Mushroom Tart

Mushroom Tart

If time doesn't fly, it passes quickly enough as you will surely agree with me. Except when I was at the gym. Every second labours to get on its way when you are on a machine of some sort. Which probably explains why the majority of the clients there (at least in the morning) are above 60. A good way to retard the passing of time, maybe even cheat death.

Not that I go to the gym very often. I still have more than 20 entries on my card - from more than a year ago. The last time I was there was so long ago they have installed new showers and wall paintings and I haven't even seen them start on the renovations.

The day I made the resolution to start going to the gym, I was surrounded by a few women who almost lived in it. They have either fabulous bodies or have lost 10 kilos after starting to exercise. But 10 minutes on the treadmill and I was 1) bored 2) tired 3) hungry. On average it took me 30 minutes to burn 50 to 100 calories on one of those machines. And 5 minutes popping something into my mouth to more than gain them back. If only spending and earning money work in the same way...

Bref, I quickly lost interest in the whole enterprise only I haven't found a way to get rid of my gym entries. I even bought more so as to extend their expiry date. Then I remembered that I needn't go to the gym to exercise - I can also go there to shower and relax. My gym is one of the best in Modena - with sauna, jacuzzi and Turkish bath. Though none of the regulars seem to enjoy them - they literally spend hours on the machines and in the exercise classes. Aarrgh.

So I was there this morning. 10 minutes on the bike, 10 minutes on the treadmill, 15 in the jacuzzi, 10 in the sauna and 5 in the hammam. I toyed with the idea of joining Pietro's Corpo Libero gym class - but the feet refused to make their way there.

During that hour spent in the gym, I had this desire to make and eat Mushroom Tart. It's mushroom season now, that's why.

Mushroom Tart :

puff pastry

porcini (cleaned and sliced)

chanterelles (cleaned and sliced)

other mushrooms

onion (optional)

garlic (minced or chopped)

salt

pepper

olive oil

fresh herbs (e.g. parsley, rosemary...)

Go ahead and pile the puff pastry squares or circles with mushrooms as they will reduce during the baking. Add the herbs, garlic, salt, pepper and olive oil.

Bake in a hot oven (180-190°C) for 20 minutes.

If you want to minimise the amount of liquid rendered by the mushrooms during the cooking process, cook them quickly in a frying pan and drain the mushrooms in a sieve before filling and baking the puff pastry with them. I like some moisture in my tart so I baked them raw.

Bruschetta and Tomato Tart

Tomato Tart

I have not read Amy Tan (e.g. "Joy Luck Club") for a number of years and decided all of a sudden to check her out again. Ordered two of her latest books ("Saving Fish from Drowning" and "The Opposite of Fate") one of which is an autobiography of sorts.

I am drawn to her writings because I am "western-educated" like the writer, but we also grew up in Chinese families with mothers who were superstitious and who often felt it necessary to warn us against all the dangers that could befall us if we do or do not do certain things; Mothers who believed in the supernatural and the afterlife; who believed in fate and yet had faith that we (the children) were destined for greater things.

As I was reading Tan, I shudder over her account of the Ouija board that she would use so often to help her mum obtain answers to certain dilemmas in life. To those who have not heard stories about the ouija from their mums, it would just be another board game from the Parker Brothers, but I still remember what mine had told me of the spirits who had been summoned and who wouldn't leave in peace. I am reasonably logical and I believe that everything in life could have a scientific explanation, but I also feel that there is room for the unexplained, my upbringing having planted more than the seed of doubt (in the absolute nature of the former).

Do you believe in premonitions and the afterlife? Tan's story about how her friend Pete dreamt of his own death before it happened was eerie, but unlike Hub who had been brought up to not believe in spirits and in the supernatural and who would without any doubt dismiss it as utter rubbish, I, not for the first time in my life, spent some time wondering about the mysteries of life and how one's belief is so shaped by one's upbringing. I also wonder why we see or at least feel spirits so easily where I came from, but wouldn't even think of it where I'm living in now. The only ghost in these parts as we know is the Holy Ghost.

Hub thinks that seeing is believing, but isn't it also true that if you don't believe you may not see?

Anyway that's what I've been up to lately, finding yet another excuse to not fold the mountain of clothes that I've washed and dried in the past 2 weeks. I read, I muse, I cook and I eat.

I've been having a love affair with something I usually refuse to eat i.e. raw tomatoes. I pick out tomatoes in my salad, I hate tomato ketchup and will only eat tomatoes in the form of home-made tomato sauce. But I love Bruschetta. And after our recent weekend in the Piedmont, I especially love my bruschetta when it's made with freshly baked foccacia.

Once I got started with the olive oil, garlic and herb-marinated tomatoes, I decided to marry them with my beloved puff pastry and so we had Tomato Tart for tea yesterday. Yum yum...

The Tomato Dip/Filling :

500g of ripe cherry tomatoes (halved or quartered according to their size)

good-quality extra virgin olive oil (enough to cover the tomatoes)

2 large garlic cloves (bashed)

fresh rosemary and basil leaves

a pinch of ground black pepper

salt to taste (only just before serving*)

freshly-baked foccacia

Put everything together in a bowl (except the salt - or it'll drain the juice out of the tomatoes) and marinate for a few hours before serving. Cover with clingwrap. Sprinkle in the salt just before serving. Goes really well with freshly toasted country bread or freshly-baked foccacia. I used Buitoni's ready-made foccacia dough and improved it with salt, olive oil and rosemary before baking it in a very hot oven for 10-12 minutes. My guests at my last class lunch seemed to love it.

For the tomato tart, heat the oven to 180°C and bake the puff pastry (bords rolled inwards and dough pricked all over with a fork) for 10 minutes. Remove from the oven and spread the tomato filling (minus the juice) on it. Return to the oven for another 10 minutes. Serve hot.

Steak and Guinness Pie

Steak and Guinness Pie

I do not ever drink beer. Hate the smell and taste. Imagine me visiting Ireland many years ago and spending almost every evening in a pub there - drinking orange juice or Coca Cola.

However, I have a thing for cooking with beer. Especially if it's Guinness. It's like me being known as the anti-smoking league (Hub likes to call me that) and having fantasies about smoking a thin cigarette on an elegant cigarette holder. Not that I'll ever do it, I usually just buy a packet of chocolate cigarettes to satisfy the craving.

I went to bed last night with a craving for Guinness. It's weird, but I can explain it. I saw pictures of Guinness Burgers in a beautiful blog a few days ago and they have given me the desire to make something with the brew too. It's the copycat syndrome. Or call it being inspired.

The result is a simple Steak and Guinness Pie that I've adapted from my Irish Beef Stew recipe. I had almost-expiring Irish beef (actually that's probably a major contributing factor to the craving) and loads of puff pastry in the fridge, and more importantly, 4 cans of Guinness Draught collecting dust and spiderwebs in my pantry. They have been around since 2007 if I'm not wrong. The 2 cans in the pack that have been consumed went into making said Irish Beef Stew.

Needless to say I have bought them for Hub, but he snobbed me by saying that when it comes to Guinness, he only drinks it straight from the tap. Something to do with his experience working as a bartender when he was doing his Masters at Cranfield. Though when he saw the pie, he said that he had to eat it with a glass of cold Guinness. For it reminded him of those days very long ago when he had to survive on almost nothing but pies (albeit supermarket ones).

Steak and Guinness Pie (serves 4 as a snack or starter) :

Enough Puff pastry to cover 4 ramequins

400g Irish Beef for braising

1 heaped Tbsp Flour to dust them with

Olive Oil

1 small Onion (sliced)

2 Garlic cloves (chopped)

A generous handful of sliced Button mushrooms

2 Carrots (sliced)

1-2 stalks Celery (sliced)

2 large Tomatoes (chopped)

Salt and ground Black Pepper

1 Bay leaf

A few sprigs of fresh Thyme and Rosemary

100ml hot Water

1 Beef stock cube

250ml Guinness Draught

Cheese (optional)

In a heavy-bottom pot heat the olive oil and fry the onions followed by the garlic and button mushrooms.

Guinness and Irish Beef

When the oil is fragrant, add the floured beef (cut into bite-sized cubes) and celery and brown the meat in it.

Add the carrots, tomatoes, salt, pepper and fresh herbs. Stir to mix well.

Pour in the hot water, add the beef cube and cover the meat with the Guinness.

Cover the pot and simmer for 2 hours or till the beef is tender and the sauce reduced. Set aside to cool.

Pre-heat the oven to 180°C. Ladle the filling into the ramequins and add some grated cheese (e.g. cheddar) if desired. Cover with puff pastry rounds that should be larger than the ramequins.

Normally it would be nice to glaze the pastry with some beaten egg, but I rarely waste my eggs on decoration.

Bake for 20 minutes. Serve it hot. The family loved it.

Zucchini Blossom Quiche

Zucchini Blossom Quiche

I have missed eating zucchini blossoms (flowers) and have decided to buy a dozen to prepare. The initial plan was to fry them as I usually do, but I didn't feel up to dealing with any frying in the kitchen today and so made a Zucchini Blossom Quiche instead.

I had male flowers this time round and thought that they would look lovely in a quiche. Though I have made a curry for lunch, I still hold dear the French custom of providing a starter to the meal. Plus you have to provide a dish that could accompany one of Hub's wines. Never deprive a Frenchman of a reason to open "a good bottle".

Zucchini Blossom Quiche :

1 round Puff pastry

200g grated Cheese (e.g. Emmenthal, Cheddar, Gruyère, Gouda, Cantal...)

1 small Red Onion (thinly sliced into rings)

1 ripe medium Tomato (sliced into thin rounds)

6-8 fresh Basil leaves

8 Zucchini blossoms

1 dried Bird's eye Chilli (crushed)

4 Eggs

2 Tbsp Crème fraîche

4 Tbsp Milk

Salt and Pepper to taste

Olive Oil

Grated Parmesan cheese

Pre-heat the oven to 180°C.

Spread out the puff pastry in an oven-proof dish.

Add the cheese, followed by the onions, tomatoes and basil leaves.

Beat the eggs quickly and briefly with the cream, milk, chilli, salt and pepper. Pour 2/3 of the egg mixture over the tart.

Place the zucchini blossoms on the tart, pour the remaining egg mixture over it and drizzle some olive oil over them.

Bake in the hot oven for 20 minutes, remove to sprinkle some parmesan cheese over the blossoms and return to the oven for another 10 minutes. Serve hot.

Crab Stick Cream Cheese Tartlets

Crab Stick Cream Cheese Tartlets

GA made a Crab Stick Roll that was so good it inspired me to make this batch of Crab Stick Cream Cheese Tartlets. Now that the weather is getting really hot, they make a refreshing change from the usual baked quiches and tarts.

We came back from Alghero to an overturned BBQ and gas cylinder, overturned pots of plants etc. There must have been quite a wind storm during our absence. I spent the morning doing a few washes and today being a public holiday (Italy's Republic Day), the shops are closed so we'll have to make do with whatever we can find at home. Considering my tendancy to hoard, this is of course not a problem.

The rest of the family has gone off to play golf and later in the afternoon they will be swimming in the pool. I have alot of housework to catch up on, including preparing the guest room for MIL's coming month-long stay. Am I so behind in my chores...

Crab Stick Cream Cheese Tartlets :

1 packet Brisée or Puff Pastry

1/4 of a large Onion (chopped)

1 Garlic clove (minced)

A handful of fresh Coriander or Parsley (chopped)

100g Crab sticks/Surimi (chopped)

100g Philadelphia Light cream cheese

Juice of half a Lemon

2 Tsp grated Parmesan Cheese

Salt and Pepper to taste

Heat the oven to 180°C with an oven tray at the very top level and another one in the lower-middle shelf.

Bake the pastry tartlet shells à vide for 10 minutes on the lower shelf. The top tray will prevent the pastry from burning. Remove from the oven and set aside.

Chop all the ingredients finely and mix well with the lemon juice and cream cheese. Add salt and pepper to taste.

Scoop into the baked pastry shells just before serving.

Tourte Maï Mimi (French Potato and Bacon Pie)

Tourte Maï Mimi

The children eat at school and often complain about eating only Italian food. Unlike a normal Parisian school canteen, they do not vary their offering over here in Modena. Since I have them at home today for their second day this week because of the snow, I decided to make them lunch.

Ham and Cheese Crepe

Lunch consisted of a French Potato and Bacon Pie and both savoury and sweet French Crepes. I must have seen a picture of the tourte about 20 years ago in a Marie Claire magazine (no joke) and have always wanted to make it.

Tourte Maï Mimi (a small one) :

450g Potatoes

180g smoked Bacon

1-2 large Shallot

1 Garlic clove

Some fresh Parsley and Thyme leaves

Salt and Pepper to taste

3-4 Tbsp of cooked Rice (optional)

150ml Crème fraîche

2 Puff Pastry circles to largely fit a 6-inch springform cake mould

In a non-stick frying pan, sweat the smoked bacon and fry the thinly-sliced potatoes, shallot and garlic in the rendered fat. Add the fresh herbs, salt and pepper to taste.

There is no need to cook the potatoes through as they will be cooked in the oven. We just want the savours to mix. Leave aside to cool.

Pre-heat the oven to 220°C.

Line a small springform mould with aluminium foil and place a puff pastry disc in it. There should be a good amount of pastry hanging out of the border of the mould.

Before being baked

Fill the mould with the cooked rice if using it. Add the sliced potatoes and bacon filling.

Cover with another puff pastry disc. The top should have a circle drawn on it. Seal the edges of the 2 puff pastry discs together and fold.

Bake in the oven for 10 minutes and then cover the pie with a piece of aluminium foil to prevent the top from burning. Bake for another 50 minutes.

Remove from the oven and cut open the top following the circle already draw on it. Pour the cream onto the hot filling.

Return to the oven (heat turned off) for another 10 minutes.

Unmould the tourte and slice it like a cake. Serve hot. The older kids loved it and finished it between them!

Tomato Bufala Tartlets

Tomato Bufala Tartlets

Brisée pastry dough, Cherry Tomatoes (ripe), Mozzarella di Bufala (good quality), Sage or Basil Leaves. Olive Oil, salt and pepper. 200°C, 20 minutes. Yummy.

Cream of Mushroom Soup and Chicken Pie : with Campbell

At the German discount store PLUS the other day, I saw cans of Campbell's Cream of Mushroom Soup on sale. That really set me down Memory Lane, to a 14 year old me back in Secondary 2, learning how to make Chicken Pies during Home Economics class.

So while I am not a fan of canned or industrially-made food in general, I went ahead and bought a few cans of the soup out of nostalgia and since I have nowhere else in my very full pantry to keep them, I promptly made a meal out of 2 cans : improved Cream of Mushroom Soup and Chicken Pies.

I do not want to know how the soup would have tasted like just directly out of the can. If it's anything like the Tomato Soup from the same brand, it would be quite disgusting. What I did was to slice some onions, loads of fresh mushrooms (white and brown), and a stalk of celery and brown them together with bacon bits in a bit of butter. Then I emptied 1 1/2 cans of the Campbell Condensed Cream of Mushroom Soup into the pot and stirred in 1 can of water and half a can of milk. Heat up the whole thing for about 15 minutes (do not let it boil though) and then mix it with a handmixer. Add a dash of cream if you wish. I served it with some puff pastry pieces. The soup had lots of flavour and my hubby actually loved it.

The remaining half a can of the condensed soup was used to make a few Chicken Pies. Pre-heat the oven to 180ºC. Using round cutters cut out Puff Pastry rounds (I'll put up a simple recipe another day, but just use the ones sold in the supermarket they are quite good nowadays) and line a muffin tray with them. Use a smaller cutter to make puff pastry rounds to cover the pies.

In a frying pan brown a few chicken filets in some olive oil, sprinkling some salt, pepper and Herbes de Provence over them. When they are done, take them out of the pan and place them on kitchen towels to absorb the oil. Dice them into small cubes.

In the same frying pan, brown some diced onions, potatoes (use a boiled potato), celery, carrots and mushrooms. Add in the chicken cubes, some green peas, the condensed soup and some pepper. Stir fry everything for a few minutes, adjusting the sauce with a bit of milk if necessary. If you wish, at the end of the cooking, you may add in a hard-boiled egg (diced, of course).

Fill in the puff pastry cases with the filling and cover with a pastry round before putting the muffin tray in the oven. If you wish, you may waste an egg and brush the pastry cover with some egg yolk so that it turns out prettier. Bake for about 20-25 minutes. Eat them hot.