I went sort of nuts today. I don’t know why. I had to come up with what we were going to have for dinner tonight and I decided on rice and mushrooms cooked in chicken broth first. Then I decided to use half the bunch of broccoli I got in the CSA box, and finally I decided I would step out of my comfort range and make pork for dinner. I’m fairly comfortable cooking chicken and fish, but I generally leave the meats to Darin. But no more! I am cook; hear me roar.
Then I really stepped outside the box and decided to make a dessert too.
I read On Rue Tatin by Susan Herrman Loomis a while ago. I went nuts reading Ex-Pat Literature—not from any particular desire to move to another country (I’d rather try to straighten this one out first) but because it’s so much fun to move to another country vicariously, and let someone else go through the pain of finding the place to live and refurbishing it and what not.
Loomis’s book is about how she went to cooking school in France and ended up living in Louviers, in a house her husband refurbished for them. Being a food writer of some renown, of course she includes the recipes for several tasty dishes throughout On Rue Tatin, and one in particular caught my eye: Pear and Honey Clafoutis.
Why it caught my eye when a)I generally don’t eat fruit desserts, preferring to stuff my ever-growing cheeks with chocolate and b)I’ve never had a clafoutis, I have no idea.
But we had some rapidly ripening Comice pears and, well…what the hell.
Pear and Honey Clafoutis
From On Rue Tatin by Susan Herrmann Loomis
4 to 6 servings.
3 large pears/1.5 pounds/750g, peeled, cored, and cut in sixths
1/3 cup/75ml mild but perfumed liquid honey, such as lavender
4 large eggs
3/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons/115g flour
1/4 cup plus 1 tablespoon/50g sugar
Pinch of fine sea salt
1 cup/250ml milk
4 tablespoons/60g unsalted butter, melted and cooled
1. Preheat the oven to 400F/200C/gas 6. Butter and flour an 11-inch/27.5cm round baking dish
2. Arrange the pears in an attractive pattern in the baking dish. Drizzle them evenly with the honey.
3. Separate 3 of the eggs. In a large bowl mix the flour, all but 2 tablespoons (30g) of the sugar, and the salt. Make a well in the center and add the milk, 3 egg yolks, and 1 whole egg. Reserve the egg whites. Whisk together the ingredients in the well, then gradually whisk in the dry ingredients to make a smooth batter. Quickly but thoroughly whisk in the melted butter.
4. In another bowl, whisk the egg whites with a small pinch of salt until they are foamy. Add 1 tablespoon of sugar and contine whisking until soft peaks form. Fold the egg whites into the batter, then pour the batter over the pears. Bake in the center of the oven until the clafoutis is puffed and golden, about 30 minutes. Remove from the oven and place on a wire rack to cool.
5. To make the caramel, heat the remaining 1 tablespoon of sugar with 1 teaspoon of water in a small, heavy saucepan over medium heat, shaking the pan occasionally to evenly distribute the sugar, until the mixture turns a deep golden brown, 3 to 5 minutes. Don’t stir the sugar, which might encourage it to crystallize, just rotate the pan so the sugar and water carmelize evenly. When the sugar has caramelized, drizzle it over the top of the clafoutis. Wait about 5 minutes so the caramel hardens, then serve.
Okay, I have no idea how I did on the scale of Passable Clafoutis to Clafoutis Master, because, as I said before, I’ve never had a piece of clafoutis, nor have I ever seen one. I assume my preparation was not perfect: she mentions drizzling the honey over the pears, whereas for some reason with that amount of honey I poured it on thick and heavy all over the place; I never did get the egg whites to form soft peaks but I folded them in anyhow (guess I gotta get a copper bowl, eh?); and if I had to do it again I’d double the amount of caramel that I’d make up, because what you get from this mixture is a few droplets from the top of the dish, and I’d prefer more caramel.
That said, what I made was pretty goshdarn tasty, if a little too heavy on the honey for me. (Yes, I know what the name of the dish is. Stifle it.) Darin had two helpings. Cooked pear? Delicious. Yum.
The kids, of course, didn’t eat it. But I’m used to that by now. And, hey: more for me.
Update: Here is a picture of the 12-hour-old, refrigerated clafoutis:
I clearly have my work cut out for me in learning to take pictures of food. There are no green bits in the clafoutis, okay? Baaaaad lighting. I need stronger lighting if I’m going to take a picture of something.
I then cut a piece to see if I could take a picture of just one piece (not in focus, I couldn’t) and to eat. then Simon woke up from his nap, came downstairs, and checked out the piece serving as my model. “Eat that?” he asked. Whereupon he ate the unsuspecting piece of clafoutis. So, the pic of the baking tin is all you get.
Diane – I enjoy reading about your cooking experiences in the same way you like ex-pat books – I don’t find it inspiring, just fascinating – “Look what this country I will never live in is like!” Hee.
Anyway, if you haven’t read it already, try Almost French. I thoroughly enjoyed it.
(I’m enjoying the more frequent entries as well.)
Hi Diane-The clafoutis looks yummy, I’ll have to try the recipe one of these days. I’ve been meaning to read On Rue Tatin, from the way you describe it, it sounds like it might be something I’ll enjoy. I’m sure you already know this but, for the egg whites; I have learned that it is best to seperate eggs when they are cold but it is better to whip whites when they are room temperature. I’ve also learned that if there is even the tiniest speck of yolk, the whites won’t whip properly. I’ve never used a copper bowl although I’m sure it might help. I’m also a sicko and like to beat my egg whites by hand, but when I do use a mixer, I use a slow speed to get to the soft peak stage, I find that the slow speed makes it easier for me to tell when the whites have reached the soft peak stage and keeps me from over beating. Anyway, just my 2 cents, hope it helped.
Cheers!
Thanks Deb! Part of the problems I had with this recipe — I didn’t prepare enough ahead, which is silly, but pretty much it was separate the eggs, whip those whites, get that puppy into the oven! (Note: “puppy” is used metaphorically here.) Next time, I will take the time to do a proper job and try to get the egg whites to room temperature.
The other problem was, having never beaten egg whites before, was I didn’t know how long it was supposed to take! So I might have just given up too early. Using a heand mixer sounds like a good idea.
Do you know how much a copper bowl is? Yikes! I do drool after a copper bowl, but a clean, glass bowl and a hand mixer work just as well. Deb is right; just a speck of yolk will make the whites harder to whip stiff. It helps to know that it can take several minutes to get the whites to the correct level of “peakiness”. I have a KitchenAid stand mixer and just plop the whites in and turn it on! Your clafoutis looks yummy! I’ll have to give this a try!
Actually, I don’t know how much a copper bowl is. I doubt I’d get one unless I were baking/cooking so much that frothing egg whites was an integral part of my daily existence — no single-use kitchen items! I guess if go cooking-nuts I might get one…
I love when a recipe makes me laugh, like this phrase: “mild but perfumed liquid honey, such as lavender.”
Does Costco honey in a jug count?
I don’t own any copper bowls, but whenever I’m going to have to whip some egg whites, I stick one of my old Farberware stainless bowls into the freezer to chill it for a few hours before doing the whipping in it. It’s either a helpful method or superstition. I usually end up whipping for a good 4 minutes on slow handmixer speed, which is a lot longer than it sounds.