summer – Le Fermier

Yellow Peach and Rosemary Crumble

crumble2_lefermier_040216 One of the reasons why I love summer is because of all the fruits that are available to us, like peaches, nectarines, mangoes, apricots and lychees for example.

There are so many different recipes you can create with them, like a delicious fruit salad, a sorbet, tarts, crumbles or ice creams. Stone fruit are packed with flavour and have a very fragrant smell that represents summer to me!

Today I’ve decided to share this delicious yellow peaches and rosemary crumble recipe. I think the rosemary enhance the flavour of the peaches and add that extra freshness to the crumble, especially when I picked it from my garden 2 minutes before!

Yellow peaches and rosemary crumble:

Ingredients:

140g rolled oats
140g plain flour
140g butter
80g caster sugar
8 yellow peaches

Method:

Preheat oven at 190 °C (375°F).
Cut each peaches into 6-8 wedges and place them in a baking dish.
Place the oats and flour in a food processor and mix well, then add the butter and mix until it resemble an even crumb mixture.
Add the sugar and mix through.
Cover the fruit with the crumb mixture and bake for approximately 20 minutes or until the crumble is golden.

Almond and Cherry Pithivier

There’s one cooking show that I could watch endlessly over again. For me, it’s the perfect mix of Francophilic nostalgia, mouth-watering food and my style of cooking: rustic. It is…Rick Stein’s French Food Odyssey. If you’ve never had the pleasure before, you can find it online: www.amazon.com . You’re welcome.

With its focus on French favourites, there are lots of dishes on Rick’s menu that were regulars at the dinner table growing up, but one that I have never tried was something called a Pithivier, and so, I decided to make one. My only regret…I shouldn’t have waited so long!

Ingredients:

2 sheets butter puff pastry
125g softened butter
125g caster sugar
1 egg
2 egg yolk
125 almond meal
15 flour
2 tablespoon Kirsch (cherry liqueur)
225 fresh cherries, stone removed

Method:

Cut a disc of puff pastry using a medium size plate (about 25 cm) for the bottom and a slightly larger one for the top (about 29 cm), using a larger plate. Rest them in the fridge for about 30 minutes.
For the almond filling, cream the butter and sugar together until white and fluffy.
Add the egg and one of the yolks, gently add the almond meal, flour and Kirsch, stir until combine.
Stir in the pitted cherries.
Place the smaller disc on flat baking tray lined with greaseproof paper. Spoon the almond mixture in the center and spread it to about 2.5 cm of the edge.
Beat the remaining yolk with 1 tablespoon of cold water and brush the edges of the bottom disc. Place the larger disc on top of the filling and press the edges together to seal, pressing out any trapped air. Press the outside of the edges of the pastry with a fork to give it a attractive finish. Place the Pithivier in the fridge for 20 minutes.
Meanwhile preheat the oven to 220 degrees Celsius (428F). Brush the top of the Pithivier with the rest of the egg wash, then with the tip of a small sharp knife, score radiating arcs from the center out towards the edge, taking care not to cut too deeply. Make a hole in the centre to let the steam escape.
Bake for 15-20 minutes at 220 degrees Celsius(428F), until the pastry puffed up and is golden. Then lower the temperature to 180 degrees Celsius(356F) and bake for a further 40 minutes or until a skewer pushed in the middle comes out clean. If it start to become too brown, loosely lay a sheet of foil over the top.
To give the Phitivier a classic glazed appearance remove it from the oven, increase the temperature to 220 degrees Celsius (428F). Dust the pastry with icing sugar and bake for 4 minutes.
Transfer to a cooling rack and leave to cool slightly, then serve with vanilla bean ice cream or a dollop of whipped cream.
I also recommend a glass of Chateau Viranel “Gourmandise” available from www.airoldifinewines.com.au

February 12, 2015

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Apricot Tarte Tatin

The story of the Tarte Tartin gives hope to everyone who is absent-minded in the kitchen. This “accidental” dessert is credited to the sisters Tartin who ran a hotel in the town of Lamotte-Beuvron, in France’s Loire Valley. One of the sisters, Stephanie, was known as an excellent cook but also a bit of a scatterbrain. As the most popular version of the story goes, one day she left the apples for her apple pie in the pan for too long and so they over-caramelised.

Not wanting to waste the apples, but wanting to hide the mishap, she covered them with tart pastry and placed the whole pan in the oven to bake. Once cooked, she flipped her concoction back over to serve in order to make it look like a normal tart.

If only every kitchen disaster could be such a hit with guests!

The great thing about this recipe is that it works just as well with any fruit that caramelises nicely. I was lucky enough this summer to have a bumper crop of apricots on my tree and they worked beautifully for this Tarte Tartin. Peaches also work a treat and for the savoury lover, some juicy cherry tomatoes rival their sweeter cousins.

tartetatin3_lefermier_200115

Ingredient:

1 cup caster sugar
50 ml water
15-20 apricots
50 g unsalted butter
50 ml rum
1 sheet butter puff pastry

tartetatin_lefermier_200115

Method:

Preheat oven at 180 degrees Celsius
Put the sugar and water in a medium sauce pan, give it a stir and cook the sugar until it caramelize.
Pour the caramel into a tart dish, glass or non stick is preferable, and make sure it covers the entire base.
Cut the apricot in half, remove the stone and place them on top of the caramel cut side towards you. Once you’ve layed down the first layer of apricots, repeat the process once more. When you flip the Tatin you’ll see the nicer side of the apricots.
Dice the butter and place it on top of the apricots. Pour the rum on top of the fruit.
Place the pastry over the apricots, tuck the sides in and bake for 25 minutes.
Once cooked, leave it cool down a little bit then carefully flip it over. A good way to do it is to place a tray on top of the tart and using two towel flip in one move.
I suggest you serve the Tarte Tatin with a delicious vanilla bean ice cream and a glass of Chateau “Suduiraut” Sauterne available from http://www.airoldifinewines.com.au .

January 20, 2015

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Short Bread

Shortbread started off with very humble beginnings – as the slow cooked off cuts of bread dough. Eventually, butter took the place of yeast to more closely resemble the shortbread we know and love today. With its buttery richness it’s not hard to imagine that shortbread was once considered a luxury and could only be afforded for special occasions such as weddings, Christmas or New Year’s Eve. A particular variety known as “petticoat tails”, flavoured with caraway seeds was apparently a favourite of Queen Victoria.

For this iteration of the Scottish favourite, I used classic gingerbread cookie cutter shapes, which would be perfect to use if you’re cooking with the kids! For a more grown up version, you could create the classic shortbread fingers or the wheel shape sliced into triangles (i.e, the petticoat tails).

Ingredients:

500g plain flour
300g unsalted butter
250g caster sugar
1 egg yolk
1 egg
2 vanilla pod (seeds only)
2 teaspoon baking powder

Method:

Preheat the oven at 180 degrees Celsius (356F).
Mix the sugar, diced butter (soft) and vanilla seeds in an electric mixer until the mixture become creamy and slightly white.
Then add the egg yolk and whole egg and mix until well combine.
Sieve the flour and baking powder together and add it to the butter mix. Mix on medium speed, until you have a smooth dough.
Roll the dough on a slightly floured bench to the desired thickness, I recommend about 3-4 mm.
Using a pastry cutter cut different shapes and place them on a flat baking tray lined with baking paper.
Bake for 20 minutes or so until the sides of the short bread becomes golden. Cool them down cooling rack.

December 22, 2014

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Cherry Clafoutis

Early summertime is cherry season and traditionally this means adorning the top of a freshly baked pavlova with these juicy little jewels for Christmas day dessert. But if you want to try something a little different (and you wouldn’t be food lovers without a sense of culinary adventure) then may I introduce a dainty little dish called the clafoutis.

This fabulous flan-like dessert is a traditional dish of the Limousin region of France and is rather peculiar in that it contains cherries that are unpitted. It may sound odd and like a lot of work to ensure you don’t chip a tooth with every bite, but believe me when I say that the pips add an extra nutty nuance that makes it worth the effort. Just make sure you let your guests know before they tuck in!

Traditional cherry clafoutis:

Ingredients:

185 mL thickened cream
125 mL full fat milk
1 vanilla pod
3 free range eggs
60g caster sugar
50g plain flour
30g almond meal
400g cherries
1 Tbsp Kirsch

Method:

Preheat the oven to 180 degrees Celsius (350 F).
Pour the cream into a small saucepan. Split the vanilla pod in two, scrape out the seeds and add both to the cream.
Heat the cream gently for a couple of minutes, remove from the heat, add the milk and leave to cool. Take the vanilla pod out.
Whisk the eggs and sugar together until the mixture becomes slightly white and foamy.
Sieve the flour, mix it with the almond meal and then add it to the egg mix. Whisk well to avoid lumps.
Gently add the cooled cream and whisk until combined.
Arrange the cherries at the bottom of your cake tray (use a 23cm or so baking tray), pour the mix over the cherries to about ¾ of the tray.
Bake for 35-40 minutes, until golden on top. A good trick to check if your Clafoutis is cooked is to plant a skewer into the centre, if it comes out clean then it’s cook!
Dust with icing sugar and serve with a dollop of cream while still warm.

With this delicious dessert i recommend a Chateau Coutet “Sauternes” available from http://www.airoldifinewines.com.au

December 16, 2014

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Madeleine

I often feel that much of the magic and romanticism surrounding French food lies in the mysterious origins of so many dishes. Factual histories become Chinese whispers, embellished and morphed along the way until each version has as many likelihoods and doubts as the next.

Madeleines are a perfect example of this, where the only thing we can be sure of is that they are truly scrumptious (and it’s probably also safe to say they were named after someone named Madeleine).

It’s accepted that these little cakes hail from the French town of Commercy, in the North of the Lorraine Region of France, and is now considered a speciality of the area. Beyond this, there is lots of conjecture on what the true origin of the Madeleine is.

One version claims that they were a family recipe, made by a cook named Madeleine, for her noble employer, Slanislaw L. Slanislaw’s daughter (and wife of Louis XV), Maria, shared them with the King who adored them and decided to name them after their maker. I like this version, but this doesn’t explain the unusual seashell shape, which is what makes this dessert so recognisable.

Another version, which is less romantic but explains the shape, poses that they were again made by and named after a cook called Madeleine, but this Madeleine was making them for pilgrims tracing the path through France to the final resting place of Saint-Jacques (St. James, the patron saint of Spain) whose symbol was the seashell.

While you’re mulling over your own thoughts on the matter, why not grab a coffee or tea and might I suggest adding the perfect petit-four to match – a Madeleine!

Madeleine:

Ingredients:

375 g caster sugar
4 eggs (medium size)
250 ml full fat milk
200 g unsalted butter
500 plain flour
15g baking powder
2 Tbsp vanilla essence or 1 vanilla pod seeded
50 g grated coconut
1 orange zest

Method:

Preheat the oven at 200-220 degrees Celsius.
In a mixing bowl, lightly whisk the eggs, sugar, 50ml of milk and the vanilla, then add the coconut and orange zest.
Sieve the flour and the baking powder.
Slowly add the flour to the egg mix while mixing with a spatula.
Once the flour is mixed through add the rest of the milk, and mix until the milk is incorporated.
Add the warm melted butter and mix until combined.
Lightly spray the Madeleine mould.
With a spoon or a pipping bag place the mixture in the Madeleine mould and bake for 10 minutes. Take them out of the mould as soon as they come out of the oven and place them on a cooling rack.

Serve the Madeleine warm for an afternoon tea or for an after dinner treat with a glass of Chateau Viranel “Gourmandise” available from www.airoldifinewines.com.au .

November 15, 2014November 16, 2014

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