Pear Tatin....DONE!

As I mentioned in the last post, one of our new favorite shows is Gordon Ramsay's F Word shown on BBC America. Last week we were watching one of the DVR'd episodes (our DVR is approximately 85% full of either the F Word or Kitchen Nightmares, lol). For those of you who haven't checked it out yet, the format of the show is a group of people (the "brigade") work in the F Word's restaurant kitchen to prepare a 3 course meal for a group of 50 people. In between courses, Ramsay has various segments which typically include healthy eating, celebrity cook off and the season's project (i.e. rearing pigs, lamb, veal calves to be butchered and cooked at the end of the season). We love the show and all recipes are available online! It's perfect for us home chefs ;-)

Marily and I had just finished eating our dinner while watching the episode when the dessert course came up. The brigade had to prepare a pear tatin...which looked absolutely delicious. Marily enthusiastically shouted out "I want that!" I started cycling through the ingredients in my head and realized we had most of them in the house. The only thing I thought we were missing was the puff pastry, until Marily reminded me we had some pie crusts in the fridge. So, I jumped up and excitedly ran to the kitchen to grab all the ingredients.

The original recipe can be found here: Ramsay's Pear Tatin

The website is UK based, so I've included the conversions and my adjustments below.

Ingredients

2 pears

4 star anise

1-2 vanilla pods

~21 oz puff pastry (refrigerated pie crusts will do the job in a pinch)

powdered sugar for dusting

vanilla ice cream

For the caramel

6 3/4 Tbsp granulated sugar

6 3/4 Tbsp butter

splash of dark rum

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 400˚F (I only did 350˚F as my non stick pan could only go that high)
2. Peel the pears, halve them and scoop out the cores with a melon baller to create a small, even circular hole.
3. Insert a star anise into each hole. Use a small knife to cut out the stalks at the top of the pears and replace them with the pieces of vanilla pod.
   
   
4. Roll out the pastry to a large sheet. Divide into 4 pieces. Mould each piece of pastry around the peeled side of each pear and trim away the excess pastry. Place the pears in the fridge to rest for 10 minutes.
   
   
5. 
   To make the caramel melt the sugar and butter in a large heavy-based ovenproof pan. Finish with a splash of rum to deglaze the pan and loosen the caramel.
   
   

6. Remove the pears from the fridge and place them cut-side down on top of the caramel. Generously dust the pastry with powdered sugar.
   
   


7. Bake the tatins for 8-10 minutes until the pastry is golden and crisp (since I used a lower heat, I cooked the pears for about 15 minutes). Leave to stand for a minute or so, then slide a palate knife under each pear and carefully lift and flip over on to a warmed plate.
8. Trickle over the caramelized pan juices and serve with scoops of vanilla ice-cream.

Adventures in Pasta Making: Gnocchi

My sister, Debbie, had the big idea to make gnocchi tonight.  I'm always up for a cooking challenge, so I said "sure why not, we can do it!"  (although, she had doubts all day about it)  I found a recipe on a blog called 101CookBooks, How to Make Gnocchi like an Italian Grandmother Recipe.  It sounded good and hey, if it was an Italian grandmother's recipe, then it must be good!!

The first step was to boil 2 potatoes for about 45 minutes.  Afterwards, we quickly removed them from the water and peeled them.  Debbie handled the mashing of the potatoes using a fork (no fancy potato ricer or mill to use).  Once mashed, I added 1/4 cup of beaten eggs and 3/4 cup of flour and started to create a dough.  After some careful kneading, I divided the dough into 8 balls:

From there, I rolled the balls out into "snakes" before cutting them into small 3/4 inch pieces or as I like to call them "pillows."

Using a fork, we pressed the gnocchi pillows into it using our thumbs to give it a slight curve shape and texture from the fork lines, which allows the gnocchi to grab the sauce you choose to eat it with.

From here, we dropped the gnocchi back into boiling water to cook them.

Being the first time we ever made gnocchi, I think they came out pretty good.  I've only tried them once before, so I don't have much experience to base it on.  They were soft but strong enough to withstand tossing in the heavy gravy we made.  My sister thought the texture was off though...that they were too soft.  I'm wondering if we made them too thick, which didn't allow them to cook enough in the middle?  In any case, I'm not discouraged at all.  Even the bloggers we got the recipe from make it known that gnocchi is not something you get right the first time.  It takes experience and a whole lot of patience.  Which I completely agree.  This adventure took about 2 1/2-3 hours from start to finish.  When I try to make gnocchi again, I think I will prep the potatoes the night before, which will help to break up the time needed to prepare this dish.

Here is the tomato based "gravy" that Tara gave us the recipe for:

(Cento crushed tomatoes, tomato paste, chopped onions, garlic, fresh basil, fresh oregano, sugar, salt and pepper)

We enjoyed this with some pot roast my dad made and some green beans my mother had stir fried.  It was truly a family affair, although Marily missed out on it all because she had to call in sick :-(

Oh by the way...did I mention that I made a peach cobbler with the peaches I picked up at the farmers market this morning?  I used a simple  Peach Cobbler recipe on the Food Network's website from Paula Deen.

Sweetening up the peaches for the filling:

Mixing up the batter:

Ready for the oven:

About an hour later, the finished product...

Topping it off with a little vanilla ice cream...it was absolutely delicious!!!