it's set. After the curd set I topped the tart with the strawberries that I had hulled. Then finished with lightly sweetened whipped cream.


Sweet Dough Crust
- makes enough for one 9-inch crust -
from Baking From My Home to Yours.

Ingredients
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup confectioner's sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 stick plus 1 tablespoon (9 tablespoons; 4 1/2 ounces) very cold (or frozen) unsalted butter, cut into small pieces
1 large egg yolk lightly beaten

Procedure
1. Put the flour, sugar and salt in the bowl of a food processor and pulse a few times to combine. Scatter the pieces of butter over the dry ingredients and pulse until the butter is coarsely cut in—you should have pieces the size of oatmeal flakes and some the size of peas. Stir the yolk, just to break it up, and add it a little at a time, pulsing after each addition. When the egg is in, process in long pulses—about 10 seconds each—until the dough, which will look granular soon after the egg is added, forms clumps and curds. Just before you reach this stage, the sound of the machine working the dough will change—heads up. Turn the dough out onto a work surface and, very lightly and sparingly, knead the dough just to incorporate any dry ingredients that might have escaped mixing.

2. To roll or press the dough into the pan: Butter a 9-inch fluted tart pan with a removable bottom.

If you want to roll the dough, chill it for about 2 hours before rolling (unless you've used frozen butter and the dough comes out of the processor firm and cold, in which case you can roll it immediately). I find it easiest to roll this dough out between two sheets of plastic film – make sure to peel away the film frequently, so it doesn't get rolled into the dough.
If you want to use the press-in method, you can work with the dough as soon as it's processed. Just press the dough evenly over the bottom and up the sides of the pan. Don't be too heavy-handed – press the crust in so that the edges of the pieces cling to one another, but don't press so hard that the crust loses its crumbly texture.
3. Freeze the crust for at least 30 minutes, preferably longer, before baking.

4. To fully bake the crust: Center a rack in the oven and preheat the oven to 375°F.

5. Butter the shiny side of a piece of aluminum foil and fit the foil, buttered side down, tightly against the crust. (Since you froze the crust, you can bake it without weights.) Put the tart pan on a baking sheet and bake the crust for 25 minutes. Carefully remove the foil. If the crust has puffed, press it down gently with the back of a spoon. Bake the crust for another 8 minutes or so, or until it is firm and golden brown, brown being the important word: a pale crust doesn't have a lot of flavor. Transfer the pan to a rack and cool the crust to room temperature.