Pumpkin & FettaFreeform Tart
My wife often says that the careful
preparation of a delicious meal is one of the main ways in which we can express
our affection for those we love. I have, of course, phrased this inadequately.
She blogs about food regularly, and her turn of phrase is at once eloquent,
humorous and sensual. Food is an expression of her very being, her knowledge of
it both holistic and wholesome.
Anyone who has eaten at her table could
have no doubts about this.
I am not so gifted. I have, on occasion,
made the attempt, but more often than not the results are… lacking. I fantasise
that she breathes in the aroma of the meal I have prepared, her anticipation
builds. She lifts the fork to her mouth and tastes the delicate, complex
flavours I have prepared. Her eyes close. She contemplates. Then she looks at
me in that way, the look I hope to see every day. The conversation flows easily
and the meal is over almost too soon, yet a perfect satiety has been reached.
But that’s a fantasy. Far more often, the
meal is served late at the hands of a somewhat stressed and flustered husband.
I somehow lack the finesse and grace that she has in the kitchen. Like all true
masters, she makes it appear effortless. The dish looks nothing like the glossy
pictures in the cookbook (which my wife rarely refers to and I cling to my
breast, the one flotation device in the endless culinary ocean on which I
drift). The various components of my meal are served at various temperatures
and states of caramelisation. The combination of carefully slaved over
ingredients has descended into a pallid, flaccid mess. My wife bravely swallows
the first mouthful, and surreptitiously reaches for the salt. I have failed to
arouse the ardent passion I was aiming for.
Yet, like Sisyphus, my task is never done.
Of course, Sisyphus is an imperfect simile. This is no punishment, but it is
certainly possible that my tale of woe shall stretch on into eternity. I shall
not, however, be dismayed. Once more into the breach dear friends! The love I
have for my wife shall be communicated through victuals, though chefs may weep
and die upon the journey!
The tale starts this evening with my
patented lava muffins. They are like lava cakes, but without the molten
chocolate goodness flowing forth. Lava cakes were invented by Schroedinger – as
long as they remain uneaten, they exist in
potentia as lava cakes. As one slices into the small, perfectly shaped
brown mound, they transform themselves into muffins. In and of themselves,
lovely. Nothing wrong with them. But misnamed and disappointing when one I
imagines a steaming, crumbly cake with a river of thick chocolate running out
like a waterfall of ecstasy. Note to self: 15 minutes is too long in the oven.
Tomorrow, the tart. Preparation has already
begun, as this meal shall be prepared around the rigorous timetable of 5 year
old birthday parties.
First, the pastry.
1 ¼ cups of plain flour
½ teaspoon of sea salt flakes
125g cold cream cheese, chopped
1 free-range eggs
1 tablespoon cold water, approximately
(approximately? WTF?)
Place all the ingredients into the food
processor, which broke about a month ago and I ingeniously repaired with
superglue. Turn the knob of said food processor to begin pulsing process and
produce a finely crumbed mixture of cream cheese and flour, developing into a
soft, silky dough thereafter. Stare at the food processor in confusion as your
amazing repair job fails almost instantly and the food processor produces
nothing but a loud whining noise as the motor revs out of control. Panic
momentarily, and wait for inspiration to strike, and then desperately rummage
through THAT drawer in the kitchen (you know the one) until you find the beater
attachment for the kitchen aid. This seems to be a reasonable replacement for
the food processor. Empty the almost completely uncombined ingredients from the
food processor into the kitchen aid, thereby ensuring that the ratio of
ingredients is completely unreliable.
We are now, due to the failure of
technology, making pastry cake. Turn on the kitchen aid. Watch hopefully as the
beater attachments shred the lumps of cream cheese into the flour. Raise your
eyebrow quizzically at the bell like ‘ting’ sound before realising that a
fragment of the food processor drive shaft has become incorporated into the mix
and is being ricocheted from the beater attachments of the kitchen aid. Remove
said fragment.
When the cream cheese has been reduced to
the crumb like consistency you were hoping for, remove the mixing bowl and
begin kneading the dough by hand. You may be vaguely worried by the
inconsistent yellow streaks weaving their way through the dough, where the egg
has failed to combine correctly. Ignore this and keep going. You may at some
point realise that the mixture is too dry. At this point add one more
tablespoon of water. Approximately one tablespoon, it turns out, means two.
At this point you will hopefully have
something that resembles dough. Your spirits will rise, and you may think to
yourself that you have managed it, despite the odds. You will be wrong. On
closer inspection, you will see that there are particles of…
something…permeating the dough. These particles are delightfully refractive and
add a certain something to the dough. After consulting with your wife, you will
find that the certain something that has been added to the dough is
unidentified contamination from god knows where and a sticky, eggy dough lump
of uselessness. Throw it out.
Begin to ask your wife how to make pastry
without a food processor, but then stop and realise that undermines the entire
point of the exercise. Instead, turn to that last bastion of hope for pathetic
losers everywhere – google. There you will find a video of a young perky woman
with an incredibly annoying American accent who will inform you that the whole
process is incredibly easy and you should have used the blender, not the
kitchen aid. Celebrate the fact that you bought a blender two Christmases ago,
and put the whole thing in the too hard basket until the morning as the blender
you bought is made of construction grade materials and operates at the volume
of a jackhammer. As the 5 year old has gone to bed, we are now in sacred time
and endangering this by engaging in activities that may awaken said small
person are considered heresy.
Instead, begin preparing the vegetables to
top the tart.
800g Japanese pumpkin, cut into 3 cm pieces
2 medium red onions, cut into wedges
2 teaspoons of fresh thyme leaves
1 tablespoon olive oil
Since you bought a butternut pumpkin, use
that instead. Cut the pumpkin in half and carefully slice the skin off. Weigh
the pumpkin carefully. Make sure that your wife comes into the kitchen at this
moment to see you weighing the pumpkin and look at you strangely, and comment
of the fact that you are in fact weighing a pumpkin that you intend to cut up
and roast. It is important at this point to murmur something incoherent about
not having cooked it before and following the recipe carefully.
Slice the tower of butternut pumpkin every
three centimetres, then cut each slice into 8 wedges. Be prepared, your wife
may rib you for the OCD way in which you incorporate geometry and order into
the chaos. Put two thirds of the pumpkin into a baking tray, then realise that
they are not all going to fit and find a larger baking tray. It is important to
create as much washing up as possible, as this gives the illusion that you are
cooking something difficult and complicated, leading to your spouse being more impressed.
Cut the onion into wedges, which will
promptly fall apart, and place their reconstructed corpses carefully into the
baking tray. Liberally and nonchalantly toss sprigs of thyme over the
vegetables to create an artistic effect. Drizzle liberally with olive oil (1
tablespoon my ass) Ignore the fact that the thyme is meant to be in leaf form
and measured, despite the fact that you measured the pumpkin. This is because
you didn’t read the recipe properly, and because it’s 9:30 at night by this
point and you don’t care anymore.
Place in the oven that you preheated about
an hour and a half ago to 200⁰ C. Cook for
15 minutes, and then turn the pumpkin and cook for another 15 minutes. Ignore
the onions, because it is possible to be too pedantic. The turning process will
ruin your artistic arrangement, because to truly understand one’s art one must
be willing to destroy it.
This is the point where you realise that
maybe you would like to write a blog about this process, and you take a photo
of the vegetables, even though there are at least three points earlier where
photos may have aided the narrative.
At this point it will be 11:30 at night. On
her way to bed, your wife may comment that it smelled good while it was
cooking. This will make you simultaneously glow inside and idly wonder how it
smells now. Go to bed.
The following morning, it’s time to attempt
the pastry once more. Load the ingredients into the blender. This time, you may
want to beat the egg before adding it to the mix, in hope that the yolk may be
somewhat more evenly distributed. Pulse the blender like you just don’t care,
although you do, deeply. After a few pulses, the dough will appear to stop
reacting to the spinning blades of death. Either it has succumbed and passed
on, or you have achieved some modicum of success. Extract the dough from the
blender. It may be sticky, and much of the dough will be caught under the
vicious serrated apparatus. Try not to lose any fingers in this operation, as
that would surely ruin the pastry dough you have worked so hard to create.
Once the dough has been extracted, knead it
to ensure that it has been fully combined. No doubt you will find chunks of
cream cheese at this point that have evaded the blender – ignore them. It would
be ridiculous to risk the blender again. By denying reality, you can create
your own – trust me, lots of people do it. Wrap the soft, silky (or rough and
crumbly) dough in cling wrap and place in the fridge.
At this point it is apparently traditional
to take your 5 year old to a birthday party at a bowling alley. He will love
this. It will be the 9th level of hell for you.
When you return, it will be quite late, so
you will need to get straight into the final steps. Preheat the oven once more
to 200⁰ C and remove the dough from the fridge.
Let it rest for 15 minutes, as it has had a hard day chilling in the fridge. Place
the dough between two sheets of baking paper and use a rolling pin to create a ’30 cm round’. The
implication here is that you will end up with a perfect circle. You won’t. It
is actually impossible, no matter how carefully you apply consistent pressure
to all points of the compass.
Remove one sheet of baking paper from the
circular oblong shape. At this point, take the roasted vegetables and place
them into an artistic pile in the centre of the pastry. Leave 4 cm around the
edge for reasons which will become both apparent and pointless later. Crumble
the fetta and spread it over the pumpkin and onions. Tear up the bocconcini and
do the same.
At this point, raise the 4 cm edge to
create a containment barrier for the vegetables and cheese. This is how you are
able to distinguish between a ‘tart’ and a ‘pizza’. Basic geometry will make
you realise quickly that you cannot raise a circular edge consistently to 90⁰. Instead, cheat by using what are known as ‘pleats’, which is where
you mash the pastry dough into the desired shape regardless of its compliance
or the laws of physics. Place the tart on a baking tray. This is important, as
things that go in ovens must be on baking trays. Place the baking tray with the
tart on it in the oven and set the timer for 30 minutes.
Now it is time for the green leaf salad.
Carefully take the mixed greens from the
plastic bag and gently place them in the salad bowl.
The recipe then calls for ‘matchsticks’ of
beurre bosc pear. No doubt the more observant of you have noticed that a
matchstick is rectangular in shape and the pear is basically round. I can’t
help you, figure it out.
Sprinkle the pear matchsticks on the salad
and toss. Try to keep the majority of the salad in the bowl if at all possible.
Chop up some dill and sprinkle it over the
salad. You probably don’t like dill. No one likes dill, but it is in the recipe
so do it anyway.
Squeeze a lemon into a small attractive
glass for the dressing. Add a similar amount of olive oil. At this point it is
important to remember that as a male, you know very little about salad. Give
the pseudo dressing to your wife for repair.
When the timer goes on the oven, don’t
bother looking. Knowing that all ovens in rental properties are sub-par, simply
reset the timer for 15 minutes safe in the knowledge that you followed the
recipe and the recipe has failed you.
It is finally time to serve and enjoy.
Remove the tart from the oven. As foreshadowed earlier, you will find at this
point that the laws of physics have reigned supreme, and your tart has reverted
to its native state – a pizza that has stepped above its social class. Never
mind, it’s too late to turn back now.
You may also notice that there are striking
differences between the picture in the recipe book and the final result of your
efforts. This is normal, as the food in the photo has been lovingly and
carefully prepared by professional chefs and photographed by experienced photographers,
whereas this tart has been made by…you.
Guess
which one you cooked?
At the end of this apparently incredibly
long process, it is finally time to settle down and enjoy your meal. Whilst I
don’t think I swept my love from her feat with my culinary accomplishments, she
seemed to quite enjoy the meal, and even more enjoyed the fact that for once,
she hadn’t cooked it. Mission accomplished!
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