Blackberry Rhubarb Tart
 
Sue came back from Illinois with a huge bag of beautiful rhubarb from a friend’s yard. (Hello Elaine) Glory-o-ski, she shared with me! I guess I must love to flirt with disaster in the kitchen all the time because I will change ingredients and amounts sometimes with very little research. There was a recipe for a Blackberry-Rhubarb Crisp in the Dallas Morning News that looked really good. But, Angelika had just had two really great rhubarb recipes, Rhubarb Tart and Rhubarb Blechkuchen. My kitchen right now can only function in a limited way. My cutting board table that I have used for over 30 years is cracked from water damage so any time I work on it I cover it with plastic cutting boards. The floor in it’s present state is a wonderful perpetual dust generator, so you wipe the counters and they are visibly dirty 10 minutes later. To cook in this kitchen is to flirt with disaster with or without research. Obviously while workers/painters are in the kitchen, I’m not cooking food. We can only eat in when we can grill or we have left overs that are either good cold or reheat well. So, Saturday & Sunday are usually my best chances for getting something cooking. I printed the above three recipes on Friday afternoon with the idea I‘d make one on Saturday. I don’t know, it just didn’t happen Saturday. So, when it got to be 3 in the afternoon...ugh...I can’t find any of the three I’ve printed out. Angelika’s recipes are in metric and my scale is packed away anyway. Baking Illustrated had a recipe for sweet pastry crust. I used their recipe as below, my changes in red. When I went looking for a pan, I ended up using the small one from a nested set of three tart tins that I bought 25 years ago and hadn’t used in 20! Sweet Tart Pastry 1 lg egg yolk (I used egg beaters) 2 T heavy cream (I used fat free half & half) 1/2 t vanilla 1.5 c (7.5 oz.) unbleached all-purpose flour ++ for dusting work area 3/4 c (3-oz) confectioners’ sugar 1/4 t salt 10 T (1.25 sticks) cold unsalted butter; 1/2- inch cubes Whisk together egg yolk (or egg beaters), cream & vanilla. In a food processor combine flour, sugar, and salt for four one-second pulses. Scatter butter over flour: process until it resembles coarse meal; about twenty one-second pulses. Add the egg mixture with the machine running to the flour: about 12 seconds, until the dough comes together. Gather the dough and wrap in plastic wrap. Refrigerate at least an hour or up to 48 hours. When your ready to use the dough, remove from plastic warp and place between two large sheets of parchment paper or plastic warp. Roll out to about 15 inches. Keep the work area well floured. I had two issues here: first I used too much liquid (egg beaters to replace the yolk - I should have only used 1/8 c not the short 1/4 c) and when the dough got sticky, I kept working. The directions said to return it to the refrigerator to chill again 20 to 30 minutes. This dough was very difficult to work with and I was thinking I was headed for a bad end. I used the plastic wrap to roll the dough on the rolling pin and then off over the pan, easing the dough into the sides. Finally, I rolled across the top of the pan to cut the edges. Freeze at least 30 minutes before baking or wrap well and freeze for up to 1 month. Preheat oven to 375° Line the crust with foil and fill with metal or ceramic pie weights. I didn’t use the foil and my string of pie pearls left indents in the crust but it baked beautifully.  Bake until golden about 20 minutes. So, now I have this tart shell baked and I’m without a filling recipe. I remembered Angelika’s recommending using almond meal to soak up the rhubarb’s extra juice and to sprinkle sugar over the rhubarb to extract some of it’s juice. So, I spread the bottom of my dented tart shell with almond meal.  Put the shell back in the 375° oven for another 5 minutes. The sugar pulled tons of juice out of the rhubarb. I didn’t really use any of it. I filled my shell with 1/2 inch cubes of rhubarb. I eye-balled some custard like liquid using 2 T brown sugar, 1/4 c egg beaters and enough fat free half & half that I didn’t think I’d end up with scrambled eggs and rhubarb. I poured enough of the custard to fill the spaces between the rhubarb cubes. Then I thought, why not. I top it with some lush ripe blackberries and popped it back into the oven about 15 more minutes. Just sweet enough and not too strong on the rhubarb tang. It was perfect.  Eyeballed Blackberry Rhubarb Tart  Good Blackberry Rhubarb Tart Now, I still have a lot of rhubarb and juice left over. Ummm... http://web.mac.com/suzannevancil/iWeb/Site/SueCooksWild%20Blog/0D58AC26-A7CA-48A3-83F6-21ACA71353AC.htmlhttp://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/fea/taste/stories/DN-nf_rhubarb_0517liv.State.Edition1.187870d7.htmlhttp://theflyingapple.typepad.com/the_flying_apple/http://theflyingapple.typepad.com/the_flying_apple/2006/06/rhubarb_once_ag.htmlhttp://theflyingapple.typepad.com/the_flying_apple/2006/05/der_perfekte_bl.htmlshapeimage_1_link_0shapeimage_1_link_1shapeimage_1_link_2shapeimage_1_link_3shapeimage_1_link_4
Dinner from the grill and
Monday, June 5, 2006
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