I don't want to poach on your preserves, but uh, can I...
The Story of Tourte de Blanc de Poireaux in Poudenas
When translating language, and cooking you can get into trouble.
I almost always get in trouble. I ask too many questions. One of which is always, what does that mean?
But this week, as C’est si Bon! continues teaching Kid-Chefs and Taste the Adventure heads off with a teen group to France, I am tired. Smiling, and laughing at the irony because this week, there was a lot of questions asked of me.
Questions like, can we fry the puff pastry? But why don’t we seed the seedless cucumbers? Can we make potato salad again? Why must we use the ripe peaches?
But this morning after quietly sighing and giving my eyebrows a rest from shooting up to the ceiling 27 trillion times this week, I still celebrate making waves. I must. I celebrate asking questions. Too many questions. At least most of the time. If I had not so long ago, I never would have met the woman and chef in the photo, Marie-Claude Gracia. And my family would not have met her or be in France right now either.
But, back to baking. Baking is a lot more regimented than cooking, but questions apply just as much. If you bake or take French you have most likely heard the term or word, Brisée. One non-baking expression with the word Brisée is je ne veux pas marcher sur tes brises, or “I don’t want to poach on your preserves.”
Well now. That raises so many questions. Who’s poaching, and whose preserves? DARE I EVEN ASK? The literal meaning of brisée is broken, but what could that mean in terms of baking, making a crust?
One summer, 1996 to be exact, I was lucky enough to do a stage of cooking in a Michelin star auberge in Southwest France called La Belle Gasconne. I felt like a brisee’er for sure, breaking in and “poaching on preserves” where I didn’t belong. I didn’t care one whit about meeting Tony Blair - the prime minister of Great Britain at the time - who flew his private plane into a nearby wheat field so he could sit at Marie-Claude’s table and eat Foie Gras. She was the Reine du Foie Gras. I did care that I got to know the little village of Poudenas, and fell in love with preparing and feasting on foie gras and mushrooms and walking and the history of Southwest France. And I did care to study Marie-Claude Gracia as much as, if not more than, making her petite Tourte de Blanc de Poireaux. I didn’t know why then, but it dawned on me later when a friend translated her recipe that it was because she was a brisee’er herself, and I was looking for a role model, a mentor and the beginning of what would become Tales of the Mistress. I felt lucky that, the fall before that, I had met Marie-Claude Gracia and her family.
So back to Brisée. In Marie-Claude’s words and her recipe:
Tourte de Blanc de Poireaux
“Me, I always prepare little tartlets for my clients, but certainly in the family it’s better to prepare one big pretty tart. If you have company you can prepare many bite size tarts. As a “cocktail-snack” or an appetizer with an aperitif.
The dough must be soft. I smooth it out with the boxwood rolling pin of my great grandmother Aurelie which I take with me everywhere I travel, as my good luck charm. When the dough is smooth and as thin as possible, using the rolling pin I pass my hands under it and then I lightly lift till I can see my hands through it. I stretch it so thin so that I can see my hands through it. And then I put it in the bottom of the tart pan. And then I prick it with my fork. When the garniture is in place I cover it with a dough that I try to stretch even more finely than the one underneath. The secret of my tourte is that as for the garnish, it changes often, depending on the evening and the inspiration.
Cooking time 40 minutes.
for the pâte brisée salée – standard french short pastry dough:
short pastry dough or pate brisee is unleavened and great for savory or sweet tarts, quiches or any other pie sort of knosh. the standard accepted ratio is ½ the amount of fat to flour.
300 grams of butter (1 cup 5 tablespoons)
10 grams of salt (1 teaspoon)
500 grams of all purpose flour (4 cups 2 tablespoons)
1 egg
125 grams of water (1/2 cup)
for the garniture (in French recipes this means the filling, not the garnish)
500 gms very white leeks
250 gms little pink mushrooms from the meadow or champignons de paris
20 cl crème fraiche thick
1 egg
Salt and white pepper
for the pastry.
on a hard work surface - marble, granite or formica - place your flour in a well shape and fill inside the well with the dry ingredients (salt, espresso, sugar). cut up the butter into tablespoon size pieces, and put with the dry ingredients. gently, use both hands and rub without squeezing the butter into the dry ingredients. you are aiming for a sandy texture with all the butter mixed into the dry ingredients, gently and surely. when the butter is well mixed in, make another well and add the egg. with one hand, gently bring the butter/flour mixture into the egg. with the other hand, pour some of the water into the middle of your well and continue bringing the ingredients together. once all the ingredients are mixed together (you may or may not have used all the water), stop mixing and put aside the dough in the refrigerator to rest for about 30 minutes or longer if necessary and more convenient.
remove from the refrigerator and roll out to the desired thickness, lay in your tart pan and pre-bake or not as you prefer.
first prepare the dough.
When it has rested sufficiently divide it into 2 unequal parts; 2/3 and 1/3 smooth out the biggest to the diameter of the tourtier, butter and flour the mold, the moule. Garnish the bottom of the moule with the very thin dough.
prepare the garnish.
Peel the leeks only keep a drop of the green and then cut in fine julienne. If possible get yourself poireaux de vigne which adds to the impertinence, or possible the strength of the flavor. Put them in a heavy pan skillet over average heat, with no water or anything in a way that will be at least 2 cm of poireaux. Turn it with a wooden spoon so that the humidity of the leeks on the bottom impregnante well those that are on the top. stop at about 6 minutes approximately, when they are still “craquants” and emerald green.
Besides, choose the little pink mushrooms of the meadow, the smallest ones, and the most “croquant” crunchy..the most closed..or by default those old mushrooms of Paris. Remove the peel and the stems. Keep the mushroom caps that you minced them finely. Especially don’t wash them. Put a layer of the leeks and half a layer of the mushrooms on top of the raw dough. Add crème fraiche very evenly over the leeks and the mushrooms, then salt and pepper. The filling must be light, soft and delicate and rise to ¾ of the tarte pan. Stretching the rest of the dough to cover the tart. Now, with a whole egg, brush over the tart, turn it golden with a whole egg.
We’re going to put it in the oven, if your oven is not very aggressive let it cook for 35 minutes and if not then at 40 minutes. Serve as is. Either as an entrée or after the foie gras with a dry white wine, a “vin de Poudenas”. (Colombard or Ugni Blanc) or a light red wine, (from Duras or Buzet.)
Don’t tell the men that there are leeks inside because the majority of them detest them. And if they don’t know there are leeks in there they will feast in all innocence.
