French Fridays with Dorie: Pissaladière
I love caramelized onions, so when I saw this onion, anchovy, and olive tart on the French Fridays schedule, I was excited.
Dorie said not to rush the onions. Fortunately, I was making the onions the day before, not for the next meal, so I could let them take as long as then needed. She said they could take 45 minutes or more. My onions didn’t really show any “action” for over an hour. It took them two full hours to get golden.
8:00 pm
8:30 pm
9:15 pm
10:00 pm
As much as love caramelized onions, the downside is that everything in proximity to the kitchen, like the air, and including my coat, now has that residual skunky odor of onions. I don’t know how long it will take to wear off. It is fading, but I cooked the onions on Tuesday night…
I took a shortcut with the crust. I was trying to pull this together during the week and the timing on the yeast dough just wasn’t going to work. Dorie mentioned that some people, chefs included, will make pissaladière with puff pastry. I had some in the freezer, so I went that route. I let it thaw in the refrigerator while I was at work. Then, I rolled it out to a larger rectangle to top and bake.
I also didn’t read the recipe very carefully. I spread the onions all over the top of the crust. Then I decorated it with anchovies and strewed green Picholine olives on top. Then I baked. While the tart was baking, I noticed that the recipe said to bake the onions on the crust and to add the anchovies and olives at the end, giving those ingredients just a brief visit to the oven to warm them up. Oh, well. It might have changed the texture a little, but I definitely didn’t ruin it by my lack of attention to the details.
Before Baking
The pissaladière made a nice light dinner and, as leftovers, a nice lunch too. I loved the contrast of the sweet onions to the salty anchovies and olives.
My only disappointment was the crust, and that was my own doing. I want to try this again with the yeasty dough. While it was easy to use the puff pastry, it seems that the brand I used (a butter-based puff pastry from Trader Joe’s) isn’t meant for further rolling. It didn’t puff and was more like pastry crust. I used the second sheet for something else last night, without rolling it, and it puffed just beautifully.
Because of the anchovies, I suspect there will be varied comments from other Doristas. You can check out what they have to say about their pissaladières at French Fridays with Dorie. If you’d like to make this yourself, I can’t give you the recipe, but you can find it in Dorie Greenspan’s bookAround My French Table. And you can play along any Friday.
Maryland Meat Run
This past weekend, we made a road trip to Maryland to pick up meat. This wasn’t just ordinary meat. In keeping with our efforts to connect with farmers and know where our meat comes from, this meat was sourced in the family. My sister’s father-in-law has been raising a small herd of Angus for the past few years. This year, two steer were up for “harvesting”, so we decided to buy a hindquarter.
How much closer to the farmer could we get? We’ve met the cows in their infancy, checking them out on every visit. We know they had a great life, spending their days grazing in the hilly pasture. Donald cared for them well. The cow was slaughtered about a month ago and aged until they cut it up on Friday, the day before it got picked up.
The steer was about 1300 pounds at the end of its life. Our hindquarter weighted 187 pounds before it was cut up. We learned a lot of about the anatomy of a cow when filling out the cut sheet that specifies how we wanted the meat cut up. The front quarter (which is what we didn’t get) is where the ribs, chuck and brisket come from. The hindquarter is where most of the steaks are, which is why we picked it.
Our quarter yielded about 100 pounds of meat, about 60% steaks and roasts and 40% ground beef. It looks gorgeous. We also got a big bag of soup bones, the oxtail (after last year’s successful stew, we wanted to try again), and liver. Actually we got extra liver. We knew most people wouldn’t want it, so I asked for it. The butcher gave us 10 pounds. All I wanted was to make some dog biscuits with it for Bella. Now, we have a liver bonanza!
This much beef will last us at least a year. It’s all frozen, so that shouldn’t be a problem. There are lots of cuts I’ve never really cooked before, so it will be another series of kitchen adventure. What fun! If you have any favorite beef recipes to share, do let me know.
Driving back and forth to Maryland, a 450 trek each way, was an arduous way to spend the weekend. We spent over 18 hours in the car. The reward was a wonderful visit with family. We stopped in New Jersey to see Howard’s sister and her family on the way south (a much too brief overnight stop). Then, in Maryland, we not only saw my sister Jane’s family who lives there, but also my father and stepmother, plus my sister from Pennsylvania came with her family to visit too. Highlights were: watching my nephew Brett’s last baseball game of the season, delicious home-cooked meals at Jane’s, and an adventure in a very muddy corn maze.
The best part of the corn maze was something called the “Pumpkin Cannon”. It was a hydraulic contraption that you point and shoot pumpkins out of. They had giant “transformer”-like creatures to shoot at like targets. My nephews and nieces and Howard all had fun taking their turn.
All in all, it was a fun-filled weekend, making me wish I lived closer to family than I do.
My Family: A Motley Crew
A Plateful of Happiness 