Ancient Grains for Modern Meals - Maria Speck [125]
3 Place the chocolate and butter in a large metal bowl set over a saucepan containing about 1 inch of barely simmering water (the bottom of the bowl should not touch the water). Wait until melted, stirring gently with a wooden spoon, about 4 minutes. Remove the bowl from the saucepan and set the chocolate mixture aside to cool for 5 minutes. Stir the Grand Marnier, orange zest, and vanilla extract into the sugar-honey mixture. Using a large whisk and a gentle hand, add the sugar-honey mixture to the chocolate mixture, and then whisk in the eggs and yolk just until incorporated. The mixture will thicken slightly.
4 After the crust has cooled, place the tart pan on a large rimless baking sheet for easier handling. Sprinkle the crust with the chopped walnuts. Gently spoon the filling evenly into the crust as to not disturb the nuts.
5 Carefully place the sheet with the tart pan in the oven (it can slide!) and bake for 15 minutes. Remove from the oven and decorate the tart with the walnut halves by lightly pressing them around the outer rim. Continue to bake until the filling barely jiggles when the pan is moved gently, 8 to 10 more minutes (it will puff around the edges, but settle as it cools). Remove from the oven and carefully slide the tart pan onto a wire rack. Leave the tart to cool completely in the pan, about 1½ hours, before serving. The tart can sit at cool room temperature, under a cake dome, up to 4 hours.
6 When ready to serve, remove the outer ring of the tart pan. Cut the tart into 12 pieces using a sharp knife dipped into hot water and wiped clean between each cut.
TO GET A HEAD START: The tart, including the filling, can be prepared 1 day ahead. Wait until the tart has completely cooled and then chill, covered with plastic wrap. Bring to room temperature before serving.
Millet: Sweet, and Waiting to Be Served
Whenever I prepare a dish with millet for a group of dinner guests, I hide the grain. In fact, I will do anything to disguise it from plain view and to avoid dropping its name by accident. And I am pretty certain you can guess why. If I were to say, “I am serving a dessert with millet,” chances are that my friends will burst out, “Isn’t that bird food?”—unless they were raised in India or Africa, where versatile millet is still part of the daily diet. After years of experimenting with millet, I can proudly report back: my stealth serving technique works amazingly well. “Hidden” millet—be it in a dessert, a side, or a main dish—is a great success. Not only will everyone enjoy the grain, but I can also reveal after dinner with the grin of the Cheshire cat, “You just ate millet,” and the victory is mine.
One of the most interesting features of millet is its almost comedic inflatable quality, like a cloud that keeps billowing. This amazing trait also sparked my imagination as a three-year-old when I asked my mom to read and reread the fairy tale of the Brothers Grimm, “The Sweet Porridge.” In it, a poor, hungry girl is handed a magic pot by an old woman. The pot cooks sweet millet on command until prompted to stop. One day when the girl steps out, her mother starts a pot of millet—without knowing the magic word to halt the pot from overflowing with porridge. The result is a town covered in sweet millet—until the girl finally returns and puts an end to the river of starch.
While I had never seen, let alone eaten, millet as a kid in Germany, the grain was a main staple in central Europe during the Middle Ages, before being replaced by potatoes and corn from the New World. And this seed grain will indeed expand continuously in your pot, depending on how much liquid you add.
Given my lifelong passion for comforting starches, it is no surprise that millet became a favorite the moment I discovered it on a store shelf in my mid-twenties. Millet is a nourishing and fast-cooking side with infinite possibilities for leftovers. A pot of steamed millet can be on the table in as little as 20 minutes. To me, a bowl of warm, lightly salted millet, with a slice of butter melting into its mound, is