French Provincial Cooking - Elizabeth David [235]
Melt 4 oz. of bitter chocolate in the oven with 2 or 3 tablespoons of water, rum or brandy. Stir it smooth, add 2 tablespoons of sugar and the very well beaten yolks of 4 eggs, then fold in the beaten whites of 6. Turn into a 2-pint buttered soufflé dish and cook with the dish standing on a baking sheet in a preheated hot oven, Gas No. 6, 400 deg. F., for approximately 18 minutes. Enough for four people.
This is a soufflé which is improved by fresh cream served separately.
TARTES AUX FRUITS A L’ALSACIENNE
OPEN FRUIT TARTS IN THE ALSATIAN WAY
Flat, open fruit tarts are made with the same pastries as for the onion tart, the cheese tart and the quiches on pages 205-7, with a little sugar worked in with the dough. The fruit, sweet apples, quetsch or mirabelle plums or any suitable fruit in season, is first partly cooked with a little sugar and water. If apples are being used peel and slice them into thin, even-sized pieces; if plums or apricots, cut them in half and stone them. For an 8-inch tart tin allow 1 to 2 lb. of fruit, original weight, of any of these fruit.
The pastry is filled with the fruit, only a little of the juice being used. Cook as for the savoury tarts, but 5 minutes before taking them from the oven, pour in a mixture of 1 egg beaten with a few tablespoons of thick cream.
GALETTE AUX FRUITS
OPEN FRUIT PIE WITH YEAST PASTRY
A galette takes many forms. It can be a flat pastry, a cake special to Twelfth Night celebrations, a preparation of thinly sliced potatoes browned on both sides in a frying-pan or a variety of petit four.
This galette is made with a yeast dough and covered with previously cooked fruit, plums, apples, quinces, apricots, whatever happens to be in season. It is always much liked as a pudding course but it is rather filling so is perhaps best served when the rest of the meal has been rather light.
Ingredients for the dough are 5 oz. plain flour, oz, baker’s yeast, 1 oz. butter, 1 egg, salt.
Soften the butter and beat it thoroughly but lightly into the flour; add a good pinch of salt, the whole egg and the yeast dissolved to a paste in a very little tepid water. Mix with your hands until all ingredients are well amalgamated, add a little more water if necessary, knead into a bun shape, put on a floured plate, make a deep crosswise incision on the top, cover with a cloth and leave to rise somewhere warm, such as the airing cupboard or near the boiler, for 2 hours.
In the meantime, prepare the fruit; for plums or apricots, make a cut along the natural division of the. fruit, allowing 1 lb. Put them in a slow oven with about 6 oz. of sugar and not more than a tablespoon of water, and bake them until soft enough for the stones to be extracted. For apples, use the same quantity, peel, core and slice them, cook them very gently in a frying-pan with butter (this makes a huge difference to the final flavour), sugar and a little water, and watch out that they don’t get too much cooked and so lose their shape.
When the dough has risen, and in 2 hours it should have doubled in volume, work it again for a minute or so, sprinkling it with flour to make it drier and cooler to handle. Form it again into a bun, and place it in the centre of a lightly-oiled flan case or tart tin about 8 inches in diameter. Press it out with your hands until it covers the whole case. Spread the fruit on top, arranging it neatly in circles and filling the pastry amply but not using too much juice, which would overflow. Put the flan tin on a baking sheet; cook in a preheated oven at Gas No. 4 or 5, 360 to 380 deg. F., for 35 to 40 minutes. During the last 10 minutes, strew extra sugar on the top. Leave to settle a few minutes after taking from the oven. It is best served hot.
An added refinement is to pour on top of the fruit, 5 minutes before the end of the cooking time, a mixture of 2 oz. of cream and a well-beaten yolk of egg, and let it just barely set.
Those inexperienced with yeast cookery need not be alarmed; nothing is easier than to make this dough once you have done it two or three times, and