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ffwd: spur-of-the-moment soup
Soup! I love soup, especially this time of year. As the weather cools off and there’s a chill in the air, soup is just the perfect thing. Also, I love a hot lunch, making soup the perfect thing for lunch.
The selected recipe this week for French Fridays with Dorie was Spur-of-the-Moment Soup, aka Stone Soup. It’s a recipe, but also, in typical Dorie fashion, it is also a jumping off point for making a pot of vegetable soup from what you have on hand.
The book offers a carrot version of the soup. In the fall, I can’t seem to leave a farmers market, farm stand or grocery store without yet another winter squash in hand, so the natural choice was for me to make a winter squash version of the soup.
I’ve seen a couple of new (to me) varieties of winter squash around this year. One I found this week is Sunshine, a variety of Kabocha squash. Another is Rugosa, an Italian heirloom variety that looks like a wrinkly butternut squash. That’s what I used for my spur-of-the-moment soup. The squash has a thick skin, so I used a pound of squash flesh, after I’d seeded and peeled it.
Rugosa Squash
Chopped aromatic vegetables (onion, celery, and garlic) are softened in butter along with the squash. I also added a large sprig of thyme along with a large sprig of sage. Once the vegetables are softened, a chopped potato is added, along with chicken broth, and everything simmers until the potato is soft. The soup could be left chunky or pureed. I opted to puree the soup in the blender because that’s the texture I prefer.
The resulting soup had a nice squashy flavor. I prefer this kind of soup a little thicker, so would add less broth next time, maybe only a quart, but otherwise, it’s a keeper. As described, this “stone soup” is the perfect back-pocket sort of recipe to pull out to make as soup from whatever vegetables are on hand.
To accompany the soup and make a satisfying meal, I made a cheese quesadilla to go with it. For me, the ingredients are pantry items, and I can usually throw one together even when it seems like the cupboard is bare.
Cheese Quesadilla
Makes one (multiply as needed)
Butter
1 flour tortilla (whole wheat is nice)
1 oz cheese, grated (my favorite is pepper jack, but cheddar or plain jack are both good)
1 large spoonful of salsa
In a skillet set over medium heat, melt a small pat of butter. Place the tortilla in the skillet and swirl in around to coat the bottom with melted butter. Sprinkle evenly with cheese. When the cheese is almost melted, drizzle salsa over the cheese. Fold the tortilla in half. Be gentle, you don’t want to the fold to break. If the bottom of the tortilla is nicely browned and the cheese is melted, it’s ready. If the tortilla isn’t browned, let it cook for a few more minutes, flipping it over so both sides are browned. Remove to a cutting board and slice in half or quarters.
If you’d like to try making this soup, you can find the recipe in Dorie Greenspan’s book Around My French Table. To see the end result for the other FFWD bloggers, check out their links here.
ffwd: crispy-crackly fig-apple-and-almond tart
I’ve always found phyllo dough to be challenging to work with. Those paper-thin sheets are just dying to tear as you delicately peel them off the pile. So, when I saw that this week’s recipe for French Fridays with Dorie for Crispy-Crackly Apple-Almond Tart was built on a crust made of layered phyllo dough, I felt a touch of dread.
Deep down, I think the trick with phyllo dough is “practice makes perfect”. It’s all about comfort and confidence. So, I forged ahead. For this elegant tart, the base is built by oh-so-carefully transferring a sheet of phyllo to the baking sheet, brushing it with melted butter (still carefully), sprinkling with sugar (I used turbinado sugar and sprinkled with abandon, using way more than called for), and repeating. A few of the early sheets had tears that could be hidden, and I had to discard a sheet or two, but that’s why it comes twenty sheets in the pack, I guess.
Next comes the almond cream, also known as frangipane. Almond flour, egg, sugar, vanilla, and cream are whisked together to form a thick paste. This is spread, most carefully over the crust. I tried to leave a little border, but it obviously wasn’t enough of one, because the almond cream oozed over the edges while I was working on the fruit. It still tasted good, but didn’t help with aesthetics.
Finally, the tart is topped with fruit. At the market, a basket of figs called my name, so mine was intended to be a crispy-crackly fig-almond tart. I couldn’t decide whether to place the figs cut side up or down. I’m not sure I love the look of my choice. Unfortunately, the figs didn’t quite cover the top surface, so I added two rows of sliced apples to fill the space. Because I didn’t anticipate this, my fruit arrangement was not symmetrical so looked far from “bakery-ready”.
The apple slices were challenging, trying to keep them fanned together while transferring them to the tart. I felt like I was playing some kind of motor-skill game that I wasn’t winning. Had I aimed to make a fully-apple tart, there is no way that three apples would have covered the tart. I’m not sure whether Dorie’s apples were huge, or whether she spread her apples less densely. The two crosswise rows of apples on my tart used one and a half apples. I would have needed 4 or 5 to cover the whole thing. I liked the closely packed look, but this was definitely another recipe where a photo would have been very helpful to see the intent.
When the tart comes of out of the oven, there’s one final step, to glaze the top with melted apricot jam. This gives the tart a lovely sheen and a touch of additional sweetness.
On baking, the almond cream spread some more, so I didn’t get many crackly edges. However, the crust still crisped up underneath, so each bite had plenty of crisp and crackle. The figs tasted good, but I preferred the apple. Sliced leftovers look terrific in the cake dome.
Having made this for a weeknight dessert for two, I felt a little like my tart deserved a better audience, like a little black dress with no party to go to, just the kitchen table. I have some work to do on the final appearance. I’m thinking I might like this better fitted into a rectangular tart pan, where the edges will contain the gooey filling without going where it shouldn’t. I do plan to pull out this crispy-crackly tart recipe the next time I’m asked to bring dessert to someone’s house for dinner: the well-deserved party for my elegant (and easy) dessert. If you want to try this one, invite me over!
We don’t post the recipes, but you can find it in Dorie Greenspan’s book Around My French Table. To read about the other FFWD bloggers’ tarts, follow their links here.
A Plateful of Happiness 