October 2nd, 2012
This post is also available in: French
La Tartine Gourmande is a cookbook I’ve been spending a lot of time with ever since it came out in the spring. I’ve admired Béatrice Peltre’s blog for quite a while now, and it was the very thing that, almost three years ago, made me want to try my hand at writing about food. Béa’s vision is unmistakably hers, and her love for the ingredients and dishes that she prepares shows through in every photo and recipe. Out of all cookbooks on my shelf (editor’s note, the shelf is overloaded), this one has been the one I’ve read and reread most often and got an incredible amount of ideas from. Béa’s attention to detail and French approach to cooking is something I relate to very much. It’s no secret that us Russians are historically very drawn to anything French, like most of the world, really.
Out of the recipes I’ve tried from the cookbook, this beet mille-feuille was a favourite. It’s a pretty simple appetizer, which happens to be very tasty and impressive in appearance, a great idea for having friends over.
One thing I did here is make my own ricotta cheese, used to do it all the time when living in Russia. It is a surprisingly easy process that requires only two ingredients – milk and lemon juice. And the result is worlds away from the store-bought kind, so much richer and creamier. Since the original recipe calls for both goat and ricotta cheeses, I used raw goat’s milk from a local farm to make this ricotta.
Check out the book for more serious inspiration.
Beet Mille-Feuille
I slightly changed Béa’s recipe by adding radishes, basil oil, apple cider vinegar, and lemon zest to my homemade goat milk ricotta, eliminating goat cheese.
(makes 4)
1 1/2 cups freshly made goat milk ricotta cheese (good recipe here) or 1 cup ricotta cheese mixed with 1/2 cup soft goat cheese
3 radishes – chopped
3 tablespoons chopped chives
2 tablespoons basil oil (1/2 cup olive oil blended together with 1 cup basil leaves)
2 teaspoons apple cider vinegar
zest of 1 lemon
salt and freshly ground black pepper – to taste
3 red small to medium cooked beets – peeled
3 yellow small to medium cooked beets – peeled
handful of fresh greens or microgreens to serve
fresh basil for garnish (optional)
small handful of hazelnuts (optionally toasted)
In a bowl, mix cheese, radishes, chives, oil, vinegar, lemon zest, salt and pepper. Cut about 4 horizontal slices in each beet (you will have left over slices). You can use a ring mold about 2 3/4-inch wide by 2 1/4-inch tall to cut each slice with and then assemble the mille-feuille inside the ring mold. Or you can build the mille-feuille by simply placing a neat layer of cheese mixture on top of a beet slice, alternating colours. Use 4 beet slices per each mille-feuille, secure with a toothpick if needed. Refrigerate for a couple of hours before trimming. Use a very sharp knife to trim the mille-feuille to a square shape. Remove the toothpicks if using, optionally drizzle with olive oil and serve with microgreens or fresh greens and hazelnuts if you like. Garnish with basil leaves on top.
Tags: beets, golubka, la tartine gourmande, recipe, ricotta, vegetarian
Tweet
September 16th, 2012
This post is also available in: French
Here is a (lighter) version of a cake most Russian cooks have up their sleeve – Ant Hill – named for its appearance, fairly simple to make, and out of this world delicious. It is, hands down, one of my favourite desserts of all time. I couldn’t find any information on Ant Hill’s history, but it probably came about during the Soviet era of deficit, when few ingredients were available and people had to make do with what was on hand. To give you an idea, I’ll talk a bit about how it was traditionally prepared. The dough is a very simple shortbread, which is usually run through a meat grinder and then baked to make a worm-shaped sort of cookie. For the creme, a can of condensed milk is boiled in a pot of water, which adds a wonderful sweet depth to the already tasty condensed milk (but talk about BPA!) Mix that with loads of butter and you have your creme. The dough and creme are then mixed, formed into a hill, and refrigerated for a night, when the magic happens and all the flavours become incredibly friendly.
Some people add toasted walnuts, some – chocolate or raisins. A sprinkling of poppy seeds is often mandatory. Each family’s method varies a bit, but it’s an almost fool-proof recipe that requires very little. People are amazing at making something out of nothing during the roughest of times.
My recipe is of course a wide step away from the original. For one, it has no butter or condensed milk, the two main ingredients, it’s also vegan and gluten free. Still, I baked this cake out of nostalgia for the real Ant Hill, thinking of the many times I’ve made it, and the many birthdays I’ve celebrated with it on the table.
Aside from the raisins, chocolate, and poppy, the blueberries are a nice addition – small pockets of freshness among the richer, darker feel of the cake. The end result is remotely similar to the original, in taste that is, in appearance it is completely identical. It is much lighter – I didn’t want to take a nap after one slice – which is the general goal of my cooking nowadays.
Ant Hill Cake
Dough Crumbles
2 cups quinoa flakes
1 cup any gluten free flour of choice – quinoa, millet, amaranth
1/2 cup coconut flour
1 1/2 cups pecans or walnuts
seeds of 1 vanilla bean
1/4 cup honey
1/2 cup coconut oil
pinch of sea salt
4 tablespoons poppy seeds, plus more for sprinkling
Preheat oven to 320F. Place all of the ingredients in a food processor and pulse until crumbly. Take care to not over blend. Place the mixture onto a parchment paper-covered baking tray and spread evenly. Bake for 15-20 minutes, mixing every 5-7 minutes and making sure that it’s baking evenly. Be careful not to burn the dough, as it’s easy to do. Once the crumbles are golden brown, remove from the oven and let cool.
Caramel Cream
2 cups meat of fresh young Thai coconut
1/4 cup maple syrup
1/2 cup powdered coconut sugar
seeds of 1 vanilla bean or 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
pinch of sea salt
1/3 cup coconut oil
In a high speed blender, combine everything but coconut oil until completely smooth. Add coconut oil at the end to incorporate.
Assembly
1 cup blueberries (optional)
1 cup raisins (optional)
1-2 oz of dark chocolate (optional) – ground into small pieces, plus more for garnish
In a large bowl, combine the dough crumbles, blueberries, raisins and chocolate pieces. Pour the caramel creme over, gently mix together. On a plate or stand, build the hill and sprinkle with poppy seeds. Optionally, decorate with chocolate shaves, lemon balm leaves, and flowers to create a forest look. Refrigerate for a couple hours or overnight, then slice like a regular cake and serve.
Tags: ant hill cake, dessert, gluten free, golubka, recipe, vegan
Tweet
EMAIL
