Tarte aux Epinards et aux Oeufs / Spinach Egg Pie

My husband made dinner!! I was a little surprised that he chose to make this:

He chose a recipe from the January 2015 issue of Cuisine Actuelle. Yes, my friends, it looks strange, but it was actually quite tasty. It was cheesy and the golden, delicious, liquid egg yolk made it sing. We both agreed that this did turn out a little bland as is. If we make it again, I think a little onion or garlic added to the spinach would do the trick.  

Translated recipe:

Spinach Egg Pie

Serves 4, 30 min. prep time, 55 min. cook time.

1 refrigerated pie crust

250 g.(roughly 8 oz or 1/2 lb.)fresh, baby spinach*

4 eggs

50 g. of butter (about 1/2 stick)

30 cl. whole milk

125 g. (about 4 oz.) grated cheese**

2 tbsp. flour

salt and pepper, to taste

Heat oven to 210°C (~ 410°F). If your pie crust is the rolled kind, roll it out into your pie pan. Dock the dough with a fork several times and place it in the fridge.

Melt 30 g. of your butter in a sauce pan. Add in the flour and stir. Add in the milk, little by little stirring constantly until it thickens about 3 min. on low heat. Add salt and pepper.

Rinse your spinach and place them in a pan with a pinch of salt. Cook, covered about 3 min. or until wilted. Drain and squeeze out spinach. Give them a rough chop.

Place Spinach into the milk mixture. Mix in one beaten egg and the grated cheese. 

Pour this mixture into the prepared pie shell. Place it in the oven and cook for 20 min. Then, lower the oven temperature to 180°C (~350°F). Cook 15 minutes more. 

Remove the pie from the oven and top with the 3 remaining whole eggs. Return to the oven for about 7 min, or until the eggs reach the desired doneness. Salt and pepper the eggs to taste. 

*You can substitute 1 small pkg. of frozen spinach

**Pick a cheese you like. Usually in France, this would be Emmental. 

Fondant très fondant au chocolat et sa crème à la vanille

A.K.A. really freaking good chocolate cake with crème anglaise!

Stats:
Source: adapted from Cuisine Actuelle, Septembre 2012 (n. 261)
Serves : 6 (although I would argue more… it’s very rich)
Prep time: 20 min
Cook time: 60 min.
Ready to eat in: Several Hours if you prefer it chilled.

You will need:

For the cake:
250 g. dark chocolate (65% recommended)
250 g. softened butter + 20 g. butter for the pan
3 eggs
150 g. sugar
75 g. corn starch

For the Crème Anglaise:
100 g. sugar
50 cl. milk
1 tbsp vanilla extract or 1 vanilla bean
6 egg yolks

Directions:
1. Heat the oven to 300°F (150°C). Cut out a parchment paper circle to fit in the bottom of a 9 in. (23 cm.) cake pan. Butter the pan using the 20 g. of butter. Place the parchment in the bottom of the pan and butter it too.  

2. Place the buttered pan into a larger pan. (Your cake will bake in a bain marie, a.k.a water bath. So, you may want to heat up some water now, too.

3. Break the chocolate up into small pieces and melt with the butter either in a double boiler or in the microwave. Stir to combine.

4.    Whip the eggs and sugar together until light in color. Fold in the corn starch. Then the chocolate/butter mixture.

5. Pour the batter into the pan. Place in the oven on the middle rack. Gently pour hot water into the outer, larger pan until the depth is half that of the cake pan.

6. Bake 1 hour. Let cool completely before turning out.

7. Make your crème anglaise: (Really you could do this while your cake is baking. I prefer to eat it chilled.)

If you use a vanilla bean: Place the milk in a sauce pan and heat almost to boiling. Then add in your cut and scraped vanilla bean. Let it steep for a minute or two. Remove the vanilla bean before serving.

If you do not use vanilla bean, just heat your milk to warm. You can add your vanilla extract at the end before serving.

8. Combine egg yolks and sugar in a heat proof bowl. Temper your eggs by whisking in a bit of the hot milk at a time. Place this over a pan of boiling water and stir continuously. You want to cook it until it coats the back of a spoon.

If you need a quick tutorial on the steps, watch this video. Yeah, I know it’s in French. Yeah, I also know he did not temper his eggs or use a double boiler to cook it. These are insurance against burning and cooked eggs. But hey, you're grown, do what you want.

 http://www.atelierdeschefs.fr/fr/techniques-de-cuisine/150-realiser-une-creme-anglaise.php

Cool your crème anglaise before you serve it for a better taste. (my personal opinion).

Carambarmisù

From the Mai 2012 issue of Cuisine Actuelle: Carambarmisù
A made-up contraction of the words Tiramisu and Carambar

Carambar is a caramel candy from France with jokes on the inside like Laffy Taffy. They are for kids and are generally cheesy.

  My favorite (that I know would never make it on the inside of a Laffy Taffy for American kids to giggle over):

“Qu’est-ce qu’on donne à un elephant qui a la diarrhea?”
(“What do you give to an elephant with diarrhea?”)

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“Réponse: Beaucoup d’espace !”
(“Answer: Lots of Space!!!”)

Haahahahahahahahaaa

Ok, that's enough funny business! Back to the recipe! 

This is a change from the traditional tiramisu. Usually you take lady fingers, dip them in an espresso syrup, layer the custard and cookies and top with a dusting of cocoa.

Carambarmisu lets you chose the cookie you use and you drizzle them with the caramel syrup you make using the candy.

The recipe reads:

Beat 2 egg yolks and 50g of sugar. Incorporate 150g marscarpone, 1 tsp. rum, 2 egg whites beaten to stiff peaks. Melt 5 Carambar in 20 cl of cream. Alternate layers of cream, crushed cookies of choice, and the caramel in glasses. Serve chilled.

Yes,  a-straight-and-to-the-point, I-hope-you-know-what-you-are-doing recipe. Typical of the French. They expect that everyone knows what he/she is doing in the kitchen. Now, let's do an American version that clears it up a bit. Oh, and by the way, this recipe does contain raw eggs (That's traditional! Blame the Italians...). Don't eat it if you are not supposed to! ( i.e. you have a compromised immune system, you are very young, elderly, or pregnant) Make sure your eggs are fresh, and you shouldn't have any problems.

You will need:

2 eggs, separated

50 g (about 1/4 c.) sugar

150 g (about 5 ounces) mascarpone*

1 tsp. rum

About 50 g (about 1.5 oz.) of caramel candy

20 cl. (about 7 fl. oz) or cream (heavy cream or half & half)*

Step 1:

Separate your eggs while cold. Let come to room temperature.

Melt your caramel candies in the cream over low heat. Let cool slightly.

Step 2: 

Whisk together egg yolks, most of the sugar, the mascarpone, and the rum. 

+ I actually used 2 tsp of rum because I thought it needed it... then, I was bad and added in a splash of Kahlua, too. I used a hand held mixer to do all my whisking. 

Step 3:

Whip egg whites and remaining sugar to stiff peaks. Fold the whites into the yolk mixture.

+ Apparently, I don't like to follow directions, but I have a good reason. Since it is easy to over-whip egg whites, I reserved some sugar to whip along with it. I also threw in a small pinch of Cream of tartar. Another protection for the proteins in your egg whites. 

Step 4:

The Magazine suggests using individual glasses for serving, I didn't feel like it, so I made one big one. You decide on your container(s). I used an 8x8 square. It also doesn't tell you what cookies to use or how much. All it says is crushed.... Hmmm.... Room for creativity! This is caramel flavored so it could go with so many things.


+I wasn't sure what to chose, so I went for the classic: The Lady Finger. Well, I also didn't crumble the cookies. Why would I, they fit perfectly into my dish? I was also naughty and deviated from the recipe again and used up some left over coffee by mixing it with sugar and dipping the lady fingers in it as with the traditional recipe.... I liked it, but coffee is a strong flavor and it kind of overpowered the Carambar, so I am not sure that I recommend doing that. 


Step 5: Final step! Assembly! Place a layer of your cookies in the dish, top with the caramel cream you made, top that with some of the custard (egg mixture), repeat. You may chose to dust the top with cocoa... or not....You decide. Place in the refrigerator to chill thoroughly.... 

Voilà! You have Carambarmisu!

*Notes:

Mascarpone is a soft Italian cheese similar to cream cheese. It usually comes in an 8 ounce tub. In our grocery stores, it is over by the fancy cheeses like brie... not over by the cream cheese and cheddar ;)

The recipe says Liquid Cream... I thought immediately of heavy cream, but I didn't have quite enough on hand so I substituted the rest with half & half.


More info on Carambar: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carambar