FFwD - Cafe Salle Pleyel Hamburger and Eggplant Caviar

This week's French Fridays with Dorie dish is not at all what you'd expect to see on a French dining table - a hamburger.  However, this is apparently not just any hamburger, but the Cafe Salle Pleyel hamburger, created for the cafe's owner, Helene Samuel, who stated the following about the burger in The New York Times:

“It has the taste of the forbidden, the illicit — the subversive, even. Eating with your hands, it’s pure regression. Naturally, everyone wants it.”

You can find the recipe online here, but in a nutshell, this burger is comprised of beef mince, sun-dried tomatoes, capers, cornichons (for which I substituted gherkins) and fresh herbs (I only used coriander and dried tarragon and skipped the thyme).  The burgers are browned to medium rare on each side:

An onion jam is made to go with the burgers:

The burgers are topped with thin slices of parmesan cheese:

and the whole lot is placed on a burger bun, as shown at the top of this post.  If you are so inclined, you can decorate the plate with dill pickles, but I also skipped this.

I am not sure that this burger was so good as to be subversive, but it was definitely delicious and beats the pants off the cardboard offering at your local greasy spoon.  I served my burger with Outback Spirit wild rosella cranberry relish one night, and with Cooper's Ale barbeque sauce the next - both combinations were good.

Playing catch up, I also made eggplant caviar from last week:

Just like Tricia S's teenagers, I didn't dislike this, but I wouldn't run out to make it again either.

Finally, I am featuring a gratuitous photo (sourced from Yahoo! Seven TV) of Bec's fab 1920's inspired wedding veil by Melbourne designers, J'Aton, featured in Tuesday night's finale of Winners and Losers:

There was a lot of criticism of Bec's hair and dress on Facebook.  Personally, the dress was not my style (too much like a doily), but I loved the much-maligned veil and hairdo - anything inspired by the 1920s wins my heart, and I thought Bec looked great.

Have a wonderful weekend!

Orange and poppyseed cake

Who doesn't like a nice piece of cake with their cup of tea?  I am sure there are people who don't, but I am not one of them.  A cake that is perfect with a cuppa is Orange and Poppyseed Cake, just like this handsome bundt I made from p110 of the June 2011 edition of Australian Delicious magazine.

This cake was quite dense, and the orange flavour was not as pronounced as it might have been, but the cake was still delicious.  I skipped the glaze that was recommended with the recipe and served my cake as is.

To make this cake, you will need:

3/4 cup poppyseeds
1 cup milk
225g softened butter
1 cup sugar
3 eggs
2 cups plain flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
1 vanilla bean or 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 tablespoon finely grated orange zest
60ml orange juice

Preheat your oven to 180 degrees Celsius.  Grease and dust with plain flour a 20cm bundt pan.

Put the poppy seeds and milk in a small saucepan and heat to just below boiling point, then remove from the heat and set aside to cool.

In a stand mixer, beat the butter and sugar until thick and creamy.  Add the eggs, one at a time, beating well between each addition.

Sift the flour, baking powder and bicarbonate of soda together into a clean bowl.  Add one third of the flour mixture to the butter mixture and stir until just combined.

Add half the milk and poppyseeds to the batter and combine.  Repeat with the remainder of the flour and milk mixtures, ending with flour.  Stir in the seeds from the vanilla bean or  the vanilla extract, together with the orange juice and zest.

Pour the batter into the prepared bundt pan and bake for 50-60 minutes or until cooked through.  Remove the cake from the oven and cool it in the pan for 5 minutes, then turn it out onto a wire rack  to coll completely.

Once the cake is cool, you can glaze it if desired.

TWD - Golden Brioche Loaves

These I have loved:

White plates and cups, clean-gleaming,

Ringed with blue lines; and feathery, faery dust;

Wet roofs, beneath the lamp-light; the strong crust

Of friendly bread; and many-tasting food;

Rainbows; and the blue bitter smoke of wood ...

The Great Lover by Rupert Brooke

 

Mmmmm - there's nothing better than the smell of rich, buttery baked goods baking in the oven, or the sight of a golden loaf when it comes out of the oven.  This week, Margie of Tea and Scones brought us that experience with her choice of Tuesday with Dorie recipe - Dorie's Golden Brioche Loaves.

I have never made brioche before, and can't remember ever having tasted it.  For this reason, I started to worry when it said how much butter was to be incorporated into the yeasted dough, and when it felt like forever for even the smallest piece of butter to mix in.  I was waiting for imminent disaster; but instead, I got this:  

The brioche had a glossy, golden brown crust, and inside, was as yellow as butter itself.  The taste was more akin to cake than bread, and the brioche tasted wonderful spread with jam on one occasion, and honey on another.

Dorie's recipe made two loaves, so with the other, I made a brioche apple tart that I will show you another day.  If you make this, don't make a half batch - the dough freezes for months, and you can make so many other things with it, including Dorie's brioche snails and pecan sticky buns.

Thanks to Margie for pushing me outside my comfort zone this week - this brioche recipe was a brilliant find.  To check out the recipe, visit Margie's site or buy Dorie's book, and to check out how the other TWD bakers fared with their golden brioche loaves, visit the LYL section of the TWD website. 

Jamie Oliver's Spinach and Feta Filo Pie

No French Fridays with Dorie for me again this week - I have been very busy and just did not get a chance to make this week's Eggplant Caviar (a dip similar to baba ghanoush).  If you'd like to see it, do visit the LYL section of the FFwD website.

Instead, I am posting an easy Spinach and Feta Filo Pie by Jamie Oliver from his smash hit cookbook, 30 Minute Meals.  The recipe can be found online here.  Jamie uses olive oil between the layers of filo instead of butter, which in my view makes it healthier.  As well as spinach and feta, this pie contains toasted pinenuts for additional texture and flavour - don't skip them, as they really make the pie.

No special pastry skills are needed to make this - everything is just placed onto baking paper in a pie pan and the filo is folded over to cover the filling:

It is a fantastic light meal when served with some fresh cooked veges - in my case, cauliflower and beans.

Have a great weekend! 

TWD - Tropical Crumble

 Do you sometimes like to dream that you are drifting away on calm seas on a luxury yacht, stretched out on a banana lounge, shading umbrella overhead, with a tall cool glass of something soothing, while the sun shines in the blue sky?  Me too, especially in winter.

This week's Tuesday with Dorie helped me to dream of a tropical paradise.  It was Tropical Crumble, and it was my pick - so exciting! 

This crumble was non-traditional in that the crumble was quite buttery and soft, punctuated only by chopped nuts.  When someone says "crumble", I usually think of a crisp, crunchy topping.  However, that didn't stop me from liking this dessert - beneath that topping lurked caramelised bananas and mango, and in my case, it was atop a pastry base so that I could serve it like a slice.  It was very tasty!

To make your own Tropical Crumble, you will need:

Filling:

1/4 stick (4 tablespoons/55g) unsalted butter

2 1/2 tablespoons light brown sugar

2 firm, ripe mangoes, peeled, pitted and cut into 1/2 inch cubes

(I used drained, canned mango)

4 firm, ripe bananas, cut into 1/2 slices on the diagonal

1 teaspoon finely chopped peeled fresh ginger

1/2 teaspoon ground ginger

 grated zest of 1/4 lime (I used lemon zest)

Crumble:

1 stick (8 tablespoons/115g) unsalted, room temperature butter

1/2 cup light brown sugar

1/2 teaspoon salt

3 tablespoons plain (all purpose) flour

1/2 cup chopped pecans

For the filling:

Melt the butter in a frypan over high heat.  Sprinkle the sugar over the butter, and once it bubbles, add the mango cubes and cook for 2 minutes without stirring.  Flip the mango cubes over with a spatula, then add the banana to the pan and cook for a further 3 minutes, turning the banana half way through so that the fruit becomes browned on all sides, but does not lose its shape.

Turn the cooked fruit out into a heat proof bowl.  Stir in the fresh and ground ginger and the citrus zest.  Set aside.

For the crumble:

Put the butter into a food processor and process until smooth.  Add the brown sugar and salt, and process until smooth.  Transfer the mixture to a bowl and stir in the flour and pecans with a rubber spatula.  Spread the mixture out over a piece of parchment or wax paper, and freeze for 20 minutes.

To assemble and bake:

Preheat your oven to 400 degrees F/200 degrees Celsius.

Butter a 9" pie pan and place it on a baking sheet.  (I buttered an 11" x 7" slice tray and lined it with shortcrust pastry before placing on the baking sheet.)

Spoon the fruit with its liquid into  the pie pan (or over the pastry crust).  Remove the crumble from the freezer, and break it into topping-size, irregular pieces, and scatter these over the top of the fruit.  Put the fruit crumble into the oven and immediately lower the temperature to 350 degrees F/180 degrees Celsius.  Bake the crumble for 35 minutes or until it is golden on top and the fruit is bubbling.  Place the crumble in its pan on a wire rack to cool.

Serve warm or at room temperature - I recommend with a big dollop of vanilla icecream.

Hope you enjoyed this week's TWD recipe.  To see how the other TWD bakers fared with this crumble, visit the LYL section of the TWD website for this week.

FFwD - No Salmon In A Jar, Osso Buco a L'Arman instead

For French Fridays with Dorie this week, we were asked to make Salmon in a Jar.  This is salt and sugar cured salmon, marinated in oil, with potatoes marinated in more oil, and served in a jar.  Although this dish is beloved by Michael Ruhlman, who shares the recipe here, the very thought of this dish makes me feel queasy.  Salmon is a rich, oily fish to start with, so making it even more so by marinating it with vegetables in even more oil just didn't seem right to me.

Instead, I am going to share with you some step by step process photos of Dorie's Osso Buco a L'Arman, the recipe for which is on p272 of Around My French Table, or which you can find online here.

Here is the orange zest simmering:

Next, here is the onion, garlic and basil frying:

 

 Look at these lovely fresh tomatoes being chopped up:

 The tomatoes and canned tomatoes are added to the pan with the onion and garlic:

 The osso buco is browned:

 The carrots are peeled and chopped:

 The whole lot is combined in an oven-proof dish:

before being covered and braised in the oven for 2 hours:

And at the end, you get a hot, flavoursome, filling meal,  just perfect for winter:

This Osso Buco is my kind of dish.

To see Salmon in a Jar, visit the LYL section of the FFwD website.

Pineapple Tart - Ananastaart

I have possessed Warm Bread and Honey Cake by Gaitri Pagrach-Chandra for over 12 months.  Despite it being one of the most beautiful baking books that I own, I had not, until recently, baked anything from it.  This is not because there was nothing I wanted to bake out of it - to the contrary, I would happily make everything in this book, given the time and inclination.  It was just one of those things where time got away, and I had many other competing things to make.

My motivation to finally make a recipe from Warm  Bread and Honey Cake came from a pineapple in my fridge.  That pineapple had arrived in my Aussie Farmers Direct fruit and vegetable box, but had languished in the fridge for quite some time before I decided I had to either use it or throw it out.  The pineapple inspired me to make the cover recipe, an Ananastaart or Pineapple Tart, really being a cake from the South American country of Surinam, which until I had this book, I had never heard of before.

This pineapple tart is comprised of a pastry base, which is covered with homemade pineapple jam, then finally topped with a light and airy sponge cake batter.

My cake nearly suffered an ignominious end, as it slipped off the cake cooling rack face down onto the floor.  I had expected the whole cake to explode into a million irretrievable pieces; however, thanks to the exceptionally springy nature of the sponge, it survived intact, with only a couple of little cracks in the top to indicate that anything had ever happened:

To make this delightful cake, you need to start out by making the pineapple jam, for which you need:

250g fresh or canned, drained pineapple

250g sugar
juice of 1/4 lemon

Sterilise a jam jar by boiling in water and drying thoroughly.  Set aside.

Chop the pineapple coarsely, then blitz it to a puree in a food processor.  In a large, heavy-based saucepan, place the pureed pineapple, sugar and lemon juice. Bring to the boil, stirring constantly, then simmer for ~ 5-10 minutes or until the jam passes the "set" test - ie place a glob of jam on a cold plate that has been chilled in the fridge, then place the plate with the glob of jam back into the fridge for a couple of minutes.  Run your finger through the glob of jam - if it wrinkles and doesn't run to fill the gap, you have reached setting point.  Pour the jam into the sterilised jar, seal it and allow the jam to cool completely.

To make the pineapple tart pastry, you will need:

1 cup plain flour

1/4 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon icing sugar
75g chilled, cubed butter
1 egg yolk
2-3 tablespoons cold water

Sift the flour, salt and icing sugar into a large bowl.  Rub in the butter until the mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs.  In a cup, mix the egg yolk with 2 tablespoons of water, then add to the flour mixture and combine it with your fingertips to make a smooth pastry, adding extra water if needed (I did).  Shape the pastry into a flattened disc, and chill it for 30 minutes in the fridge.

Remove the chilled pastry from the fridge and roll it into a circle of 11inches in diameter.  Grease a springform tin, and line it with the pastry, pressing the edges against the side.  (Don't cut the edges off like I did!  They help to hold the tart together.)  Chill in the fridge while making the cake batter.

To make the cake, you will need:

150g sifted plain flour

1/4 teaspoon baking powder

1/4 teaspoon salt
3 eggs plus 1 egg white
grated zest of 1/4 lemon
150g sugar
75g melted butter

Place the flour and baking powder in a medium bowl and set aside.

Preheat the oven to 180 degrees Celsius.

In a stand mixer, whisk the eggs and egg white, sugar and lemon zest together until thick and pale.  Using a rubber spatula, fold in the flour in two batches, then add the melted butter and mix until the flour and butter are fully combined into the batter.

Remove the pastry base from the fridge.  Spread the pastry with 250g of the pineapple jam that you made earlier, then top evenly with the cake batter. Place the tart into the oven to bake for 35-40 minutes or until the cake is golden brown. Remove the tart from the oven and allow it to cool in the tin for 5 minutes before unclipping the side of the springform pan and placing the tart on the springform pan base onto a wire rack to cool completely.

Just before serving, dust the top of the tart with icing sugar.