3/31 fava bean and dill braise with poached eggs

I admit it, fava bean season gets me all in a tizzy. I know I'm supposed to complain about the picky two-step process to prep them. First you remove the clever little beans from their fuzzy shells and then peal off their charming jackets (which can be quickened by par boiling them, but I prefer the texture when you peal them raw). It's all good to me - it only means I'll be eating favas when the job is done!

Fava beans have a slightly pea-like flavor with a bit more attitude. They're a spring bean and they grow like mad in the Bay Area's Mediterranean climate. They pair nicely with other spring delights, like bunches of green garlic and dill. I sauted these three together for a few minutes before adding a couple of cups of water and letting it simmer (covered) for about 15 minutes. Then, I made a several wells right in the braise and added a couple of drops of rice vinegar and olive oil to each well. In went the eggs, which poached for about 5 minutes.

Serve over rice and eat immediately.

3/14 More on tart crusts

I spent the weekend in the kitchen, despite the beautiful California spring weather and the weeds taking over my backyard patio.

I started Saturday off with a smoked salmon tart. You may remember this tart (or quiche) - I've posted about it previously. This seemed like a perfect opportunity to document more fully the making of a non-yeasted tart dough, especially since my proficiency level has increased exponentially from the early days (read: September).

A good crust starts with cold butter, cold water, flour, and salt. That is it. The key is not to add too much water. I make mine in a tiny food processor and stop adding water as soon as damp, loose crumbs form.

The second step is to roll out the crust to the desired thickness (large enough to fold over the edges and create a lip when the crust is placed in the tart pan). I finally have enough rolling pin skills to do this well. Here is the crust pre-oven:

Next, the crust is frozen briefly before baking for 25 minutes. Here is a shot of my home-made pie weight (kidney beans in foil) and sauted green garlic and spinach, waiting to fill the tart:Last but not least, the pre-baked tart shell is filled with the sauted greens, smoked salmon and a custard mix of eggs, milk, and creme fraiche (I beat 2 eggs and 1/2 cup creme fraiche in a 2 cup pirex, then pour in enough milk to bring to a total of 1 3/4 cups) and baked for about 40 minutes.

Finally, serve with a salad dressed lightly with honey and spring onion vinaigrette:
Take a brief tour through my past tart / quiche exploits. While they were all pretty yummy, I think I'm finally getting to the point where I'm making something quite lovely that gets the details right.

3/14 A spring quiche/tart/thing

This was made more recently (on March 3). I have been making a lot of different tarts and quiches lately, with either yeasted or non-yeasted crusts. I had been avoiding the yeasted crusts since I was having a hard time getting the dough to rise properly. This time around, I put the dough in my oven on "warm" and let it rise in there, which helped considerably. I think the oven was probably still too warm even though I had some good rising action happening, so next time I do this I will leave the door propped open a little.

A yeasted dough can be simply spread in the tart pan and the ingredients poured right in to bake. A non-yeasted dough needs to be prebaked. I was having a lot of problems with bubbles forming in the bottom of my non-yeasted doughs, even when I was pricking holes in the crust to let the steam escape. One of my friends reminded me of the old "foil and beans" trick to weight down pre-baked pie crusts, which I have employed once now to great success.

Another trick when baking a filled quiche (either yeasted or non) is to really wait until you see a nice brown crust to pull it out of the oven (as opposed to relying on the old, "45 minutes and it's done" rule).

The real moral here is that this particular quiche, which had asparagus and red onions, was the product of many a trial and error. I'm a "learn by repeating" kind of girl - even though I consider myself relatively adept in the kitchen, even I have cooking disasters.

A recent example came when I tried to make muffins with buttermilk in the batter. I blended my dry ingredients together and then went to mix in the buttermilk. Thinking it would be faster to use my electric mixer, I blended for a few seconds and then noticed the buttermilk separating into solids and water. It was disgusting. I had to throw the whole thing away and didn't have any muffins. I still don't know precisely what went wrong, but I know next time I will not not not use an electric mixer.