pies & tarts » maameemoomoo

Chor Yee : Potato, Onion and Gruyère Galette

Jan 242012

This year’s Lunar New Year is a little strange.

It never used to be this quiet. Chor Yat and Chor Yee are visiting days. Sometimes, even Chor Sam too! But not this year. Perhaps it is because everyone knows that i’m without helper now so they don’t quite dare to jio me that much anymore? (i sure hope this is not the case, because with helper or without, i still wanna be jio! :P) Or perhaps because the older relatives are getting fewer as years pass, so we have less visiting to do? Whatever it is, i kinda miss it but at the same time, i also welcome the eng time i have to myself, especially today.. when i can finally whip up something decent in the kitchen again. :)

Oh!

Before i forget… LOOK!!

My gorgeous 梅花 -mei hua (Plum Blossom)!

Few days ago when i lugged this pot home, most of the flowers were rather small and hardly attractive. But came yesterday morning, it was a different story altogether. They were all blooming so beautifully! I actually sat down in front of the pot for a couple of good minutes just to admire it. Aaaaaahhh… so gorgeous them. *smile*

Anyway, back to Chor Yee, today.

So early in the morning, okayyy, not really that early because it was already 10am (don’t we all love weekends and public holidays?) by the time i woke up, i told Darcy that i’ll whip up something decent when he suggested to bring the kiddos out to McDonald’s for breakfast.

I’ve been meaning to bake this for the longest time. The flaky dough was first sitting in the freezer. Then a week ago, i brought it out to thaw, with the intention to bake this but alas, i didn’t. Since then, it had been in the chiller, just waiting.. till i found time for it. Terrible am i not? In out, out down, down in.. seriously?! Pssttt, and it doesn’t just happen to this particular flaky dough! :P

Potato, Onion and Gruyère Galette

Ingredients

For flaky tart dough, see here. Just halve the recipe in there.

Filling
1 large onion (12 ounces), thinly sliced
1 1/2 tablespoons olive oil
1/4 teaspoon kosher salt
5 grinds black pepper
1/2 teaspoon finely chopped fresh thyme or rosemary
4 ounces Gruyère cheese, grated (i used Aged Cheddar)
1 pound red potatoes (i mixed both purple and red potatoes)

To Finish
1 tablespoon olive oil
Pinch kosher salt
3 grinds black pepper

For Serving (optional)
Crème fraiche
Golden caviar

Method

1 Advance Preparation: Roll the prepared dough into a 13-inch round, transfer to a parchment- or silicone-lined baking sheet, and chill for 1 hour. Preheat oven to 400°F and position an oven rack in the lower third.

2 Make the filling: Heat the sauté pan over a medium-high flame. Add the olive oil and when it is hot, add the onion slices to the pan. Cook, stirring occasionally, until the onion is soft and lightly colored, 8 to 10 minutes. Stir in the salt, pepper, and chopped thyme or rosemary and blend well. Scrape onto a plate and set aside to cool. Wash the potatoes and pat dry, but don’t peel them. Cut into 1/4-inch-thick slices.

3 Assemble the galette: Mix together the cooled onion mixture, grated cheese, and potato slices. Spread the mixture over the prepared pie dough, leaving a 1 1/2-inch border around the edges. Drizzle with the remaining olive oil and sprinkle lightly with salt and pepper. Fold just the border of the dough up around the filling, pleating it to make a pretty, circular enclosure, leaving the center open. In a small bowl, beat the egg with a fork. Lightly brush the pleated dough with the egg to give it shine and help it brown in the oven.

4 Bake the galette for 45 to 50 minutes, or until the pastry is golden brown and the potatoes are soft when tested with a paring knife or skewer. Check the bottom of the galette for doneness by lifting slightly with a metal spatula. Transfer to a rack to cool for 5 to 10 minutes.

5 Transfer the galette to a serving plate with a cake lifter or two spatulas, or the bottom of a tart pan slipped underneath to keep it from breaking as you move it. Slice and serve warm.

(adapted from The Art & Soul Baking, Sur La Table)

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Verdict?

My perfect lunch on a very free day.. ;)

Lattice-top Nectarine and Blueberry Pie

pies & tarts 8 Responses »

Jan 092012

pardon my first time lacing up. salah quite a few times! :P

Some food are not meant to be photographed. Just like this pie here. I baked it quite late in the evening. By the time it was done, the sun had long gone.

“It’s a pie! It’s freshly baked!”

Of course i can’t wait to devour it. Even if i can, the boys won’t let me. Heh. Oh well, once a while, bad photos are inevitable eh? I could have just skipped this post but i don’t want to because i so need this for my future reference. Yup, so this post is definitely for me, myself and i. Bad photos? I’m perfectly fine with it. :)

Lattice-Top Nectarine Blueberry Pie

For the super awesome crust recipe, see here.

6 medium nectarines, halved and pitted
1 punnet of blueberries
1/3 cup sugar, plus 1-2 tsp for sprinkling
3 tbsp all purpose flour
1 tbsp lemon juice
1 large yolk
2 tbsp milk or cream
vanilla ice cream (MUST), for serving

Note : if you are using my crust recipe, do take note that this recipe can be used to make 2 pies instead of one. what i do is, i keep half of the recipe in the freezer, for emergency use.

Method

1. From the half recipe above, halve it again. Roll that out. Transfer to a 10 inch pie pan and chill till ready to use. Firmly shape the other recipe of dough into a small rectangle, the roll it out until it’s about 1/8 inch thick. Chill until ready to use.
2. Cut each half into 4-5 slices. Transfer to a large bowl. Pour the blueberries to the nectarine slices. Add sugar, flour and lemon juice. Gently toss with a spatula until the fruit is evenly coated.
3. Scrape the filling into the chilled pie shell. From the chilled rectangle of dough, create a lattice onto the pie straight. Refrigerate the pie for 30 minutes but no longer than 1 hour.
4. Preheat the oven to 400F and position the rack in the bottom third of the oven. In a small bowl, beat the egg yolk with milk or cream to create an egg wash, then use the pastry brush to lightly glaze the lattice and outside the edge of the pie crust. Sprinkle the top with the 1-2 tsp sugar. Bake for 50-60 minutes, until the pie crust is golden brown and the fruit is bubbling and tender (test with the tip of a paring knife). Transfer to cooling rack and allow the pie to cool for 40-60 minutes. Serve warm with vanilla ice cream.

(adapted from Sur La table)

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With a good pie crust recipe, one can play with the filling anyhow and anyway one fancies. The options are endless. So many ideas. So many inspirations. So little time. Aihss…

I don’t bake pies or tarts that often, but each time i do, the boys go absolutely ballistic. Methinks is the crust. Oh, and the ice cream too. ;)

Plum Galette

pies & tarts 19 Responses »

Nov 162010

I actually have an entirely different and lovely story to tell regarding this plum galette.

But after working on the computer for endless hours, troubleshooting the problems i have encountered with Photoshop, browsers and now, a new updated version of my blog’s theme, i have lost all interest.

All i want to do is pull out every strand of my hair and cry.

You can never imagine my frustration unless you are in my shoes :(

Heck, i don’t even know what colours that you will be seeing on your screen when viewing my photos! Are they tinted like how they have appeared on both my Photoshop and Firefox? Or they look au naturel and nice just like what i’m seeing on my IE, Windows Viewer and Paint Shop Pro?

Trust me, i have no idea which is the so-called real colour of these photos of mine but i’m leaning towards what i’m seeing on my IE, Windows Viewer and Paint Shop Pro.. mainly because that is how the photos look like when i captured them weeks earlier and importantly, that is the colour i am seeing on my camera.

Calibrated monitors, colour management, sRGB… i have read them all and tried to rectify the problem with every ounce of my energy but to no avail. What is worst is that, the colours of the photos i have already stored and edited to perfection previously are now all tinted and look different in all 3 browsers (IE – the only browser that is not colour managed, Firefox and Safari)!

However, the photos which i have just uploaded today, hmmm… they look the same in all 3 browsers + Paint Shop Pro but N.O.T. in Photoshop.

Can you say ‘arghhhh‘?? :((

Initially i wanted to combine some of these pictures side by side but with the new photo-editing softwares (namely Paintshop Pro and CS5), i have no idea how even though i’ve googled and scanned through the answers!

I’m seriously getting a splitting headache here.

Sigh.

I wish i could just go to some experts and let the experts solve my problems for me… for once and for all + to teach me how to use these newly installed photo-editing softwares too!

Anyway, enough of my sad and depressing story.

These galettes are simply outta this world! The crust is buttery and crispy and oh well, in another word, perfect! Y’know.. just one bite and you’ll go ‘OMG’ sort?

I must say, it’s the awesome recipe and it’s not me.. as usual ^_^

(hey, the stuff i bake is too easy to say, it’s me me and me who made it perfect, as much as i wanted it to be :P)

(And of course, if my bakes turn out blaahhh, it’s also the recipe and not me! LOL. Okieee, kidding!)

Oohhh.. the lemon zest that goes into the fruit mixture is a must in my opinion. It simply adds zzzZZzzing to the palate. It’s rather refreshing ;)

Plum Galette

(adapted from here – i halved the recipe)

Yields 4 x 4-5″ galettes

Crust
1 pound or 455 g unsalted butter, very cold
1 cup of water
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
2 1/3 cups of all purpose flour
2 2/3 cups of pastry flour

Egg wash
1 egg
Brown sugar, for sprinkling

Plums
4 – 5 plums, cut (do pick the hard ones)
2-3 tbsp of sugar (i’d up this to 4 but then, it does depend on how tart your plums are!)
1/2 lemon zest
*mix all 3 above but bear in mind not to let it sit too long untouched. the fruits do get soft and you won’t want that ;)

Method
To make the dough, cut the butter into 1-inch cubes and put them in the freezer. Measure the water, dissolve the salt into it and put into the freezer as well. Chill both for about 10 minutes.

Measure the flour onto a large, flat work surface and spread into a rectangle about 1cm thick. Scatter the butter cubes over the flour and toss a little flour over the butter so that your rolling pin won’t stick, and begin rolling. When the butter starts flattening out into long, thin pieces, use a bench scraper to scoop up the sides of the rectangle so that it is the size that you started with. Repeat the rolling and scraping 3 or 4 times.

Make a well in the center and pour all of the water into it. Using the bench scraper, scoop the sides of the dough into the center, cutting the water through the dough. Keep scraping and cutting until the dough is a shaggy mass and shaped into a rectangle.

Lightly dust the top with flour and roll out the rectangle until it is half as large again, then scrape the top, bottom and sides together to the original size and re-roll. Repeat 3 or 4 times until you have a smooth and cohesive dough. Transfer rectangle of dough to a large baking sheet, cover with plastic wrap and chill for about an hour.

When you are ready to roll the dough, divide it into 2 equal portions if making large galettes or 12 equal portions for small ones. Roll the dough into circle shapes by rolling from the center to each end, not flattening the end points. Turn the pastry so the flattened out corners are at the top and bottom. Again, roll from the center towards the points nearest and farthest to you, stopping short of the top and bottom. Roll the thicker areas and you will begin to see a circle forming. Transfer to baking sheets and chill for 10 minutes.

Spread a layer a layer of crushed digestive biscuits on the bottom of each circle of dough (i like it dry and crisp at the bottom, not wet and soggy), fill the center of each dough circle with fruit, leaving a 5cm edge uncovered on the large galettes or a 2cm edge on the small ones. Taste the fruit for sweetness and determine how much sugar you want to use to sweeten it. Sprinkle with brown sugar, typically using 2-4 tablespoons for large galettes and 1-2 teaspoons for small ones. Fold in the sides of the circle to cover the fruit partially. Chill for another 10 minutes.

In the meantime, preheat the oven to 190ºC (375ºF). To make the egg wash, whisk the egg in a small bowl. Brush the egg wash over the pastry edges and then sprinkle with brown sugar.

Bake the galettes until the crust has visibly puffed and baked to dark brown and the juice from the fruit is bubbling inside – 45-60 minutes for large galettes and 40-50 minutes for small galettes. Rotate the baking sheets at the midway point to ensure even baking. Remove from the oven and serve hot or at room temperature.

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Durian Puff

pies & tarts 9 Responses »

Jul 192010

Choux pastry… somehow the word pastry intimidates me and i have no idea why!

Cakes, cookies, bread, no problem but pastry and tarts, i’m a little afraid to be honest. Perhaps it’s the rolling, — though choux pastry needs no rolling — perhaps, it’s the pressing and shaping (for tarts etc).

*shrugs* I really don’t know.

As you know, durian is in season right now and as a die-hard-durian-lover, i did not just frequent my favourite stall once, i went thrice + 1. In total, i suspect i’ve had more than 50 seeds in the past 2 weeks. Many times after pigging out, i’d tell myself, Stop! No more! But the next thing i know, i’m back at the durian stall, picking up more durians!

I is terrible!

Usually, i like polishing the durians off just like that…. So, why durian puff?

Well, because the sister requested and also, i had waaaayy too much until i was a little jelak (umm.. for that 2 days only though :P) hence out came durian puffs!

Oh, it turned out that Choux Pastry isn’t that intimidating at all!

How to Choux Pastry guide.

Recipe from Florence

For 8 puffs

85ml water
50g butter
pinch of salt
1/4 tsp sugar
1/4 tsp vanilla essence
50g bread flour
20g cake flour — i didn’t bother with cake flour, substituted with plain flour –
2 eggs (lightly beaten)

1. Cook water, butter, sugar and salt in a saucepan till bubbling hot. Turn the heat to low.
2. Add in the flour mixture in one go and mix with a wooden spoon till a dough is formed
(picture on the left)
3. Still on low heat, cook the dough for 1 – 2 minutes till a thin white film is formed at the bottom of the saucepan.
(picture in the middle)
4. Transfer dough to a mixing bowl and beat till it is lukewarm.
5. Add in egg by thirds and mix till well blended and smooth. It needs to be glossy looking. Test the batter by taking a scoop of it and it hangs down and form a smooth triangular shape, it means u’re on the right track ;)
(picture on the right)
6. Place batter into piping bag and pipe it onto a lined pan in rounds of about 5cm in diameter. Spray some water on it. (i piped mine 5cm and it turned out HUGE! will pipe 2cm and get 20 small puff pastry instead. i like them mini :))
7. Gently smoothen out the pointed peaks with a moistened finger.

8. Bake at 200C for 25 (mine took only 20) minutes then 180C for 8 – 10 minutes or till dry and golden brown in color.

Durian filling

200ml whipping cream (will reduce this to 150-170ml)
1 tbsp rum
550g durian pulp
3 tbsp milk

1. Whip up whipping cream to a soft peak.
2. Fold in durian pulp. Stir in milk and rum.
3. Put fillings in a piping bag and pipe it out into the baked choux pastry.

And VOILA!

Durian Puffs for ya ;)