The Sisters Tatin and Their Famous Apple Tart

When my invite to join Anita's Simply Irresistible party at Castles Crowns and Cottages I was happy as could be and set to putting together a piece on regional French delights.  I visited my favorite writers and cookbook authors Madeline Kamman and MFK Fisher for inspiration.  Although wonderful things bubbled up, all of the dishes I liked were fall and winter stews or simple salads.  As work overwhelmed me this week I wailed and rent my garments that I would never find the perfect thing but somewhere in my fevered brain,  two currents kept surfacing –– Tarte Tatin and the book,  Auberge of the Flowering Hearth ––  Baron Roy Andries de Groot's magnificent classic about following the seasons at an inn in the alpine valley of La Grande Chartreuse with 2 ladies making magic with local ingredients and a wood-burning stove.

I loved the book and it provided one of my first introductions to the Tarte Tatin.  The ladies of the inn included it in a menu for "A Provincial Lunch" that included tapenade and crudites, Hochepot de Poule (chicken in a creamed wine), cheeses and Tarte aux Pommes des Belles Demoiselles Tatin. 

Hotel Tatin, La Motte-Beuvron

The story behind the tart as de Groot told it involved an accident that began in a covered pan in the embers of an open hearth. The pan is called a four de campagne (a kind of dutch oven) I discovered, thanks to the research done by Henri Delétang who has written an entire book on the subject (La Tarte Tatin – Histoire et Légendes") and the website Tarte Tatin that I used for much of the intertesting tidbits on my favorite tart.

Henri Delétang, La Tarte Tatin

de Groot's version of the invention of the tarte involved the Tatin sisters in what was then a small Hôtel de la Croix Blanche in the Sologne district of central France (could it be the Hotel Tatin was originally called this – the only one I could find was at Mont Blanc).  

"The story is that one day the younger sister was carrying an apple tart into the dining room when it slipped off the platter and fell on the floor upside down. She managed to scoop it up, but couldn't turn it over,  because the crust had cracked.  So she rushed it back to the kitchen and glazed it with caramel to hide the crack.  It was such a a success with the customers that it has become one of the classic recipes of  France."

Wikipedia posits that it was a forgotten pan of sauteéd apples that led to the dish.  

From Tarte Tatin site

The site Tarte Tatin had the notes from a good friend of the sisters named Marie Souchon that involved a covered copper four de campagne topped with embers.  Within were layers of apples and sugar and butter that were topped with pastry -–– nothing else (no cinnamon, vanilla or calvados).  Unlike all of my favorite recipes, the apples are not cooked first.  I tried this method once and was not pleased.  The apples didn't caramelize at all rather they stewed –– blech.  This technique may work with embers but not in a modern oven or perhaps that pre-cooking instruction was left off.  

Fairy-book Chateau de Tracy

Apparently, Souchon said the recipe was passed along to the sisters by Count Chateuvillard's cook at Chateau de Tracy.  Other suggestions as to its beginnings find Caréme had an upside-down cake in the 1840s (glazed gâteaux renversées) and the Solonge area  had something similar called tarte solognotte (it is thought the Tart Tatin was invented toward the end of the 19th century).  Since the sisters never wrote down their inspiration or recipe, no one will ever know for sure.  Frankly, I was slightly stunned when I saw how much had been written trying to figure this out and enormous energy spent ferreting out the most original recipe –– but only slightly.  

This is a truly great dessert. Over one summer holiday weekend I made 3 of them (one of my best friends ate nearly a full one right out of the oven –– his joy was so infectious I wasn't angry and made another, then another).  Although one author felt leaving the apples unpeeled would add body to the dish, I didn't like the idea of any strings of texture since one of the things I like most about the dish is the melting texture of those apples.  The other thing I do is leave it in the pan.  I don't tip it over very often –– only when I know the whole thing will be eaten in one sitting.  That way the crust stays beautifully crisp. A quick reheat in the oven the next day makes it perfect (I also don't refrigerate it but leave it on the counter topped with a big wire colander).

I use the Julia Child recipe for Tart Tatin as a base but have made a few changes over the years.  I love the rustic quality of whole wheat in the tart crust.  Julia goes the opposite direction and actually adds pastry flour instead with the AP flour.  I always make it in an old 9" cast iron skillet.

Tarte Tatin

5-6 apples (Granny Smith), peeled and cored sliced into about 8 slices each

rind and juice of one lemon

½ c sugar

1 c sugar

6 T butter

½ t cinnamon

1 T cognac

whipped cream or ice cream and/or sliced almonds are good for accompaniments

Steep the apples in the lemon and sugar for about 20 minutes. Drain

Preheat oven to 425º

Heat the sugar and butter till brown and medium caramel colored in a heavy, cast iron skillet.  Remove from stove and place the drained apple in the caramel.  Cook at medium high heat for about 10 minutes, basting with the juices.  Then cover and cook another 10 minutes. Remove from the heat and do another ladle of caramel over the top while you roll the pastry out.  Place the crust on top, tucking in the sides. Put slits in the pastry to let the steam out.

Cook 20 -30 minutes or until the crust is golden brown.   You can serve it hot (wait about an hour) or serve it room temperature with whipped cream, ice cream and sliced almonds if you would like. You can serve it flipped or non-flipped as you wish.

Crust

¾ c flour

1/3 c whole-wheat flour

½ t salt

1 T sugar

1 stick frozen butter, cut into small pieces

2 T frozen lard, cut into small pieces

¼ c cold water

1/4 c flour for smearing

Add the dry ingredients and pulse to blend.  Add the butter and lard and pulse a few times till it is still full of little chunks but not as fine as cornmeal.  At this point I remove the blade and add the water by hand, stirring with a fork. Grab clumps and set them on a piece of wax paper.   If the last bits aren't holding together, add a bit more water.

Take each clump, smear them on a well-floured portion of the work surface and pile them up.  This makes the flakes. When done, form into a round and let chill for an hour.

Roll into a circle.

Please visit Castles Crowns and Cottages to look at all the simply irresistible blogs that are honoring the best of France –– you will love them.  They are about food, decorating and, well,  life!

Pirates, Jamaica and the Best Jerk Chicken Salad Ever

Errol Flynn as my favorite Pirate of the Caribbean, Captain Blood

Memorial Day will soon fling open the gates to a new summer and turn my thoughts to Jerk Chicken Salad –– Jerk Chicken Salad means Memorial Day for me.

I wrote about my Memorial Day visits to Vermont (HERE) and the food-fest of grilling and eating that goes on there for days and days. The grilled salmon, duck breast and pork take center stage for dinner but part of the schedule of the massive grill is always reserved for the making of jerk chicken for my friend Kath’s Jerk Chicken Salad.

It’s a recipe from an old 90’s cookbook that I don’t recall the name of but whoever conceived of its extravagant flavors deserves a medal.  It is a great recipe with banana ketchup and heat –– lots of heat via the melting pot of world spices that is Jamaica.

I always think of pirates when I think of Jamaica. Even after the Pirate mecca Port Royale was destroyed by an earthquake in 1692, Jamaica had a notorious reputation as a pirate haven. Why do we love pirates and their hangouts? When I read the following descriptions of Jamaica from the golden age of Pirates (the 17th and early 18th centuries) I can see why –– the wicked, wicked ways (that have been rather sanitized in film portrayals) of deliciously bad boys are irresistible.

Johnny Depp as Jack Sparrow

Ned Ward’s 1697 account of Jamaica (quoted in a great article on Jamaican food by British Food in America) said it was the “Dunghill of the Universe, the Receptacle of Vagabonds, the Sanctuary of Bankrupts, the close-stool for the purges of our prisons, as hot as hell, and as wicked as the Devil.”  It was called The Sodom of the Indies and its pleasures included drinking, wenching, gambling and fencing stolen goods –– a perfect location for Johnny Depp’s Jack Sparrow or Errol Flynn’s Captain Blood –– and hot and spicy Jerked pork and chicken.

 

The food of the island was a mix of the cuisines of Britain, Africa, India and China that met thanks to Jamaica’s ports and the trading of its sugar, coffee, chocolate and other valuable commodities the rich land provided.  Jamaica had a lot to trade with and the hard living inhabitants came to love spicy, grilled food. The fact that the hot humid climate made meat go off in the blink of an eye may have had something to do with the fashion for spicy smoking as well.  I had a bottle of hot sauce that I got on a visit to the islands that remained good for years –– nothing can grow in that many Scoville Units to make it go off. The appetite for jerk remained long after the pirates moved on.  

Dave DeWitt of Fiery Foods quoted a Hans Sloane, 1707:  “[Wild hogs were] “cut open, the bones taken out, and the flesh is gash'd on the inside into the skin, fill'd with salt and expos'd to the sun, which is call'd jirking... [This meat was] brought home to their masters by the hunters, and eats much as bacon, if broil'd on coals.”  

 

DeWitt also posited "The technique of jerking was originated by the Maroons, Jamaican slaves who escaped from the British during the invasion of 1655 and hid in the maze of jungles and limestone sinkholes known as the Cockpit Country. The Maroons seasoned the pork and cooked it until it was dry and would preserve well in the humidity of the tropics. During the twentieth century, the technique gained enormous popularity in Jamaica and today "jerk pork shacks" are commonly found all over Jamaica. The method has evolved, however, and the pork is no longer overcooked." 

There is a theory that the Maroon technique of pit cooking was a way to keep telltale smoke to a minimum and evade capture –– the delicious smokiness was a lucky by-product.  Some feel the earlier inhabitants of the island, the Carib and Arawak Indians were the ones who started using spice and citrus to preserve meat in the hot climate and the Maroons merely borrowed the recipe and innovated the cooking technique.

One of the secrets of true Jamaican jerk is pimento wood.  Don’t worry, if that got you confused you are not alone.  It has nothing to do with little scraggly green pepper plants.  No, it’s actually the greenwood of the allspice tree (although orange and guava wood or laurel wood is also smoked).  It seems you can buy it in the US and Canada if you want to do it properly but a pimento wood expert said fruitwood (like apple) would be a good alternative if not authentic.  Also, the time tested jerk technique involves thick sticks of green wood that are set between the meat and the grill so that the pimento wood touches the meat and both smokes and flavors it over the long cooking time.  Pimento leaves are also added to the smoke mixture.

Recipes for Jerk are as varied as those of spaghetti sauce and have evolved over time.  It seems originally it was salt and a lot of pepper but the mix is now more complex including Scotch bonnet peppers and even rum –– I add rum to my jerk recipe and love it. Although the jerk recipe is blazing hot, grilling cools it down considerably.  Don't be afraid!  Do take care when working with scotch bonnets as they can burn your eyes and nose if you touch them –– do wash your hands well after making this.

If you don’t have access to a grill you can make this in the oven but it won’t be as great –– the smoke is key to its greatness –– do use any fruitwood chips or sticks soaked in water when you make this even on a gas grill.  I think it is the perfect dish to bring to a holiday event, and was the first thing that came to mind when Creative Cooking Crew challenge was announced as a picnic potluck.  I’m crazy about it and think you will be too.

Oh, I thought for the grilling season I'd share a favorite thing with you.  A zillion years ago, a friend brought a brilliant housewarming present for a weekend.  It was a stack of melamine plates that looked like Provençal pottery but were unbreakable.  In the many years I have used them, I've gotten so many compliments and requests,  "Where did you get them?" Mine came from a place in the Hamptons but I looked up a resource for them for you –– you can get them HERE or HERE.  Since they are light and unbreakable, they go easily from kitchen to picnic table and last forever –– taking a dozen to the picnic table won't require a trip to the back doctor!

Jamaican Jerk Chicken with Banana Guava Ketchup serves 6-8

1 recipe for jerked chicken cooled, bones removed and chicken chopped roughly –– skin included.

1 recipe banana ketchup (you may want to use  ¾ of it depending on how sweet you like it and reserve the rest, taste and decide)

1 large red onion, chopped

½ c mayonnaise

1 c chopped parsley
additional salt to taste

You should have around 7 cups of chicken.  Add red onion, ketchup, parsley and mayo and toss for Kathy’s best jerk chicken salad.

Serve with salad greens –– I like the bitter ones with this like radicchio, arugula, friseé and endive.

Jerk Chicken

½ c Inner Beauty hot sauce or 10 scotch bonnet chilis

2 T  Fresh rosemary

2 T  Fresh parsley

2T Fresh basil

2T Fresh thyme
½ to 1 t allspice

2 T mustard seeds

3 scallions finely chopped

1 t salt

1 t pepper

juice of 2 limes

¼ c yellow hot dog mustard

2 T orange juice

2 T white wine vinegar

2 T rum

6 chicken thighs with legs

Combine ingredients and put in a blender or processor to have the texture of tomato sauce. If it’s too thick, thin with vinegar.  Let paste sit for 2 hours.  Rub on thighs and grill over low heat to get as much smoke as possible–– I'd say 1/2 an hour at least.  I added more wood chips mid-way to get maximum smoke.

Banana Ketchup (freezes well)

1 yellow onion

2 T oil

5 ripe bananas

4 oz (1/2 c guava paste)

2 T brown sugar

2 1/2 T raisins

1 T curry powder

½ c fresh orange juice

2 T white vinegar

2 T lime

s & pepper

Sauté onion in oil 5-7 minutes.  Add banana and cook 5 minutes.  Add guava paste and the rest of the ingredients save 1 T vinegar and 1 T lime juice and boil. Then simmer 15 minutes till the consistency of applesauce.  Add remaining 1T of vinegar, lime juice and s & p.


Come by HERE this week to see the great sandwiches the crew has come up with

William Burges, Victorian Gothic, Jimmy Page and Sauce Romaine

The office in William Burges's chambers, 15 Buckingham Street, London 1876

Some of my best trips have been detours. This is a well-known joke amongst my friends because, as I often say, I could get lost inside a paper bag with a map. Although my life has changed enormously with the advent of Google maps, my detour-prone brain has not.  I still have a hard time following a line –– I am often distracted by shiny objects as I research a given topic.

Vita Nova Washstand

One such detour occurred as I was putting together the piece on the designer Edwin Lutyens a few weeks ago (that I wrote about HERE ). I chanced to find a photo of the Vita Nova washstand designed by one William Burges –– a man whose work I admired during the velvet-and-lace-jabot period of my youth but had lost touch with as time passed. The washstand was great fun with its topside-reservoir providing running water to fill the basin and to wash hands (you can see a video about how it works HERE –– it's very cool).

Even the marble washbowl has a shimmering charm–– the silver inlaid fish appear to swim when the sink is full of water –––

Silver butterflies light on the handles that one grasps to empty the water into the cunning hidden receptacle beneath.

I know many people think Victorian Gothic is dark and dreary. I have always had just the opposite reaction to the style. Admittedly, my grandparents had a big old barn with a bit of the Gothic to it and I loved its nooks and crannies –– fondness for it was bred in my youthful bones and I have long thought the style was a reflection of the ambitious, onward-and-upward of the age (I wrote about the American take on Gothic HERE).

Victorian Gothic was a dizzy mix of showing off and wanting to have an anchor in the past as the industrial age was taking off and that past was disappearing –– new money wanted to look like old money. If you hadn't inherited a castle you could make your own.  It was a very man-made style with a lot of craftsmanship involved in carving the swooping arches (that always remind me of forest canopies), trefoils and gargoyles ­­– craftsmanship and color –– jewel-like and super saturated like my favorite illustrations for fairytales. I love saturated colors and so did Burges who saw no reason “why we should not have buildings in smoky London glowing with imperishable color.”

Jimmy Page with Burges author Matthew Williams

This little trek down memory lane may have ended with a visit to Wikipedia and a bit of disappointment that there was so little written about Burges but no, another thing caught my eye and drove me back to do some further digging on the subject. I discovered my ne plus ultra of guitar players, Mr. Jimmy Page  was a huge Burges fan when he confessed, "I had an interest going back to my teens in the pre-Raphaelite movement and the architecture of Burges," he said. "What a wonderful world to discover."

Jimmy Page? Led Zeppelin guitarist, Jimmy Page? Yup. He’s also a serious lover of Victorian gothic and William Burges.

Tower House

Tower House

I discovered in a BBC article that Jimmy Page bought what had been Burges' own house called the The Tower House in 1972. That’s a fan.

Page said, "I was still finding things 20 years after being there - a little beetle on the wall or something like that...  It's Burges' attention to detail that is so fascinating."

 Tower House

Tower House

 Tower House

\

Tower House bedroom, Country Living

Go figure, a Rock God loves a Victorian flight of fancy. You can’t make this stuff up. First guitar-smashing Pete Townsend of The Who buys Ashdown (a Baroque love nest I wrote about HERE), now I read Jimmy Page of Led Zeppelin has owned his Victorian Gothic dream house since his early days of super-stardom. In the case of the Tower House, the story gets better.

Tower House had languished for years after its last tenant politely withdrew–– the poet John Betjeman shared Burges love of ecclesiastical architecture and was a founding member of the Victorian Society but lacked the wherewithal to give the house the care it needed so he walked away in the early 60’s. Liberace was all set to buy it in 1968 –– until edgy, hard living actor Richard Harris heard about the deal and swooped in to clutch it from Liberace’s bejeweled grasp for a song (£75,000). 

You might imagine Harris would have hipped the place up to match the swinging lifestyle for which he was famous –– you know, Lucite, steel and bad Victorian furniture upholstered in virulently colored plush. Au contraire, Harris actually engaged the original decorating company for the house (Campbell Smith & Company –– still gilding up a storm today) and dug up original plans to bring the never-quite-finished house to its well-deserved glorious completion (Burges died shortly after moving in leaving projects undone).

Just goes to show you, don’t always judge a book by its cover when it comes to matching people with their homes. Divination of the relationship between places and their owners is often far more nuanced and surprising than one first imagines –– rock stars restore and heavily titled aristos destroy fine old houses –– or vice versa. You never know.

William Burges 1827-1881

The architect of Tower House, William Burges, built to the style you would imagine from his profile to be sure. He had very definite and exacting tastes that burbled up from his history and personality.

Burges design for the smoking room at Cardiff Castle

William Burges by Henry Van der Weyde

He was educated at King’s College in London where he was contemporary with Dante Gabriel Rossetti and was independently wealthy thanks to his father who was the civil engineer that built the Cardiff docks under the auspices of the ruling family –– that connection to Cardiff and John Stuart, the 3rd Marquess of Bute would provide a grand patron and kindred spirit for Burges. Commissions for Cardiff Castle  and nearby Castle Coch  ‘would be his best known and most pleasurable efforts’ owing to the bottomless pockets of the richest man in Britain –– Burges expensive style lost him many jobs but the Marquess called Burges “the soul inspiring one.” Bute admired and could afford the mad details Burges loved to put in his work.

Cardiff Castle, Arab room ceiling – very trippy in a kalaidascopy way

Although Burges began studying construction, he soon moved to architecture and signed on with historical novelist, Sir Walter Scott’s friend Edward Blore (working on Buckingham, Lambeth and St James Palaces) and then with Matthew Digby Wyatt working on his authoritative books on Metalwork and Industrial Arts of the 19^th Century. He left that to tour France and Italy and write of Domestic Architecture of France with Henry Clutton. 

Burges was a great believer that all architects should travel to increase their style vocabularies. He was a huge fan of medieval restoration expert, Eugène Viollet-le-Duc (you'll love his Dictionnaire raisonné du mobilier Français, it's full of wonderful engravings).  The opposing view was held by John Ruskin who felt Viollet-le-Duc’s technique of altering ancient buildings was "a destruction out of which no remnants can be gathered: a destruction accompanied with false description of the thing destroyed." Much of Burges’ work involved significant alterations to existing structures, not new construction, although in many cases it involved re-building and topping off ruins not knocking them down.

Burges was known to have a passing addiction to opium (which may have enhanced his already dreamy nature), and was friendly with all the Pre-Raphaelites. On his deathbed his last visitors were Oscar Wilde and James McNeill Whistler.  He was known to be  “eccentric, unpredictable, overindulgent and flamboyant” as well as so nearsighted he once mistook a peacock for a man.  He was also child-like by all account.  Dante Gabriel Rossetti wrote;

"There's a babyish party called Burges,

Who from childhood hardly emerges.

If you hadn't been told,

He's disgracefully old,

You would offer a bull's-eye to Burges."

Knightshayes Court drawing

Most of his architectural work remained on paper. He was forever winning commissions that failed to be built for the cost. Many plans for cathedrals, churches and public buildings were drawn up, won contests and great praise and then went no further.

Few of the buildings that he did complete remain. Of those Cardiff Castle, Coch Castle and Knightshayes Court are open to the public (Burges was sacked from completing Knightshayes by its owner and the design was completed by J.D.Crace) – sadly Tower House is not, unless you are a pal of Mr. Page. Also, the Victoria and Albert Museum has a splendid collection of his furniture and art pieces –– yes, he was not just an architect he also designed superb furniture…

Great Bookcase

Narcissus Washstand 

The Zodiac Settle (“painted, stenciled and gilded wood, decorated with rock crystal and slips of vellum”)


Drawings for Yatman cabinet, V&A

Yatman Cabinet

… and amazing objects, glass, tile and wallpaper for his clients.

drawings for jar, V&A

Drawings for Ewer, V&A

Ewer, V&A 

14th c mazer, V&A 

Burges 1878 version V&A

1340-50 Paris

The Burges Decanter, Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge 

Chalice 1867 V&A 

Epergne 1880-1 V&A

stained glass

Tiles

Wallpaper sample 1870 V&A 

Dr. Lostpast would say at this point, what about food (he gets cross with me when I stray too far from the food path)? Well after all this, something with a jeweled gothic quality would suit the bill, wouldn’t it? What does a sensibility like this inspire gustatorially?

In researching for my Sauce Series, I have tried to cover all the classic mother sauces and their permutations but I also find it interesting to present some bygone relics that have fallen from grace and are forgotten. In that, I feel a certain fellowship with Burges who loved to mine the past for inspiration for the present.

I came across a beauty in my wonderful book Le Repertoire De La Cuisine (that I told you about HERE) called Sauce Romaine made with caramel, vinegar reduced stock and pignoli nuts with raisins. It is one of the sweet and sour family of sauces with ancient roots.  One version was made with demi-glace and another with Espagnole (one of the mother sauces). I believe the inspiration for it may be very old.  Raymonia is a medieval dish based on the Arabic Rummaniya with a sauce of pomegranate, ground almonds and sugar –– an ancient agrodolce (an Arabic-influenced Sicilian sweet and sour sauce still popular today like a gastrique).  Not much of a stretch to go to the raisins and pine nuts of  Sauce Romaine. After a thousand-odd years, this family of sauces is still divine with grilled poultry, game birds or pork or, as luck would have it, a small boar roast from D'Artagnan.  It's also fat free, full of flavor and actually good for you with all that lovely reduced stock.

Wild Boar Roast with Sauce Romaine

1 D'Artagnan small boar roast or a pork roast (about 1 1/2 pounds)
salt and pepper
1 T olive oil
2 carrots, sliced
1 small onion, sliced
Brussel sprouts, sliced (optional)
2 t chopped herbs (sage or thyme would be nice)
Sauce Romaine

Preheat the oven to 375º.  Toss the vegetables in some of the oil an put in the bottom of a small heavy pan. Oil the roast and rub with salt and pepper and herbs.  Put the roast on top of the vegetables and roast for about 35 minutes or until the inner temperature is  140º.

It comes with a string covering which you can remove but it will spread.  It is better to leave it on or tie it up so the roast cooks properly (so some isn't overdone).

Tent the meat and rest for 10 minutes.  Place the vegetables on the platter and slice the roast.  Spoon the sauce over the roast and serve warm or room temperature.

Sauce Romaine

2 T sugar
1/2 c vinegar
1 c demi-glace from D'Artagnan
2 T Sauce Espagnole (optional)
1/2 c white raisins
1/4 c pignoli nuts

Melt the sugar gently in a heavy pan.  When it melts and browns remove from the heat and add the vinegar.  Reduce it to a thin syrupy consistency. Add the demi-glace and raisins and reduce somewhat.

The sauce will thicken on its own as it cools - the raisins will also soak up some of the sauce so don't go nuts reducing it.  Serve it warm or at room temperature.

Sauce Chevreuil

Sauce Madame

Sauce Veloute

Sauce Chasseur

Sauce Robert

Sauce Cameline

Sauce Béarnaise

Sauce Bordelaise

Mushroom Ketchup

Cumberland Sauce

Sauce Romaine