Hi my loyal readers!
I’ve been away for sometime, mostly because I’ve been writing for another blog on examiner.com. http://www.examiner.com/x-10896-Manhattan-Healthy-Food-Examiner Inspired by the movie Julie and Julia I wanted to revive this blog and have something out in cyberspace that was purely my own. I’m cross posting my reaction to the movie and one of my favorite torte recipes.
Every day is a food experiment for me and I always test my recipes for changes in my energy and passion levels! In this post is an original recipe altered and changed many times from a recipe I learned while at the Institute for Culinary education. Like Julia I never finished cooking school, but I learned many wonderful things and have developed my own unique style. Julia has always been a great inspiration to me – from about the age of 11 when I watched Julia on PBS with my Aunt Ida and tried to make chicken breasts in butter and cream sauce on my own. How my mother let me do such things I will never know. By age 12 I was stir frying shrimp and by high school I was coming home for lunch with my friends and preparing “gourmet” meals for them. It all started with Julia.
Now of course, my interests have shifted toward the health value of food. But I will never sacrifice taste for health value. I believe they can be linked! Healthy food is always thought of as boring, plain and lacking butter. Perhaps, but what if it was just small amounts of truly delicious food with natural sugars and enough butter to fill you up. The truly two bite dessert. Jeff Goldblum apparently orders desserts, savors one truly decadent bite and sends it back. Not all of us have this kind of self control, but I was inspired enough by Julia Child to write this post. But first, I want to talk about the inspiration.
I am not a woman who cries often. Since Saturday night I have cried twice…from movies no less. The first: the time traveler’s wife. A story of love that overcame the test of time…literally and tonight from Julie and Julia, a story of love, sex, food and writing…and of course, success, money and everything else! But first came, the love, the sex…and of course the food…and the writing! Two stories that are ever so vivid, real, whole and round. Stories that rip through you to the very core and remind you why we live. Ah, to think, the power of a boeuf bourgonuine to transform the senses and the miracle of tricking your own husband who had just gotten a vasectomy into getting you pregnant by cheating with a younger version of your time traveling husband before he got the procedure done.
I am dreaming of cassoulet, duck steak and tarte tatin. The first time I had duck steak, which is some part of the duck (I’m going to go with the breast) without a drop of fat on it – just the meat – its simply seared and its nearly raw inside – but its so delicious I can’t even explain it! When I was at the Institute for Culinary education and also again at Tocqueville I concentrated on pastry, which was so strange considering I am by all means a food chef. I did excel at pastry and I do enjoy making desserts. I’ve made a few tarte tatins in my lifetime and even bought a special pot to make it in because you need to be able to make the apples on the stove, cover it with the pastry and then pop the thing in the oven. You need a pan that has an oven safe handle, which is hard to find these days. An ex-boyfriend once made eggs in the pan without using butter and to this day despite several cleanings and soakings there are still scrapes of egg in the pan. The pan lasted longer than that relationship! Damn though, I was very much in love with the pan. Will have to butter it up but good the next time I want to make a tart.
But the piece de resistance in my culinary abilities and one of my all time favorite desserts is a dark chocolate torte I learned to make in a French cooking class at ICE. The cake is made with grand Marnier and two sticks of butter. Julia would be proud. Somewhere I have the original recipe, but I’ve altered it over the years to make it completely my own.
Ingredients:
10 ounces of the darkest chocolate I can find (my favorite is Valhrona 85%)
4 eggs
2 tablespoons grand mariner
1/3 cup of agave nectar
Waxed parchment paper
8 inch round cake pan
Cut a round in parchment to line bottom and sides of cake pan. Set aside with a weight. Preheat oven to 350.
Whisk eggs together with grand mariner in a large bowl. Don’t beat, just whisk them with the liquer until it is combined and the eggs turn yellow. Chop chocolate into chunks on an angle with a chef’s knife. Gently melt it in a double boiler with a little bit of agave nectar (maybe 1/3 of a cup). When the chocolate has just melted, remove from heat and stir to make creamy. Add two sticks of butter. Cover and let the butter melt completely. When melted, remove cover and stir. While whisking, add the chocolate mixture in a stream (almost like you’d add oil to egg yolks to make mayonnaise) to the egg mixture and continue whisking lightly just until all the chocolate combines.
Remove weight from pan and pour in batter. Place cake pan in a larger pan filled with two inches of water so cake pan floats in other pan (bain maire).
Cook 40 minutes until top has set. Cool for 10 min or so and pop in refrigerator at least 12 hours. This piece is crucial!!! The next day, turn cake over onto a plate and unmold by removing parchment. Decorate cake with either powdered sugar or my favorite – sifted raw cacao powder (not Dutch processed cocoa, please!) and raspberries. Serve slices with real whipped cream that has not been ultra pasteurized (just regular pasteurized is fine, it whips better, usually comes in a glass bottle) if you can find it.
