I tried it out and this is what mine looked like:
A tart tatin is apparently a tart where the filling is cooked first, in a skillet or non-stick pan on the stovetop, then covered with the crust, baked, and flipped over right before begin served. I had never tried one of these before. This tart was supposed to be both sweet and savory, with tomatoes*, red onions, olives, and a caramel sauce to bind it all together.
Pictures of the process:
I was also making curry at the time, which is the reason for the sweet potatoes* and white onion.The bug that came home with the tomatoes:
No, I didn't kill him, I scooped him into a small dish and set it on the porch so he could climb away safely without me having to squish him. Yes, I'm a wuss and I don't like killing things.
The tart after cooking but before flipping:
As much fun as it was to try out a new process, the tart itself was kind of a disappointment. I'm pretty sure that I didn't cook the caramel long enough, and I also didn't use the right kind of pastry (all butter puff pastry, pre-bought? Anyone know where I can get this in Oxford?) I think I didn't leave the tart in the oven long enough for the right amount of moisture to evaporate from the filling. The crust was done, but the filling not quite. I'm a little scared of my oven - it's not a particularly good one (welcome to life in cheap grad student apartments), so food cooks at different rates depending on which side of the oven it's on, and I definitely wouldn't try complicated baking in it either. So those experiments are just going to have to wait a little longer.
So the crust was a little too thin, and flooded quickly when I flipped the tart over, which was a little too sweet and had a little too much moisture left in it. Eaten right away, it might have been better, but left to its own devices for thirty minutes or so, it got soggy.
Which shouldn't discourage anyone; it's my own mistakes rather than the recipe itself that messed up the process. Made right I'm sure it would be delicious. And it wasn't too bad as it was. It's just that, next to the curry, which I've made many times and love dearly, it didn't exactly shine.
I have also come to realize lately, as I'm taking an interest in cookbooks and cooking and reading up on all of this stuff, that I don't much care for French/Italian cooking very much. Don't get me wrong, you make it for me and I'll eat it happily. But it seems like the American concept of fine dining has revolved around fancy French cooking (I mean fancy in the high-class sense, not necessarily in the cooking technique) for a very long time, and then, with the advent of chefs like Alice Waters, the marriage of French cooking techniques with American seasonal produce. Which is great. But I much prefer the flavors of Mexican cooking, with lots of chile powder and cumin and peppers and onions and beans and corn. Or Indian cooking, with ginger and garlic and onion and curry powder and coconut milk and cilantro. I also enjoy Southern cooking, or what my roommate calls country cooking (she's from Missouri and they cook very similarly up there, so I guess it can't all be Southern.) Which bascially features pork fat as a dominant flavor. Mmm, bacon.
I've found before that I don't enjoy food very much if I've never had it when it was made well. I never really liked pulled pork (scandalous in the Deep South, I know) until I had some really amazing whole hog Eastern North Carolina barbeque at my first ever Foodways conference. Then I could go back and appreciate mediocre pulled pork for what it was. Actually, I was convinced I didn't like barbeque at all until I tried the brisket sandwich at Judge Beans Barbeque in Nashville when that place opened my senior year in college. Maybe the reason I like Mexican and Indian food is because it's not haute cuisine, and it's much easier to get well-made Mexican and Indian food at more student-friendly prices. (Well, it was easier to get well-made cheap Indian food in London, ok? Not so much here.) So maybe someday I will discover really amazing French or Italian food that I can eat on my budget and be convinced.
*Goddamn you, Dan Quayle. I am certain that I would never have doubted my ability to spell "tomatoes" and "potatoes" correctly had you not made your famous blunder when I was a kid. Now I cannot type those words without having to spell check them.
1 comment:
First, I like that you post things that didn't work so well. Second, are you gonna put your curry recipe up here?
Third, I also love cooking the really spicy and flavorful stuff. I feel like, in terms of French food, I prefer to go with simple--like pastries but more importantly CHEESE AND WINE and bagette. I like Italian but I have never been to Italy so I don't know if what I eat is like their food. But really? Better than Mexican? C'est pas posible.
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