Always a pleasure to serve a tartelette, with lemon, with blackberries, with raspberries or in this case with pear. The challenge is to capture the delicate flavour of the pears. Making the filling is simple and quick. Making the pastry requires much more time. Feel free to use ready-made pastry!
What You Need
Filling
Pears
Butter
Lemon Juice
Pâte Sucrée
50 grams of Unsalted Butter
40 grams of Caster Sugar
125 grams of All Purpose Flour
1 gram of Salt
1 organic egg
Water (optional)
What You Do (Filling)
Peel and core the pears
Chop coarsely
Melt the butter
Add some water
Slowly cook the pears until soft
Taste and perhaps add a drop of lemon juice
Pass gently through a sieve, without applying pressure. You want as much liquid as possible without damaging the texture of the pears
Set the pears aside and allow to cool.
Reduce the liquid until it becomes thick
What You Do (Pastry Case)
Combine sugar, flour and salt
Dice butter, add to the mixture and combine. Use a hand mixer with kneading hooks
Beat the egg and add
Use your hands to make the dough. It should not be sticky, so it must be easy to make a ball. If too dry, add just a bit of water. If too wet, add some flour
When done, remove from the bowl and wrap in kitchen foil. Store in the refrigerator for at least two hours. It can be stored for a few days.
Flour your work surface and roll out the pastry to a circle a larger than the top of the tartelette forms. The dough should be approximately 2 or 3 mm thick
Coat the forms with butter
Line the forms with the pastry. Press the pastry well into the sides and bottom. Use a knife to remove the excess dough
Cover and let rest for 30 minutes in the refrigerator
Preheat the oven to 190 °C or 375 °F
Use a fork to prick small holes in the pastry
Line the forms with greaseproof paper or aluminium foil, add baking beans and bake blind for 10 minutes
Remove the paper and the baking beans
Reduce the oven temperature to 160 °C or 320 °F
Transfer back to the oven for 5 minutes or until golden
Transfer to a wire rack and let cool
Assembling the Tartelette
When the pastry cases are completely cool, add the pears
Use a spoon to drizzle the pear-syrop on top of the pears
Recently we bought Asma Khan’s cookbook Ammu, Indian Home Cooking to Nourish Your Soul. ‘An entrancing book’, according to Nigella Lawson. Asma Khan is an Indian British chef, cookbook author and restaurant owner. In 2012 her pop-up restaurant started for 12 guests at her home, serving food cooked from traditional family recipes. Today her all-female Darjeeling Express restaurant in London offers Indian Rajput and Bengalihome cooking specialties.
In 2024 she won the Johannes van Dam Prize, a lifetime achievement award for an individual who has made an exceptional contribution to the world of gastronomy. Previous winners of the prestigious prize include Yotam Ottolenghi, Carlo Petrini, Alice Waters, Claudia Roden, Jeroen Meus and Alain Passard.
We prepared five dishes from the book and asked our esteemed panel (André, Joke, Martine and Rutger) for their thoughts. In this post we will look into Asma Khans Pumpkin and Coconut Soup and a dessert from Bengali, Bhapa Doi. On July 17th we will post part 2 of this review.
Flavours and Aromas
Asma Khan’s cookbook is about the food she enjoyed when she lived in India, the food she missed so much when living in the UK. By publishing the recipes, she creates an opportunity for all of us to enjoy the food that is close to her heart. That’ s why we followed her instructions to the letter, with one exception; we used less chillies.
Spices
Buying the right spices was a bit of a challenge. One of the ingredients of the Pineapple Chutney is Tej Patta, or Indian bay leaf. It has a clear cinnamon-like flavour and is not to be confused with common bay leaf. We also needed not too spicy large chillies. We found some excellent Kashmiri Red Chilies. Flavourful, a touch spicy and dark red. One dish required Cassia Bark which we couldn’t find and replaced with cinnamon. We wanted to serve original Indian beer, so we had to find a few bottles of Kingfisher or Cobra. The shopping took a bit of time, but it was worth the effort!
Not Just Another Cookbook
The book is called ‘Ammu’ which translates to ‘Mother’. The stories, the recipes, the whole book is a tribute to the food her mother (and the family’s cook) prepared. But we feel it’s more: it’s also a tribute to original flavours, to people taking time to prepare food, to sharing and enjoying, to communities and heritage.
Pumpkin and Coconut Soup
When talking about our menu, we looked at the menu of The Darjeeling Express and decided to prepare one starter and four dishes as main course. A vegetarian Pumpkin and Coconut soup would be ideal as a starter. The ingredients are pumpkin, onion, garlic, ginger, red chillies, coconut cream, salt, star anise and fennel seeds. Two tablespoons of fennel seeds (for 6 servings)? Star anise? Would that work?
The panel was impressed: a delicious pumpkin soup, spicy, but not the kind of spiciness that lingers on. The fennel worked beautifully with the pumpkin and coconut. The star anise gave the soup a nice additional and unexpected aroma. André’s favourite.
Bhapa Doi
When reading the book, we noticed that the recipes are not too complex, however, most are rather labour intensive. The book includes several recipes for desserts but given the time we needed to prepare the other dishes we decided to make a relativity easy Bengali dessert (not included in the book).
The Bhapa Doi is rich and moist, the taste long and (not overly) sweet. It made us think of cream cheese pie. The raisins combined very well with the creamy flavours and the cardamom. Perhaps we could have made smaller portions?
What You Need (for 7 ramekins (150 ml))
One tin of Condensed Milk (approximately 400 grams)
250 ml Greek Yoghurt
100 ml Whole Milk
1½ teaspoon of finely crushed Cardamom Seeds
Handful of Sultana Raisins
Pistachio Nuts (to decorate)
What You Do
Soak the sultana raisins for 15 minutes in lukewarm water
Preheat your oven to 170 °C or 340 °F traditional (no fan)
Combine the condensed milk with the yoghurt until smooth
Add the milk and combine
Add the crushed cardamom seeds
Use kitchen paper to dry the raisins
Add the raisins to the mixture
Fill the ramekins with the mixture
Place the ramekins in a baking tray
Add boiling water up to 2/3 of the height of the ramekins
Close the oven door and reduce the temperature to 120 °C or 250 °F
Leave in the oven for 30 – 40 minutes, until set
Test with a needle (it should come out dry)
Remove the ramekins from the baking tray and allow to cool.
Best to refrigerate the ramekins for 4+ hours in the refrigerator before serving
Decorate with pistachio nuts
The Book
Ammu, Indian Home Cooking to Nourish Your Soul by Asma Khan is for sale via the usual channels or your local bookstore for 35,00 US$ or 26,00 EUR. Some of her recipes were published by the BBC, other recipes were published by Great British Chefs and these by the Foodnetwork.
Field Peas (Pisum sativum subsp. Arvense, Austrian winter pea, Kapucijner in Dutch or Blaue Speiseerbse in German) are well known as dried or canned peas. Typical winter-food. The season for fresh Field Peas is relatively short (6 weeks in June and July) so we were happy to buy them earlier this week, for a reasonable price. Last year they were incredibly expensive because of a very poor harvest. Ask your greengrocer for Field Peas and explore another forgotten vegetable. One that has been around for over 7000 years!
Fresh Field Peas are tasty, sometimes a bit dry and should be eaten young. Best is to combine them with rich flavours and butter or oil. We could imagine adding Satureja to a dish with Field Peas. We combined the peas with bacon and served them with Boudin Blanc and mustard.
Wine Pairing
A not too complex red wine will be great with the rich flavours of this dish. We enjoyed a glass of Rioja made by Campo Viejo. The wine is made with tempranillo grapes. It’s an aromatic, fairly bold, dry red wine with pleasant tannins.
What You Need
500 grams of fresh Field Peas
Olive Oil
100 grams of Bacon
Black Pepper
(optional) Boudin Blanc and French mustard
What You Do
Shell the peas
Cook or steam the peas 5 minutes or until al dente
Drain and let cool
Add olive oil to a warm heavy iron skillet
Add peas and bacon to the pan and fry on medium heat for 10 minutes
A few weeks ago we enjoyed Pappardelle al Ragù d’Anatra at restaurant Rigatoni in Haarlem. We loved the combination of pasta and duck so we decided to look into this Italian classic. We found a recipe in La Scienza in Cucina e l’Arte di Mangiar Bene by Pellegrino Artusi, published in 1891. His recipe (number 272) combines a whole duck with celery stalk, parsley, carrot and onion. When everything is nicely cooked, he removes the duck from the pan, passes the sauce through a sieve, removes the duck fat and adds some butter. The duck is served with Pappardelle and Parmesan cheese. The vegetables are served separately.
We decided to use orecchiette and fresh duck leg. Orecchiette is a pasta typical for the very south of Italy whereas Pappardelle al Ragù d’Anatra is typical for Venice. Using orecchiette is probably not-done from an Italian point of view, but we simply love the way it combines with this duck-based sauce.
Wine Pairing
The restaurant served the dish with a glass of Corvina, which we think was an excellent choice. The wine is made in the Veneto region, not far from Venice, with 100% corvina grapes. In general, we suggest a light to medium bodied, unoaked, red wine with aromas of red fruit. Its taste should be pleasant and warm with good acidity. A red wine that should be served slightly chilled.
Heat a skillet and fry both sides of the leg until golden.
Transfer the duck to the oven for one hour, skin on top
After an hour, check if the duck is well done and moist
Let cool
Remove the skin from the meat and the meat from the bones
Very coarsely chop (or pull) the meat.
Set the skin aside
Chop onion, finely chop carrot, thinly slice the celery stalk
Heat a large pan, add olive oil and gently fry onion, carrot and celery.
After 5 minutes add the duck meat and the bay leaf
Add a splash of white wine and allow to evaporate
Add the tomatoes (if using fresh tomatoes, then peeled and deseeded)
Add stock
Cook for 60 minutes
Add more stock if required
In parallel
Cook the orecchiette al dente
Heat a small skillet
Add some olive oil
Slice small squares of the skin of the duck
Fry these until crispy
Add some black pepper and Parmesan cheese to the ragù
Serve the pasta with the sauce and decorate with the crispy duck skin and grated Parmesan cheese
PS
You can skip steps 1 to 6 by using Confit of Duck. We tried it, even though we assumed it would be too salty or its flavour not suitable. But we were wrong, it worked very well.
Some recipes use breast of duck, which we think is too lean for a ragù.
Juicy, sweet ripe pears, frangipane and a crunchy crust, what more can you ask for! This very tasty pear pie is not difficult to make. The only challenge is finding ripe pears. The juicer the better!
Frangipane is a classic from the French pâtisserie and was first mentioned in 1652 by François Pierre (de) La Varenne. His recipe for Tourte de Franchipanne describes a crust made with puff pastry and a filling with what we would call crème pâtissière, enriched with crushed pistachios and almonds. In her book Tarte Tatin, Ginette Mathiot includes a recipe for Strawberry Frangipane. Same approach, but with crushed almonds only.
The current Larousse Gastronomique takes a different approach by beating sugar and butter until creamy (beurre pommade in French), then adding the eggs, one at a time, and the almond flour. No cooking required. Our approach is fairly similar, we combine soft butter, sugar and almond flour and then add the beaten egg.
Obviously, the recipe provided by Varenne is for a rich sauce whereas the second method is about making a paste, which is very suitable for a Pear Pie.
What You Need
For the Crust
50 grams of White Caster Sugar
100 grams of soft Unsalted Butter
½ Egg (beaten)
1 gram of Salt
150 grams of All Purpose Flour
Cold Water (optinal)
For the Frangipane
50 grams of Almond Flour
40 grams of Sugar
40 grams of Unsalted Butter (room temperature)
One Egg
Lemon Zest (optional)
For the Filling
4 Ripe Pears (Williams, Bartlett, Conference)
For the Coating
Apricot Jam
Water
What You Do
Start by making the dough
Combine sugar and butter. Use a hand mixer with kneading hooks
When mixed, add halve of the beaten egg
Combine salt and flour
Pass through a sieve and add to the mixture
(optional) add some baking powder if you want a crispier crust)
Use the kneading hooks to mix
If the dough is too dry, add some cold water
It’s ready when the pastry comes together in a ball that doesn’t stick to the surface
When done, remove from the bowl and wrap in foil. Store in the refrigerator for at least two hours. The dough freezes well, so it’s a great idea to make a bit extra
Now make the frangipane
Combine almond flour, sugar and butter. Beat until fluffy
Add the beaten egg
Mix
(optional) Add lemon zest
Transfer to the refrigerator
Preheat the oven to 180 °C or 355 °F
Roll out the dough on a lightly floured surface and use it to line a 16 cm (6 in) tin. Best is 2 millimetres
Transfer to the refrigerator and leave for 30 minutes
Prick the pastry with a fork, to prevent air bubbles forming during baking
Add the frangipane to the pastry case and spread evenly
Peel and slice the pears, add on top of the frangipane
Transfer to the oven for 30 – 40 minutes or until golden
Use a fork to combine apricot jam and water, ratio 4:1
Warm the apricot mixture
When the pie is still warm, coat with the apricot mixture
PS
We made the crust with pâte sucrée, or sweet shortcrust pastry. The result is a flaky, crumbly crust. You could also use (ready-made) puff pastry or pate sablée. Adding a few grams of baking powder is an option when you want a lighter, crispier crust.
When we first saw a recipe for frangipane with pistachios, we wondered if that would be a good idea. Now that we have read the 1652 recipe, we will definitely give it a try.
The Johannes van Dam Prize 2024 was won by Indian British chef, cookbook author and restaurant owner Asma Khan. In 2012 her restaurant started for 12 guests at her home, serving food cooked from traditional family recipes. Today her all-female Darjeeling Express restaurant in London offers Indian Rajput and Bengalihome cooking specialties. On her current menu are dishes such as Chicken Momis (dumplings served with smoked chillies sesame chutney) and Badami Baingan (aubergine with coconut, peanut and tamarind). Sounds delicious!
Prize
The Johannes van Dam Prize is a lifetime achievement award for an individual who has made an exceptional contribution to the world of gastronomy. Previous winners of the prestigious prize include Yotam Ottolenghi, Carlo Petrini, Alice Waters, Claudia Roden, Jeroen Meus and Alain Passard. The prize giving ceremony used to be part of the Amsterdam Symposium on the History of Food, but for reasons unknown to us it was decided to separate the two events. As a result, the prize giving event in 2024 with Asma Khan was relatively small and went by hardly noticed. A pity.
Cookbook
We bought her cookbook Ammu, Indian Home Cooking to Nourish Your Soul. ‘An entrancing book’, according to Nigella Lawson. We were impressed by the great stories and of course the recipes. Over the coming weeks we will prepare some of the dishes and ask our review panel to taste the flavours of Asma Khan’s kitchen.
Join us!
Please join us in preparing one (or more) of her dishes. You could buy the book, look at her recipes as published by the BBC or these recipes published by Great British Chefs or these from the Foodnetwork. Post about it on your blog and ping back, track back, share or re-post.
Let’s enjoying Indian Home Cooking to Nourish Your Soul!
Over the years we posted a range of recipes with asparagus, such as classic asparagus with ham and eggs, Mediterranean grilled asparagus with Parmesan cheese or Asian asparagus with miso. During one of the first warm evenings of this year we prepared a very tasty, simple salad with green asparagus, basil and black olives. A very limited list of ingredients, but there is no need to add anything else. The olives bring umami, the asparagus sweetness and bitterness, the basil is aromatic, sweet and a touch peppery. A very uplifting combination.
Wine Pairing
Best to enjoy with a nice glass of Rosé: dry, crisp, floral and flavourful. For instance Monte del FràBardolino Chiaretto. It’s a wine with delicate scents of berries accompanied by light and refreshing hints of green apples and subtle spicy tones. On the palate the wine reveals juicy sensations of red berries along with an appealing and refreshing acidity.
What You Need
Green Asparagus
Black Olives
Basil
Black Pepper
Olive Oil
What You Do
Wash the asparagus and dry
Remove the bottom of the asparagus. Be generous, you don’t want to serve a chewy salad
Heat a heavy iron pan, add olive oil
Slice the asparagus and transfer to the pan. Don’t add the tips
Stir.
After 5 minutes add the tips
After another 5 minutes the asparagus will be ready. Taste and leave on medium heat if you feel they need more time
Let cool
Halve the olives
Combine the asparagus with olives, basil and black pepper
Zucchini, or courgette, is a favourite summer vegetable. Just think about sliced Trombetta’s, or Stuffed Flowers, or a combination with Farfalle and Fennel. Recently we bought beautiful round zucchinis, ideal to stuff and serve as a side dish. We’ve made these many times, with herbs like rosemary, thyme, oregano and Parmesan cheese. Tasty and not difficult to make. However, we think there’s room for improvement. How would it taste if we would use a richer, fatter, more aromatic cheese? We looked in the fridge. Perhaps Appenzeller? Or a traditional Dutch cheese? We decided to use Tallegio, a semi-soft cheese from Italy made from raw cow milk, with a mild taste. It melts easily, which makes it very suitable for this dish and for instance crostini.
Wine Pairing
The zucchini will be a great accompaniment with grilled lamb or chicken. You could also combine the zucchini with pasta or rice, making for a vegetarian meal. We decided to drink a glass of red wine from the Douro region, produced by Quinta do Crasto. The wine is made from traditional Douro red grape varieties: tinta roriz, touriga nacional, tinta barroca and touriga franca. The wine is fresh, fruity and very pleasant. Its colour is deep ruby and the wine has aromas of ripe red fruit. In general, we suggest a red wine with flavours and aromas of red fruit and with light tannins.
What You Need
2 round Zucchinis
One Garlic Clove
Thyme
Black Pepper
Taleggio
Olive Oil
What You Do
Remove the top of the zucchinis
Preheat your oven to 180 °C or 355 °F
Use a teaspoon to remove the inside of the zucchini, also of the cap. Be careful not to damage the skin of the zucchini
Use a knife to chop the ‘meat’
Add olive oil to a pan
When warm, add the meat and fry/glaze for a few minutes
Finely chop the garlic and add to the pan
Finely chop the thyme
Add thyme and black pepper. Mix and leave on low/medium heat for a few minutes
Let cool
Fill the bottom half of the zucchini with the mixture
Add a slice of taleggio
Fill the zucchini with the mixture
Add a second slice of taleggio on top
Transfer the stuffed zucchinis and the tops to the oven and fry for 15 minutes or until golden
Serve with the top on the zucchini
PS
The winemaker, Quinta Do Crasto, provides excellent background information. Interesting to read about the weather, the harvest, the production and the timing.
Earlier we wrote about Tarte au Citron, or Lemon Pie. This is a recipe for a Tartelette au Citron, a small but very different pie. The filling is lemon curd, which you add to the pastry case just before serving. You can easily make both components a day ahead. The crunchy, slightly sweet pastry case and the soft, rich, tart filling go together very well. You could decorate the tartelette with meringue or chocolate sprinkles, but we prefer them as they are. Great with a strong cup of coffee.
What You Need
Pâte Sucrée
50 grams of Unsalted Butter
40 grams of Caster Sugar
125 grams of All Purpose Flour
1 gram of Salt
1 Organic Egg
Water (optional)
Curd
65 ml of Lemon Juice
65 grams of Unsalted Butter
80 grams of Fine Sugar
One Organic Egg
What You Do (Curd)
Beat the egg
Melt the butter
Combine all ingredients.
Cook Au Bain Marie until you have the right consistency.
Or transfer to your microwave, put it on 50% or 70% power (depending on your microwave) and heat with intervals of 20-30 seconds. Mix between the intervals. This is a very precise way of heating the mixture and it gives you full control over the process. Towards the end of the process, you may want to reduce the power or shorten the intervals. The percentage and the duration of the intervals depend on your microwave and the bowl you use.
Set aside and allow to cool.
Transfer the curd to the refrigerator. It will keep for a few days.
What You Do (Pastry Case)
Combine sugar, flour and salt.
Dice butter, add to the mixture and combine. Use a hand mixer with kneading hooks.
Beat the egg and add.
Use your hands to make the dough. It should not be sticky, so it must be easy to make a ball. If too dry, add just a bit of water. If too wet, add some flour.
When done, remove from the bowl and wrap in kitchen foil. Store in the refrigerator for at least two hours. It can be stored for a few days.
Flour your work surface and roll out the pastry to a circle a larger than the top of the tartelette forms. We used 8 cm or 3 inch (quiche-) forms. The dough should be approximately 2 or 3 mm (0.1 inch) thick.
Coat the forms with butter.
Line the forms with the pastry. Press the pastry well into the sides and bottom. Use a knife to remove the excess dough.
Cover and let rest for 30 minutes in the refrigerator.
Preheat the oven to 190 °C or 375 °F.
Use a fork to prick small holes in the pastry.
Line the forms with greaseproof paper or aluminum foil, add baking beans and bake blind for 10 minutes.
Remove the paper and the baking beans.
Reduce the oven temperature to 160 °C or 320 °F.
Transfer back to the oven for 5 minutes or until golden
Transfer to a wire rack and let cool.
When the pastry cases are completely cool, add the curd and serve
When you visit a French butcher or supermarket, you are bound to find paupiettes. In general, it is a thin slice of meat, stuffed, rolled up and tied. Lots of possibilities: the outside could be veal, beef, pork, chicken, lamb or even fish. The inside could be meat, or a mixture of meat and vegetables, or a duxelles or well, you get the idea. In the Provence you will find so called Alouettes sans Tête (meaning larks without a head). A thin slice of beef is stuffed with bacon, parsley and garlic. The alouettes are quickly fried until golden and then cooked in a sauce with onions, wine and various herbs. In the Netherlands and Belgium a paupiette is called Blinde Vink (meaning blind finch). This is a thin slice of pork or veal, stuffed with minced (pork) meat.
Preparing paupiettes is not obvious. Many recipes suggest cooking the paupiette in a sauce, but that’s not what we recommend. The paupiettes will be a bit dry and bland. Others suggest transferring the paupiettes to a hot oven, with an even more disappointing result. We think the best way is to quickly fry the paupiettes until golden and then transfer to the oven and braise with some liquid on low temperature.
We asked our favourite butcher to make paupiette de veau (sometimes called melon de veau). A thin layer of veal stuffed with a mixture of minced veal and pork meat, with a generous amount of chopped sage and a hint of salt. It is decorated with two leaves of sage.
Wine Pairing
We enjoyed the dish with a glass of Portuguese red wine, produced by Vidigal. The wine is made with aragonez, castelão and cabernet grapes. The wine has a nice red colour and aromas of fruit and herbs. Its taste is light, with some tannins and a touch of oak. In general, you’re looking for a smooth, easy to drink red wine with character.
What You Need
2 Paupiettes de Veau
1 small Carrot
1 Celery stalk
1 Leek
Veal Stock
Dried Oregano
Olive Oil
Butter
Black Pepper
What You Do
Pre-heat your oven to 120 °C or 250 °F
Thinly slice carrot, celery stalk and leek.
Heat a heavy iron skillet, add butter and olive oil
Quickly fry the paupiette, top and bottom only
Transfer paupiettes to a plate
Reduce heat
Add carrot, leek and celery
After a few minutes deglaze with veal stock
Add oregano
Transfer the paupiettes back to the skillet
Transfer the skillet to the oven
Leave until the internal temperature is 68 °C or 155 °F
Remove the paupiettes from the skillet and allow to rest for 5 – 10 minutes (depending on the size). You could wrap them in aluminium foil
Put the skillet back on the cooktop or hob
Reduce the sauce, taste, adjust, add black pepper
Serve on a hot plate with potato puree combined with wild garlic, watercress or rapini
Cook and Drink 