This French Apple Flan straight from the buffet section of the A-Z of Cooking is délicieux! I know what you’re thinking. Two pastry dishes in two weeks? Why, it’s almost like you’re practicing for something.
Nudge nudge, wink, wink, say no more.
French Apple Flan
Truth is, I made this before I knew anything about Pieathalon 2…which is not only a reality but I have purchased my ingredients and will be baking on the weekend.
But back to the French Apple Flan. I was actually a bit wary about making a second pastry dish from the A-Z of Cooking because, lets face it, I was not overly impressed with the pastry from the Date Crunchies.
But, the buffet section left a LOT to be desired. There was an Egg Mousse. But there is also an Egg Mousse in Salads for All Seasons, which quite frankly reads better. Then there is a Cold Loin of Pork Orientale….except I don’t eat pork. There is the trout of nightmares:
And there is the French Apple Flan:
French Apple Flan
So, despite that picture not being overly appealing, this was kind of a no-brainer.
And let me say right now, I can’t imagine any of the other dishes being this good because this was AWESOME. The pastry was crisp and light and delicious, the filling was lovely – and again not too sweet. There was only a 50g of sugar for a kilo of apples. The butter and the lemon and the wine hummed along quietly in the background without taking over. The filling really just tastes of apples. But nicer. Like supercharged apples. But really, please, despite what the recipe says use butter not that horrible other stuff.
French Apple Flan 8
A friend of mine recently made some gorgeous apple roses that she found here and they kind of inspired my topping.
French Apple Flan 9
I also used a blackberry jam for my glaze because that’s what I had and smoke em if you got ’em is how I roll. It made my glaze quite dark but I kind of liked that ombre effect it created.
French Apple Flan
And again, the French Apple Flan was just lovely. And it was totally delicious on it’s own but if you really want to ramp it up, try it, slightly warm with some dulce de leche ice cream. And then just float away on a little cloud because you will seriously think you have died and gone to heaven.
French Apple Flan
So, good.
In my mind this is an apple tart. So much so that I had to keep going back when writing and changing the word tart to flan. I am not precisely sure of the difference between a tart and a flan although some albeit rather lazy research leads me to think a flan contains a custard filling. Which this doesn’t.
So it’s a tart right?
Whatever you call it. it’s super delicious and made from things you already probably have in your house or can get pretty easily. I promise you will not regret making this…so go on, do it now!
Breakfasts and Brunches start the “B” section of the A-Z of Cooking. I chose a smoked salmon and egg combo called Nova Scotia Eggs which was, not surprisingly, delicious. You’d have to go a long way to go wrong with those ingredients.
Nova Scotia Eggs 1
Having said that, the recipe did it’s best to bamboozle me. Coat the eggs in mayonnaise it says. It actually had me questioning the word “coat”. Because to cover the eggs completely, which would be the normal translation, seems like a LOT of mayo. Then again it also calls for 8 tablespoon of mayonnaise to cover 4 eggs. I’ll say it again. That’s a shit ton of mayo.
Nova Scotia Eggs – Recipe
Who knows, maybe Canadians really, really like mayo. Although having said that, I have no idea if the Nova Scotia eggs have any actual connection to Canada.
I also feel that unless I get something off my chest, I will probably never get to find out. You see, I am carrying a deep dark secret in relation to Canada. Well, in relation to two Canadians specifically but I get the feeling they are very community spirited. Do ill by two of them and the whole country takes against you. Anyhow, I feel that until I publicly right this wrong, I may never be welcome in the land where pines and maples grow, great prairies spread and Lordly rivers flow!
It happened like this.
A few years ago we holidayed on the Amalfi Coast. Whilst we were there we did a half day tour of Pompeii. The problem was that we booked ourselves onto a triple language tour. This meant that for each point of interest the tour guide stopped and spoke about it in Italian, English and Russian. Then there was time for questions. Of which the Italians and Russians had plenty. And she would duly translate the answers into the other two languages. Kudos to the tour guide for being fluent in three languages when sometimes I feel like I struggle with just one, but it meant the going was SLOW. So slow that, had there been glaciers in the vicinity, we could have watched them moving and marvelled at their speed compared to our progess through Pompeii.
An hour in, and we weren’t even inside the walls. He was starting to get antsy. “Come on, this is crap, we’re never going to see anything at this rate. And don’t you know about it?”
I may have slightly bigged up my knowledge of Pompeii. I had studied it in art class in high school for what seemed like an eternity however, high school was OMG, 20 years ago.
Excuse me while I have a minor major flip out about that.
OK. I’m back. I’m centred and TWENTY YEARS?
Holy Crap.
Nova Scotia Eggs3
Back to Pompeii…anything to blank out the horror….During the next few Russian and Italian sessions we started a muttered debate. He wanted to leave the group and strike out on our own, armed with our purchased tour book and my…ahem…vast knowledge. I was equally adamant that we had paid for a guided tour and dammit, a guided tour we would have.
“Are you guys thinking about ditching this ?” Our conversation was interrupted by a whisper coming from a guy standing beside us. (We were all being very quiet so as not to disrupt the relentless Italian / Russian chatter).
“Yes” Him.
“No” Me.
“Cos we are too”. They were a Canadian couple on honeymoon and after a few more murmered exchanges we decided to very quietly leave the group and explore on our own.
“And we don’t need a guide. Taryn knows all about it.”
Why is there never a bottomless volcanic crater around when you need to push someone into one?
Nova Scotia Eggs4
In retrospect, it was the best thing to do. The four of us covered an amazing amount of ground and had a great time doing it. They had a different book to us so we were all sharing what we had and we all got on really well. Then we reached a point where apparently, back in the day, you could look across and see the cave of the oracle of Cumae. And something in my brain clicked.
“You know that in the days before Vesuvius erupted the Oracle of Cumae told them to get out of Pompeii. Twice. But the people were so hedonistic and so consumed by their material possessions that they refused to go”. All of a sudden, I was Simon Schama. I knew all about the Oracle and the prophecies and I was not afraid to tell the world. The lovely Canadian couple were quite impressed. They even took notes. And He was impressed. Dammit, I was impressing myself. Who knew I paid that much attention in art history classes?
Nova Scotia Eggs5
Much later in the day, when we were on the bus back to where we were staying in Positano, he asked if he could see the guidebooks. I handed them over and he started pouring over them with an intensity I have rarely seen.
“Whatcha looking for?”
“All that stuff about the Oracle…did you read that in here?”
“I dunno.Maybe…or maybe in the book at the hotel. Or maybe from memory. Why are you so interested?”
“I want to see if they say if that’s where they got the idea for the episode of Doctor Who”
Oh. OH.
“The w…w…what?”
“You know, the episode of Doctor Who where they go to Pompeii. And the oracle tells the people to leave. Twice”.
“I have absolutely no idea what you’re talking about.”
Nova Scotia Eggs5
Except I kinda, sorta, maybe did. So, lovely Canadian honeymoon couple from Pompeii, whose names I have completely forgotten specifically and people of Canada in general. I’m really sorry. I have a very, very bad feeling that instead of telling you some amazing actual factual history, that I may have just given you the summary of the plot line of an episode of Doctor Who.
In terms of accuracy, it might have been better if I’d just sung that Bastille song to you.
Feel free to update the Canadian Wikipedia entry on Pompeii any day now folks.
And enjoy the Nova Scotia eggs, they are delicious. I made them for you!
And please let me in if I ever come visit, I really want to try some poutine.
Have a great week!
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Part Two of A in The A-Z of Cooking concerns itself with one of the best meals of the day, the after school snack.
I chose to make the Date Crunchies purely on the basis that I had every single ingredient already in my pantry.
That never happens!
Date Crunchies2
But first, two intros to After School Snacks. The original from The A-Z of Cooking
“Welcome home your hungry young scholars with something nourishing to tide them over until suppertime”
May have pleased mothers but set children all over the world weeping. They didn’t want something nourishing, they wanted something chockful of sugar with maybe a bit of artificial colouring thrown in.
Not so my After School Snacks Haiku:
Hungry After School?
Dates and Oats Make Good Crunchies
Yummy for your tum.
Did I miss a career in marketing or what?
And…we’re done with the poetry. Trust me. There will be no sonnets to breakfast food, no odes to the buffet. Unless you really like them. In which case get ready for a whole heap of limericks and haikus because that’s about my limit.
Date Crunchies – The Good
These are kinda sorta almost healthy with the sweetness coming from dates and honey instead of sugar, and the use of oats and wholemeal flour.
Dates, honey and cinnamon are a combination that works amazingly well together. And the little bit of lemon made the it even better!
I think I probably like them more now than I would have as a child when I would have wanted something sweeter.
Apparently they worked well with a glass of milk. This is on hearsay only. I have never liked milk and even the thought of drinking a full glass of it makes me want to gag.
Working the dough was the best arm workout I have had in a long time. I’m pretty sure I’ve staved off bingo wings for at least another year just by that alone.
Date Crunchies 4
Date Crunchies – The Bad
The the quantities in the recipe seemed wrong. I needed a lot more water to soften the dates and a pinch of cinnamon is no good to anyone. You need at least 1/4 teaspoon.
More than this though that pasty was way too short. I was lovely and light but you just had to look at it the wrong way and it crumbled. It needed an egg or something else to bind it together a bit more.
Date Crunchie
Date Crunchies – The Ugly
Let’s also address the other elephant in the room when in comes to this recipe. In some places in Australia, “date” is a colloquial expression for one’s…well…anus. So a date crunchie is probably not something that should be even remotely appetizing. As for these? They were better than that. Just not by much.
In all honesty, they were perfectly acceptable. They were average. There was nothing fundamentally hideous about them. Truth be told, it’s taken me ages to write this post simply because I find it really hard to describe food that’s just….meh….
WouId I have wanted these as an afternoon snack when I was a child?
Hell no.
But I was a weird only child with a working mother. She didn’t have time to bake and I had an idea that anything homemade was bound to be inferior to something that could be bought from a shop. I was far happier with a perfectly formed store-bought Tim Tam than anything homemade and vaguely hippyish.
Now? That date filling was rather nice…but you know what? I think I’d still prefer a TimTam. I may make the Date Crunchie dough again just so I never have to do another tricep dip in my life.
Date Crunchies – not an epic fail, not even a fail, just not much of a pass… And with that, we’re done with the A’s.
Next time we venture into The A-Z of Cooking we’re heading to Canada for B..B..Breakfast.
The frosted tomato cocktail was my pick from the Adventurous Appetizers section of The A-Z of Cooking.
Frosted Tomato Cocktail
But first, each section of The A-Z of Cooking comes with a sentence or two to introduce it vis a vis:
A is for… ADVENTUROUS APPETIZERS: start a dinner party or special family supper with a new and exciting idea.
Booooooring.
How much more fun if they’d done them all in verse:
There was a young girl called Eliza
Who wanted to make appetizers
She tried the tomat-er
As an exciting new starter
And the result did really surprise her.
Yeah, I know that was hardly “Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day” but the A-Z of Cooking is hardly The Larousse Gastronomique either.
You know what they say, water finds its level.
I nearly chose a recipe called Sweetcorn Scallops but the only thing scallopy about them was that they were served in scalloped shaped dishes or shells, neither of which I own.
I feel they were already drawing a slightly long bow in naming it. If I’d made it in a normal dish you guys would have left wondering if I’d lost my mind…
I can hear it now “Errmmmm, that’s bacon, honey, not scallops”
Sweetcorn Scallops
Anyhow, I really liked the picture of the Frosted Tomato Cocktail from The A-Z of Cooking which is why I chose this one to make. I love that glass. And just so you don’t think it’s me, they love a long skinny photo in The A-Z of Cooking.
Frosted Tomato Cocktail – Picture
Here is the original recipe:
Frosted Tomato Cocktail – Recipe
This was really nice. So refreshing. It would be a gorgeous starter for a hot day in mid summer when tomatoes are at their very best. Or even as a palate cleanser between courses.
However, I felt it was missing something. Because you know what? As far as I’m concerned if you’re going to call something a cocktail, it better damn well have some booze in it. Also, you really needed to ramp up the flavourings in the original. .
My fennelly take on the Frosted Tomato Cocktail was inspired by this Serious Eats recipe. You could put the fennel salt around the rim of the glass as they suggest or just include it in the mix like I did. Celery salt would also be great here, in which case, I would garnish with a celery stalk instead of the mint.
I wanted mine to be vegan so I also omitted the Worcestershire and replaced it with tabasco. It may also be the most delicious thing I have ever made that is zero fat.
Frosted Tomato Cocktail 2
We’ll be sticking with the letter A for the next sortie into The A-Z of Cooking where we will be looking at the world of after school snacks. And I might try a haiku.
Toast the fennel seeds in a skillet over medium heat until fragrant. Place the salt and toasted fennel seeds in a mortar and grind until they are well combined and the seeds have broken down. Pass through a very fine sieve and set aside.
Place the tomatoes, tequila, lime juice, and sugar into a blender and puree until smooth. Add the fennel salt, pepper and Tabasco sauce to taste.
Pour mixture into large ice cube trays and freeze. Just before serving remove from freezer, take the frozen cubes out of ice tray and place them back in the blender.
Puree until smooth but still frozen.
Spoon into chilled glasses, garnish with mint and serve immediately.
As much as I have loved Salad’s For All Seasons and there are many, many recipes still to cook from there I felt I was due for a change. There are only so many salads a girl can take.
A little dig through my pile of vintage cook books revealed this gem – The A-Z of Cooking from Octopus Books, 1976.
Just the cover sent my retro food antenna twitching that this was going to be gold. Because right from the get-go, there were some mad quirks. It’s called the A-Z of cooking. And yet….only Appetizers to Wine are listed. What, no zucchini, zabaglione or…wait for it, my new favourite food name….zuurkoolstamppot. ( I don’t care what’s in Z…trust me, we’re eating zuurkoolstampot that week!).
The inside cover of The A-Z of cooking tells me:
This is the compulsive “look up and learn’ book, where every cook, because of the original approach of the book, will find something new. More helpful than a standard cookery book, more enjoyable than a cookery encyclopedia, the book is packed with 190 recipes which have been specially grouped to give the ideas and situations when you are needing them”
Does anyone else think English may not have been that writer’s first language?
I’m not going to go into the special groupings yet. We’ll get to them in due course.
I did however just want to spend this post pointing out a few of the maddest bits of The A-Z of Cooking right from the get go.
Let’s start with page 13. I have never actually screamed with fright when viewing a retro food photo before.
Until this.
Welcome To My Nightmare
Oh. My. God. This thing looks like it wants to kill you. Don’t be fooled by its supposedly fun little parsley toupé. This nasty little fucker has got a backbone of prawns and it wants you, and your family, dead. In the most painful way possible.
Mango Mousse…Or Is It?
Moving very swiftly away from the psycho-killer trout, we come to page 30 of The A-Z of cooking and a Mango Mousse.
Maybe.
Anyone care to address the elephant in the room?
Who knew that back in 1976 mangoes and passionfruit were actually the same thing?
Little known fact* for you all. It was only in 1977, as his first piece of business as newly elected President, that Jimmy Carter deemed that henceforth they would be distinct pieces of tropical fruit.
*I swear on a stack of wikipedias that this so-called fact is not something I just made up.
Good Health…Good Grief!!!
Who remembers the great cucumber shortage of 1976? No, me either but it is surely the only explanation for this picture of Burghul Salad on p 31. Even worse when you read the recipe and it says it feeds 8. I’m sure everyone enjoyed their half a piece of cucumber. I just hope that fisticuffs didn’t break out over which half of the family got a black olive.
And also….I hate to bring things down to the level of the toilet. But are little black ovoid shapes really the best garnish for a salad that already looks like kitty litter?
Expecting The Unexpected
I’ll leave you with possibly the worse recipe in the book. Filed under U for “Unexpected Guest” this Chilled Ten Minute Potato Soup sounds utterly revolting. Although, maybe there is a method to this madness. Maybe it’s actually a warning. Do not turn up unexpected to the anonymous writer’s house and want a meal. Because you’ll be given some disgusting concoction made from instant mash and dehydrated onions. And it will be cold to boot.
Kind of makes the kitty litter salad seem not so bad.
I think the A-Z of Cooking is going to be a hoot! Coming soon…Adventurous Appetizers!
And there is the French Apple Flan:
