Tag: clafoutis

Far Aux Mirabelles

5 September 2024

Far Breton is a delicious dessert from the French region Bretagne. Originally there are two versions of Far: a savoury one with buckwheat, butter, milk, eggs, salt and lard (to be served as a side dish) and a sweet one with wheat flour, butter, milk, eggs, sugar and (optional) raisins. The savoury version is a component of the traditional dish Kig ha Farz (meaning ‘meat with far’). The sweet version is better known and nowadays made with prunes, preferably Pruneaux d’Agen. Easy to make and always a pleasure to serve.

Mirabelle (plums) are a speciality from the French region Alsace-Lorraine. The fruit is relatively small, sweet and full of flavour. Often used to make jam or eaux-de-vie. The season is fairly short (a few weeks in August and September only). When you see Mirabelle plums at your greengrocers, then don’t hesitate and buy them. Enjoy them as they are or turn them into Far Aux Mirabelles!

What You Need
  • 80 grams of Plain Flour
  • 2 organic Eggs
  • 50 grams of Sugar
  • 350 ml Milk
  • 15 grams of Butter
  • 500 grams of Mirabelle Plums
  • 15 ml Eaux-de-Vie de Mirabelle (optional)
  • Butter to coat dish
What You Do

Set the oven to 170 °C or 340 °F traditional. Wash, dry and halve the Mirabelle plums. Discard the pits. Add butter to the milk and heat until lukewarm and butter dissolved. Combine flour and sugar. Add one beaten egg and mix. Add the second beaten egg and mix. Add the milk and whisk until you have a smooth batter.  Coat the baking dish with butter, add the halved Mirabelle plums and the batter. After 40 minutes increase the heat to 190 °C or 375 °F and fan forced for 5 minutes. We prefer the far to be beautiful golden brown even though it seems that a Far Breton is supposed to be much more browned.
Enjoy the far lukewarm as a dessert or the next day cold with a cup of coffee. No need to dust with icing sugar. 

PS

Perhaps you recognize the combination of ingredients. The Far Breton is indeed similar to Clafoutis and Flaugnarde. Far is supposed to be denser than Clafoutis, originates from Bretagne and is made with prunes, whereas Clafoutis originates from the Limousin and is made with cherries. And Flaugnarde? With apricots?
Oh well, let’s simple enjoy these easy to make and delicious desserts.

Slice of Far Aux Mirabelles ©cadwu
Far Aux Mirabelles ©cadwu
Mirabelle Plums ©cadwu

History on Our Plate

26 September 2022

A few years ago, we had the pleasure of attending a lecture by food historian and award winning author Peter G. Rose. She talked about America’s Dutch past and the influence of the Dutch settlers on today’s American food. She explained how the founders of New Netherland (currently the states of New York, Delaware, Connecticut and New Jersey) brought Dutch recipes, tools, herbs and fruit to the US. And she showed how the Dutch influence is still present in today’s food in the USA.

Recipes

In her book History on Our Plate (2019) she writes in more detail about this topic, also by providing various food and drink recipes from New Netherland (1609 – 1664). The recipes are based on publications like Een Notabel Boecxken van Cokeryen (a Notable Little Book of Cookery, 1514) and the 13th century publication Le Viandier de Taillevent. The recipes include both the original and a modern version, allowing you to recreate food from the 17th century. Fried cod with mace, waffles, mushroom fricassee, artichokes with a bread, cinnamon and wine sauce: they all sound amazing.

In her introduction she describes the joy of baking bread in a hearth, the fun (and challenges) of preparing food in her home fireplace and the candlelight dinners that follow. When reading the well written recipes, you sense that she (and her husband who is in charge of the fire) aims to let her readers enjoy the cooking and eating as much as they did.

Quiche or Clafoutis?

We were intrigued by a recipe for Mushroom Quiche without a Crust. It made us think of clafoutis. Replace the cherries by mushrooms, change the seasoning and you have a delicious vegetarian starter or main course. The recipe was first published in 1668 by Franciscus van Sterbeeck  in his book Tractaet van de Kampernoeljes, Genaamd Duivelsbrood (or Treatise of Mushrooms, named Devils’s Bread).
You’ll find a detailed recipe in History on Our Plate.

We enjoyed our Mushroom Quiche without a Crust (or should we say, Flaugnarde with Mushrooms?) with a glass of Rioja d’Oliva Gran Reserva, Altos d’Oliva, 2013. A full bodied, red wine with lots of character that worked really well with the mushrooms, the oregano, and the Gouda cheese.

Buy the Book!

History on Our Plate is available via the well-known channels and your local bookstore for approximately 15 euro or 10 US$.

History on Our Plate
Mushroom Flaugnarde ©cadwu
Mushroom Flaugnarde on Plate ©cadwu

Clafoutis

29 July 2020

Cherries, cherries, cherries!

We love them! The rich, sweet taste in combination with the right texture! They just want to be eaten, one after the other. So what better summer dessert than Clafoutis?
Fresh, small, black or dark red cherries are the best for Clafoutis. Don’t use anything canned or jarred.
Clafoutis is made with milk and eggs, so in a way familiar to Crè­me Brûlée and Far Breton. But in case of Clafoutis you only need to whisk and wait for it to bake in the oven. That’s all.
There are many recipes for Clafoutis, some with cold milk, some with hot. Some use milk and cream, others just milk. We use warm milk because you get a better feel for the consistency, but cold milk will also do the job.
Some add Kirsch and others add Vanilla. We can’t see the benefit of adding Kirsch when using tasty cherries. Vanilla is distracting, so not recommended.

Another decision to make: use whole cherries or pitted ones? Not removing the pits is less work (obviously) and it reduces the risk of a soggy Clafoutis. The pits contain amygdalin, a toxic compound that can also be found in almonds, apple seeds and apricot stones. Amygdalin tastes like almonds. In this recipe we pit the cherries and compensate for the lack of almond flavour by adding almond flour.
If you decide to pit the cherries, make sure you remove all of them!

Finally, yes, you can replace the cherries with fresh apricots, berries, peaches or prunes. Then it’s called a Flaugnarde. But nothing as tasty as Clafoutis made with fresh cherries!

What You Need

  • 2,5 dl of regular Milk
  • 2 Eggs
  • 30 grams of plain Flour
  • 10 grams of Almond Flour
  • 20 grams of Sugar
  • 500 grams of Cherries, pitted
  • 10 grams of Butter

What You Do

Pre heat the oven to 180° Celsius or 350° Fahrenheit. Whisk together the eggs, plain flour, almond flour and sugar. Bring the milk almost to a boil. Stir the milk into the mixture. Butter a large, shallow baking dish, add cherries to the dish and make sure the bottom is nicely covered with cherries. No need to have two layers of cherries. Pour the mixture over the cherries. Bake (lower third of the oven) for 20 minutes, add a few dots of butter, continue baking for another 20 minutes or until the clafoutis is golden. Leave to cool for 60 minutes or so, this will enhance the taste. clafoutis should be served luke-warm. You could decorate the clafoutis with icing sugar, but it’s not essential.