It's Autumn, So Let the Baking Begin - New York Times
It's Autumn, So Let the Baking Begin - New York Times |
| It's Autumn, So Let the Baking Begin - New York Times Posted: 29 Sep 2009 12:00 AM PDT  IT all started when my friend Robin called to ask how to roast a chicken with the fresh figs she'd just picked up. "Do I chop the figs up and stuff them under the skin? Or throw them whole in the pan along with the chicken?" she asked. I didn't know. Not only had I never roasted a chicken with figs, but I'd never roasted a fig, or even baked one for more than the few minutes needed to soften a stuffing of goat cheese. This lapse was even more surprising given that a prolific fig tree is the pride of my backyard. I eat the figs as fast as I can pluck them. Roasting them just wasn't in my repertory. Now Robin had put the image of slow-roasted figs in my head. I could picture them becoming jam-like bonbons in the oven, maybe on a savory tart with caramelized onions and blue cheese. I went out to harvest my supper. It was cool and drizzly, a good thing since I was about to turn on the oven, something I would not have done lightly a few weeks earlier. I'll bake the occasional peach pie or berry crumble in summer. But most of my baking takes place when I crave the coziness of a warm hearth. I'd rarely done much savory baking with late summer produce like figs, eggplants, zucchini, peppers or tomatoes. With the days getting cooler, though, I could see some new ways of cooking with the bounty that still fills the farmers' markets. That tart was up first. I used packaged puff pastry because I thought the dense, almost candied figs would work well with an airy, flaky crust — one that I didn't have to make. While the onions caramelized in a pan, I mixed up a little egg and milk custard to bind the onions in the tart and turn the edges of the pastry coppery in the heat. As a final touch I sprinkled on some Stilton and fresh rosemary. The tart emerged from the oven with purple fruit slicked with syrupy juices. The cheese and rosemary helped balance the intensity of the figs, while a drizzling of honey at the end brought out the sweetness of onions and figs. Although I ate it for dinner with an arugula salad, it would make an elegant appetizer for a party. A few days later, I had my eye on a fat heirloom tomato softening on the counter. I should have eaten it days ago. It was too soft for a tart. If I puréed it, maybe I could use the liquid in a cake. As I started flipping through cookbooks for an applesauce cake recipe to riff on, I got waylaid by a photo of glossy, gruyère-filled cheese puffs called gougères. Or how about a tomato éclair filled with ricotta? It wasn't such a leap. Gougères are made from the same choux pastry as éclairs. I could just substitute tomato purée for the water. Tomatoes and cheese are always happy recipe mates. The hungry and impulsive cook in me wanted to jump up and start cracking eggs. But the more mature cook, who didn't want to end up with a pan of leaden tomato snakes, decided to check in with an expert first. I called Nick Malgieri, the director of baking programs at the Institute of Culinary Education and author of "The Modern Baker" (DK Publishing, 2008), and excitedly told him about my tomato éclair idea. He paused before answering. "I feel the same about it as I do about Ferran Adrià's risotto made out of tiny pieces of squid. I probably wouldn't do it myself but I wouldn't want to stop anyone else from trying it either." Not wanting to burst my tomato-y bubble, he dispensed a spate of advice, including an exhortation to use the entire tomato, including the seeds and their flavorful jelly. This, he thought, would give the best flavor without making the pastries too heavy. And if the éclairs remained a little damp in the center after baking, I should pull out the wet dough before filling. I got to work, puréeing the tomato and adding it to a classic choux pastry made with eggs, flour and butter. While the éclairs baked and puffed, I made a filling of goat ricotta mixed with garlic and basil. I had planned to use regular ricotta but the cheese shop also had the goat kind, and I love goat cheese with tomatoes. When the éclairs were cool, I sliced them in half and scooped out the damp dough (only a few were damp, most were light and dry) before spooning on the filling, plus sliced cherry tomatoes. They were adorable and such perfect cocktail fare that I immediately wished I had planned a soirée around them. Instead, a friend and I polished them off. Buoyed by two baking successes, I was ready to try again. This time, I set my sights on my fridge full of late summer eggplants, zucchini and peppers just begging to become ratatouille. My idea was to bake a ratatouille potpie under a crust of cornmeal biscuits. A typical ratatouille recipe has you sauté all the vegetables separately, then combine them. That seemed too laborious for a potpie. So I streamlined the method by making a sauce on the stove with the peppers and tomatoes, stirring in roasted eggplant and zucchini, and sausage for extra flavor, and baking everything covered in dough. When the biscuits were golden and the filling bubbling up around them, I pulled the potpie from the oven and dug in. The nubby, tender biscuits soaked up all the good, roasted vegetable juices. It tasted like an August day but was warming enough for chilly afternoon — just what autumn baking is all about. |
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