365 Days: Chocolate tart

Today I didn't actually cook (well, meatballs - see later) since I was going out.  However, I have listed a number of recently cooked dishes which haven't had accompanying recipes.  So here's the chocolate tart recipe (sorry all the sweet things so far have been chocolate based).

I used some leftover commercial shortcrust pastry for this *frugal!, but if I was doing it from scratch I would either do flaky pastry or pate brisee or sucree - either would be good.   So, line a 20cm flan tin or similar with pastry.  Then bake it blind.  I find using the dedicated ceramic beans is the best way to do this, line the pastry snugly with foil, put the beans in and make sure the foil covers the rim of the pastry, otherwise it tends to cook first.  Cook in a medium 4/5 oven for 15 mins, remove hot foil and beans and give it another 5 mins to crisp the bottom.

For the filling, melt 200g dark chocolate in a bowl in a saucepan of water,don't let the water get to it.  Towards the end, add 50 g butter (unsalted pref).  Meanwhile take 300ml double cream and add 2 tbsps caster sugar and whisk together, add the slightly cooled melted chocolate and beat together until shiny (this didn't take long), then add a couple of tbsps of milk to loosen it a little, amalgamate fully then fill pie crust with the mixture.  Chill for 2 hrs before eating.

Alternatively: This is not my recipe - I got it online, it's Jamie Oliver's, based on generations of French precursors no doubt.  Next time I do it I'll probably add orange zest and maybe some cointreau to losen it, or brandy instead of milk, or amaretto and add some crushed toasted almonds, or a layer of crushed amaretti on the crust before adding the chocolate... you could serve this with some very delicious baked/poached pears, possibly mocha/vanilla versions might be tried - whatever else goes with chocolate.  The chocolate is fairly firm, so you could almost make this is a tray bake and serve in slivers, perhaps with some luxurious florentine style topping - yes, I might try that next time - or praline or just a drizzle of white choc and gold dust to improve its appearance.  Oh, sorry, how could I have forgotten sea salt! Or caramels?

What I ate
Oatcakes with cheese,  lunch was leftover pork and bean stew, a leaf or two of overcooked artichoke; later a couple of meatballs I was cooking for the men, then a really dreary cheese and bacon panino at the Gulbenkian... I wanted fresh... they only had dull.  A spritzer - to compensate for the food!

365 days: don't waste food

Having hauled a lot of things out of the deep freeze, I am now faced with the task of cooking them.... so this morning I began a cooking session.

First in a burst of frugality I went through the fridge and decided what to do with the leftovers:
cold cooked chickpeas (they don't keep that long) - I fried an onion, some garlic, cumin and red pepper, then added the chickpeas, a spoon of tomato concentrate and about 4 fresh tomatoes, chopped, then some water to stop it sticking.  Cooked it gently for half an hour and then kept it to be eaten as a cold veg, but it could be re-heated.

Then I boiled beetroot.  I usually make a sauce for the beetroot which consists of a spoonful of fruit jelly (redcurrant, apple, quince, whatever) the zest or grated peel of half an orange, some orange juice, melted together, a squirt of vinegar too perhaps - you have to adjust the jelly/juice-vinegar ratio according to taste, lots of salt and freshly ground black pepper.

Then I did two artichokes that I'd been given - I am the only one who likes them, and I eat them with vinaigrette.  I made another batch of carrot soup too.

There were cold potatoes, carrots, peas and beans in the fridge - I cut them up added a chopped gherkin and mayo and made a reasonable version of a Russian salad.   We then had a very nice lunch of assorted salads; unfortunately, there is still rather a lot of it leftover, so we may be enjoying them for a couple of days.

Finally, the peppers had been there for about a week, so I made a peperonata.  The boys like this, but it will keep until Monday, when they can have it with meatballs.

This evening we are going to have duck legs, which are not, unfortunately, confit, because I haven't had the time or goose fat - and pommes sarladaise (I hope)  I haven't cooked this before.  This will be followed by chocolate tart.  I also made some bread, a fruit salad for breakfast, and, since the bananas were appalling, another lot of banana and coconut bread. (i.e. last week's banana muffins, but without the blueberries, and in loaf form).  This really was an epic day of cooking, since I also made a bean and pork stew for tomorrow and some more chicken stock..

Pommes sarladaises
The recipe I found was on a US blog - I don't think it's quite right.  Three very large potatoes, peeled and cut into coin-thick slices.  Heat a lot of goose/duck fat in a large, heavy bottomed pan, add the potatoes gradually, turn them over, and keep turning them as they go crisp.  Add 6 chopped cloves of garlic and keep cooking until they are all crisp.   At this point, I would add salt and pepper and chopped parsley, however, the recipe suggests adding 3/4 cup of water and continuing to cook covered.   When I cooked them this would have been unecessary, but I did it anyway.  I don't think it was necessary and I shouldn't have bothered,but I wanted to do it PROPERLY.  Anyway, it made it rather soggy and not very like the pommes sarladaises I ate in the Lot 8 years ago.