Camembert Tarte with Pears

With the change of the seasons the smell of change is in the air and this means busy, busy times over here in Berlin. That's why I haven't been cooking much new stuff lately.

But I thought I share this nice recipe here with you. I made the tarte shortly after the calvados chicken (previous post) cause I had plenty of cidre left. And there is some of it required in this tarte, as well.

I found the recipe in the lates issue of Lust auf Genuss mag, again.

I love tartes and quiche and savory cakes! They look pretty, taste good and are so French!

Also camembert in combination with apples and/or pears is so, so good, 

and the tarragon (I LOVE TARRAGON!) is so aromatic and adds a wonderful flavour to it. 

What you need:

either a square (28x12cm/11x5inch) or round (∅28cm/∅11inch) tarte baking tin.

250g / 2 cups all-purpose flour

salt, pepper

75ml / 1cup water

50g / 2oz. cold butter

dried pulses for blind-baking

2 sprigs tarragon

3 pears (à approx. 100g / 4oz.)

1-2 tsb lemon juice

250g / 9oz. Camembert 

200g / 7oz. sour cream

4 Tbsp cidre (alternatively apple juice)

2 eggs

Directions:

Mix flour with 1/2 tsp salt. Cut the butter in flakes and mix into the flour.

Add 75ml water and, using your hands, knead everything to a smooth dough.

Form the dough to a ball, wrap it up in plastic foil and cool in the fridge for at approx. 30 minutes.

Preheat the oven to 180°C.

Grease the baking tin.

On a floured surface roll out the dough so that it is a little bigger than the baking tin.

Place the dough in the baking tin and press on the edges. Prick the bottom with a fork several times.

Cover the bottom with baking paper and place the dried pulses on top of it.

Pre-bake/blind-bake in the middle of the preheated oven for approx 15minutes.

Take the dough out of the oven, remove the pulses and baking paper and let it cool down.

Pull off the tarragon leaves from the sprigs. Wash the pears, halve them, remove the cores and cut them along their length into thin slices. Sprinkle the slices with lemon juice.

Remove the rind from the camembert and cut the cheese into slices.  Mix sour cream, cidre, eggs and tarragon leaves. Season to taste with salt and pepper.

Place first the pears then the camembert slices on the bottom of the pre-baked dough. Pour the egg-tarragon-cream over it and let the tarte bake in the middle of the oven for about 20-25minutes.

Last but not least, let the tarte cool down for 5 minutes before serving.

Et voilà!

Even though this tarte is more of a savory meal, the pairs add quite a bit of sweetness to it. Therefore you're actually best to have it for dessert, paired with a nice digestif or dessert wine.

PS: 

I thought the dough tasted pretty bland. Next time I definitely would add more salt and some sugar to it, and maybe use whole wheat flour. I could have also baked it longer...both just the dough, 

and the whole tarte.

The other thing was that it was far too much egg-tarragon-cream for the tarte. It almost felt like a quiche.

I'd rather pour less over the dough or use a bigger baking tin. Maybe it works better with a square one. 

Last but not least, I would always recommend to take nicely riped camembert. It's harder to remove the rind, cause it's so soft. So what you don't get removed I would just leave on. But I was thinking that a second strong cheese would be a nice addition, as well. I was thinking about grated gruyere or parmesan to sprinkle on top...

"Poulet Vallée d'Auge" or Chicken legs with Calvados

Wil and I have been eating a lot of red meat in the past and with the end of my vegan week experiment I decided to bring more "healthy" variation in our culinary life's. Steak, roast beef and filet is great. 

But I'm slowly running out of ideas how to wrap them in a blogpost. That also counts for our mushroom picking madness. Therefore I looked through some cook books and food magazines 

and found this wonderful recipe in "Lust auf Genuss", 

a German magazine I've been posting a few recipes from already.

I also haven't cooked with Calvados before and you actually SET IT ON FIRE...

...sorry: you flambee it.

It turned out super-delicious and was something completely different from what I normally cook.

You'll need:

for 4 servings

2 shallots

5 sourish apples

5 Tbsp butter

4 chicken legs

salt, pepper

approx. 5cl (1.7oz)  Calvados

100ml (3.4oz) chicken stock

200ml (6.8oz) cidre

1 bouquet garni (2sprigs of thyme and parsley, such as 1 bay leave tied together)

1tsp sugar

200ml (6.8oz) cream

Directions:

Peel the shallots and quarter them. 

Divide one apple into eighth pieces and remove the core.      

Melt 3 Tbsp of butter in a casserole or deep pan.

Rinse the chicken legs, dry them and season them with pepper and salt. 

Sauté the legs in the butter from both sides until golden brown, then take them out and set aside.

Sauté the shallots and apple in the dripping, place the chicken legs on top of them and pour the Calvados over it. By using a long match or one of these longer lighters, carefully lid the Calvados on fire. While you flambé, slightly shake the casserole so that the all the calvados catches fire. 

As soon as the alcohol has dissolved and the fire has extinguished and deglaze with chicken stock and 100ml/3.4oz of cidre. Add bouquet garni, cover the casserole up and let stew for about 30 minutes. In the meantime cut the other apples in each 8 pieces and remove the cores. In a pan melt the 2 leftover Tbsp butter and sauté the apple slices in it, pour the sugar on top and lightly caramelize. Deglaze with the  other half of the cidre (100ml/3.4oz). Add the apples to chicken legs in the casserole.

Mix in the cream and bring to the boil shortly. 

Season to taste with pepper and salt and serve with bread and a glass of white wine.

This guy obviously knows how to use his legs, still...

PS: 

Next time I'll do this recipe again, I will add less cream. I had so much sauce and it was a little to creamy for me, which I think is unnecessary. Just add the cream step by step and decide yourself how much you want.

I will also remove the chicken legs before I add the cream and apples next time. They were just in the way when I wanted to mix everything together. And it looks nicer, too, when the legs aren't all covered in cream sauce...

The only downside to this recipe is that the skin of the legs isn't very crisp. If you have a broiler you probably could broil the legs on maximum heat for 5 minutes after cooking, before serving them with the sauce.

And, of course, you can replace the calvados and cidre with apple juice and not flambé the whole thing. But it certainly doesn't taste as good as with booze and it is far less fun.