The Dessert Crowns X-Mas Dinner: Apple-Chestnut Cheesecake Tart & Pear Crostada & Pumpkin Cheesecake Gingersnap Macadamia Nut Crusted Madness... OH MY!

“The dessert crowns the dinner. To create a fine dessert, one has to combine the skills of a confectioner, a decorator, a painter, an architect, an ice-cream manufacturer, a sculptor, and a florist. The splendour of such creations appeals above all to the eye - the real gourmand admires them without touching them! The magnificence of the dessert should not allow one to forget the cheese. Cheese complements a good dinner and supplements a bad one.”
~Eugene Briffault (1799-1854)

Apple-Chestnut Cheesecake Tart, just prior to being baked. The fragrances wafting out of the oven through the apartment would make even the most ascetic heavenly angel salivate like Pavlov's dogs. 

Some wisenheimer was once said to have sagely advised, "Life is uncertain. Eat dessert first." Well, truth be told, I prefer to drink my dessert. (Not a wise thing to do on an empty stomach, trust me. Sorry, Ernestine Ulmer.) As a rule, I'm not a dessert eater but tis the season to be indulging... it's yet again what those songs, jangling incessantly in malls all across the country since mid-November, remind us is the most wonderful time of the year, and I've got visions of sugarplums dancing in my head. Almost. It's a bit early still for me to be thinking and feeling Christmasy, but I'm trying to put the bloom on my mistletoe and get all my gingerbread men in a row to regale you, dear reader, with the joys of Noel.

Although, honestly, I don't even buy a tree until the 20th of December or so. The frantic search for a perfectly fresh Noble Fir amidst a nearly empty lot containing vagabond trees that even Charlie Brown would look askance at has become an annual tradition for me. Once my young, blonde, bonhomous, well-muscled South African delivery man drives me and my tree home,  and we squeeze it into our apartment's narrow doorway, I  wait until Christmas Eve to decorate it while the esposo and I have Vince Guaraldi, George Winston and Paul Winter playing in the background. Then after the tree lighting ceremony where O Tannenbaum is sung, we cozy up and watch our favorite Christmas videos with champagne, foie gras pate, a cheese plate with olives, honeycomb & spiced nuts, ahi poke, smoked salmon, shrimp cocktail, a wee bit of caviar. Charlie Brown, The Grinch Who Stole Christmas, Scrooge - the 1950s version with Alastair Sim all keep us company on Christmas Eve. It's intimate, it's quiet, and pine scented... Gosh, I love the scent of pine... Christmas Day dinner these days in Casa Gomez is usually an orange-scented garlicky pork roast, truffly smashed potatoes, choucroute... pretty simple, straightforward stuff. A nod to my husband's Germanic heritage. I will make something sweet for breakfast but that varies year to year. Tradition dictates these matters, and I become its willing slave. There is certain comfort in the rituals of these celebrations of culture whether one is religious or not. Atheist though I may be, I become a devout worshipper of Christ during the winter solstice, my limbic brain is parochial school green plaid skirt clad this time of year as I search for the holy brioche. Me... pounding the pavement, scaling mountains of concrete, descending into the hell of bread lines, but persevering... striving... and surviving the madness and mayhem of holiday grocery shopping with pain de mie and hawkwing mushrooms for all...

Growing up in my little East Harlem public housing apartment, we always had a fresh bowl of nuts in the house, a broken nutcracker, pernil asado, arroz con gandules, and pasteles - a traditional Puerto Rican Christmas food, very much like a Mexican tamale except the masa is made from grated green bananas (occasionally and unintentionally flecked with the skin and blood of those like yours truly assembled and assigned to grate the damned things). Pastele's interior yields a savory stewed pork, wrapped in plantain leaves and paper and tied with string for a festive, Christmas-gift look. My stoic abuelita is said to have made the best, sadly I wouldn't know. I refused to taste them - I suppose the loss of my knuckle skin might have contributed to my distaste for them. As an adult, I learned to adore them on the rare occasion someone's mother or grandmother offered me some and now ironically can't find them anywhere in San Francisco. I try to take the philosophical view about this. It's a form of poetic justice. For 15 years I rejected untasted what the bookmakers in the neighborhood wagered were the finest pasteles in East Harlem. A veritable paragon of pastel-hood were lovingly wrought by my abuelita's hands. I'd make my own but my abuelita's recipes died with her. I don't have the heart to try to recreate her magic. I don't deserve pasteles. I'll eat tamales instead.

Pasteles Filling Before Being Wrapped & Boiled 

Desserts at 421 East 102nd Street Apt. 1-A, NY NY 10029 included an assortment of cookies, puddings and pastries. Store-bought Entenmann's pumpkin and coconut custard pies graced our table (as an interesting aside, William Entenmann was an immigrant from Stuttgart, Germany who arrived on the Brooklyn shoreline in the late 1880, opened a small bakery there and quickly gained notoriety serving prestigious customers... everyone from the Vanderbilts to Frank Sinatra; in the early 50's, William died but his  family created an empire of goodies that still sell well until this day. His is the quintessential American success story). Then there were the more traditional Boricua homemade sweets whipped up by my grandmother, such as: 

Tembleque - a Puerto Rican blancmange made by cooking coconut milk, milk, salt, cornstarch, cinnamon, sugar, cloves, vanilla, and nutmeg or extra flavoring such as rum, orange blossom water and cream of coconut, garnished with mint, cinnamon, almonds, fruit, flavored syrup or chocolate shavings. So silky smooth.  

Arroz con Coco - another humble dessert of rice, coconut milk and spices traditionally made in Puerto Rican households throughout the Christmas season. 

Arroz con Leche - less exotic, more like American rice pudding with raisins, cinnamon and milk; batches of it are made, poured into plates, sprinkled with cinnamon and then shared with neighbors as well as our family. It was too much of a glutinous mess for my delicate palate, though everyone in my family scarfed it up, leaving more tembleque for me.

Tembleque

There was also Budin de Pan (a dense brick-like Puerto Rican Bread Pudding), Dutch butter cookies, Italian Stella D'oro brand amaretti as well as their assortment of cookies with star and flower-shaped pretty pink frosting and a rainbow of sprinkles known as Lady Stella; Guava paste; Turron de Navidad - a traditional Spanish candy consisting of only three ingredients: almonds, honey and egg white, and Dulce de Leche which I could never get enough of... it was a crumbly delicate thing that instantly melted as it felt the heat of your tongue... more like Mexican cajeta, a chalky caramel fudge, than the caramel sauce most non-Puerto Ricans associate with it... Quesitos de Guayaba (sweetened cream cheese and guava Pastries bought from the bakery on 103rd street and Lexington right next to the #6 IRT Subway Station). Of course, even we had the obligatory and ubiquitous Christmas fruitcake of dubious European descent. Every civilized household must.  We had the same tin of fruitcake that we took out annually like all the other Christmas decorations for the first 15 years of my life. We never once considered eating it. Nobody ever opened it! I bet bats or snakes would have flown out if they did. I can't vouch for what happened to it after I left home at that tender age. It may be hidden in the bowels of the old coat closet still waiting for some intrepid explorer to open its tin and immerse himself into a darker knowing.

Beverages flowed and included Egg Nog (which I hated), Coquito (Puerto Rican Egg nog with coconut which I loved), Maví, a tree bark-based beverage grown and widely consumed throughout the Caribbean, it's a certain species in the Colubrina genus including Colubrina elliptica (also called behuco indio) and Colubrina arborescens, a small tree native to the northern Caribbean and south Florida. Mavi is laced with spices, colored with achiote (aniseed). We'd buy it from neighbors who made batches of it with the mavi tree bark, fresh ginger, whole cinnamon, water, sugar & dark brown sugar. More acidic and mouth-puckering than ginger or root beer, it is an acquired taste, but was as indispensable a part of the holiday tradition as the Christmas tree. Malta (which is a sort of yeasty non-alcoholic dark beer which I quaffed instead of soda for years, the brand we used was La Malta Dukesa which had a catchy jingle that I still sing on occasion) was also available for kiddie consumption.

Coquito 

There truly was abundance at this time of year in my home. Three generations of us were there together and all the adults pooled their meager paychecks, welfare checks and pensions to make it a wonderful celebration. I had no inkling we were "poor". We were well-nourished by my grandmother which is another way of saying we were well-loved. Promises and pie crusts are made to be broken, but the people who give you food give you their heart, because love is a delicious dish served warm. She put her entire being into cooking our meals and treats. I suppose that was another reason I never felt loved by my own mother, it wasn't so much her physical and emotional abuse, I think it's that she never once cooked for us.

Of course, our little apartment was crammed with people and the chaos level was high, invariably fights would break out. I remember one Christmas when my grandfather had cashed his pension check and hidden his cache in the angel tree topper but forgot! He accused all and sundry of stealing it, it was like Jericho in there, he brought all the walls down, but I straightened him out before the police arrived - that was my job as a child... the lunatic whisperer. I was actually proud that I could help. I never considered it anything but normal. 

Christmas brings the hibernating child out in so many of us. Holiday traditions abound worldwide as revelers celebrate Solstice, Christmas, Chanukah, Kwaanza or Festivus. When I polled my friends this year to glean further insight into the hows and whats of Christmas desserts, they spoke with anticipatory gustatory relish about sweet treats as varied as Calabrese Christmas Cake (an Italian delicacy that may go back before Christian times, originally made to celebrate a Roman snake goddess with her coils constricted and laced in butter, raisins & cinnamon)... to the lovely delicately powdered, fruit-studded German stollen and its distant cousin Italian Panettone (part cake, part bread); to sturdy sweetmeat nutted and sugar spiked minced pies, so favored from that great island nation of Britain... to Divinity: the nougaty & sublimely named powdery white confection of the American South; to Buche de Noel, the French derived dense ganache-covered Christmas cake rolled with whipped cream, decorated with confectioners' sugar to resemble snow on a Yule log. There is no end to the innovation of the pastry-minded. I, however, intend to offer the homecook three simple variations of a theme - all of them easily adaptable and interchangeable with substituted ingredients, though I have chosen to showcase seasonal fruits: a pumpkin cheesecake with macadamia nut gingersnap crust, a pear and almond crostada, and an apple-chestnut cheesecake tart. Think of them as my Three Magi bearing the gift of Christmas dessert.

A Primer On Pie Crusts ( Pâte Brisée)  

Gingersnap Macadamia Nut Crust

Store-bought pre-made pie doughs and prepared crusts can be substituted for my homemade pie dough, if you need to save time, but it is so easy to make crusts at home it should be your first option. You can also make the dough for the crusts months ahead of time and freeze them. They store perfectly well there as long as you have them wrapped in plastic and slip them in a Ziploc bag and press as much air as you can out of the bags before zipping them. The crust for the crostada and the tart are essentially the same, they are just formed differently. I use a 12' fluted tart pan for the apple-chestnut cheesecake tart, and nothing but a cookie sheet for the crostada. The gingersnap-macadamia nut crust is a snap to make: cookies & nuts pulverized in the food processor with a little additional sugar and melted butter, then the dough is pressed into the bottom of a buttered springform cake pan.

The trick with pie dough made with flour is that it requires time to chill after preparing, ideally for two hours.  You may ask,

"Why do I have to chill my pie dough before I roll it out. After I chill it, it’s too hard to work with?”

 Yes, like many things we kitchen warriors do, it seems unreasonable.  I understand waiting an hour for pie dough to chill feels like you fell into a wormhole, especially since you have to wait 10 minutes after the chilling process to make it pliable enough to roll out again! Well, believe it or not, there is reason to chill the dough, and the reasons are important for maintaining that flaky crust we all look forward to eating. It all has to do with gluten and moisture. By chilling the dough before rolling it out, we allow the present gluten strands time to settle down and relax. This actually makes your pastry dough easier to roll out and cuts down on any shrinking during the baking process. Chilling also lets the available moisture find its way back into all parts of the dough. Something that is hard to achieve while you are mixing the dough together. Chilling the dough also helps the fats in the dough re-solidify, which prevents the gluten from sticking together in one big clump. Rather (if you use the right mixture of fats) you’ll get flat sheets of fat (that make layers and thus flakes) and little balls of fat (that make melt sooner and coat the grains of flour, tender).

Remember, the harder you mix dough the more likely you are to make gluten, which is tough and elastic. That’s great for chewy bread, but bad for tender/flaky pie crust. Making pâte brisée in a food processor sounds easy, doesn't it? Albeit untraditional, you can achieve great results by letting the machine do some of the work. However, it may work too well, so be careful. Using a food processor helps keep the ingredients cooler since you are not subjecting it to the warmth of your hands,  and makes the steps of cutting the butter into the flour and mixing in the water go faster — two major factors when producing a flaky pie crust. But because it does come together so quickly, it can be easy to mix too much and overwork the dough. Pulse the dough and turn out onto your work surface just as the water is incorporated to avoid overworking.

The more the dough is mixed, rolled, and handled, the more the gluten develops. An overworked dough makes it difficult to work with and makes the finished pie crust tough. The crust may also shrink during baking which you can partly prevent by pressing aluminum foil or parchment paper over the crust, then using pie weights, dried beans or poking little vents in the crust with a fork to weight it down and then blind baking it. Blind baking a crust is pre-baking it before adding a filling. Very important when you are using wet ingredients as filling. Another way to keep the crust from shrinking is in the actual mixing process: try not to over-blend the butter when cutting it into the flour. And then, during mixing, only add in enough water as needed to bring the dough together, and only mix until the flour is moistened. It should roll into a ball in the food processor as soon as it is perfectly mixed. Overworked dough typically needs more water to bind everything together, emphasizing the problem even more. Is your dough getting sticky? Toss it into the fridge for a bit instead of adding more flour to overcompensate.

The tart shell, rolled out and chilling in the fridge with pie weights; when it's chilled it is then blind-baked with the pie weights to keep the dough from shrinking. 

 Overall, letting the dough rest in the fridge for at least one hour before rolling it out is a win-win situation with a purpose. Give your dough the time it needs. There's plenty to be done during that time in or out of the kitchen.

Now the doughs I am making here are shortbread crusts which are a bit sturdier and more forgiving. The additional sugar and butter makes them taste like butter cookies, they are the perfect crust for fruit tarts and cheesecakes because they can withstand the moisture of the fillings. For the apple-chestnut cheesecake tart I also added a TBS of sour cream in with the water. As an aside,  the history of shortbread goes back to at least the 12th century and originally started life as ‘biscuit bread’; biscuits that were made from left-over bread dough that was sometimes sweetened and dried out in the oven to form a hard, dry rusk. This practise took place over the whole of the British Isles, not just Scotland. Over time the leavening was lost and exchanged for butter, making it an expensive fancy treat that was only bought for celebrations such as Christmas and Hogsmanay (Scottish New Year). There are similar ‘breads’ outside of Scotland such as Shrewsbury cakes and Goosnagh cakes. The large amount of butter is what makes shortbread short: the term short, when applied to biscuits and pastry, means crumbly, like shortcrust pastry should be. It is the reason why the fat added to biscuits and pastries is called shortening. Today, shortbread is made from flour, butter and sugar, though other flavourings are added. Caraway was particularly popular; Mary Queen of Scots was particularly fond of them. Other extra ingredients included almonds and citrus fruits like this 18th century recipe from Mrs Frazer:

 Take a peck of flour…beat and sift a pound of sugar; take orange-peel, citron, and blanched almonds, of each half a pound, cut in pretty long thin pieces: mix these well in the flour; then make a hole in the middle of the flour, put in three table-spoons of good yeast; then work it up, but not too much…roll out; prickle them on top, pinch them neat round the edges, and strew sugar, carraways, peel, and citron, on the top. Fire it…in a moderate oven.

Pear Crostada

Out of the three, the pear crostada is the quickest and easiest to make. The crostada is a looser construction than its tart sister, she is something of a hippy: it's  basically just rolled out into a rough 12 inch circle, the center of which is then filled with ground almonds & fruit with a large enough border around it to allow you to fold the dough around it. I cut the butter into small dice and then put it in the freezer to keep it as cold as possible.  Don’t worry about rolling, folding and pleating the crust perfectly—its free-form nature is one of its many charms. Serve with softly whipped cream or vanilla ice cream. 

Essentially, I sliced three Bartlett pears, put them in a bowl, added a squeeze of lemon, a handful of brown sugar, a generous dusting of cinnamon, a pinch of ginger & some freshly ground almonds (I used the coffee grinder to grind them to meal, but not paste). 1-1/4 cup of flour, a stick plus 2 tablespoons unsalted butter (10 tablespoons), I also added 2 TBS of sugar and a 1/4 cup of almond meal to the pate brisee dough because I like my pastry dough a little sweet... that adds humectants to the dough which means I used less than a 1/4 cup of iced water, I actually made the dough in the food processor and cooled it in the freezer for 15 minutes after rolling it into a ball and flattening it into a disc...

Ingredients

 Pastry: 

• 1  cup all-purpose flour 
• 1/4 cup of freshly ground unsalted almonds
• 2 Tablespoons sugar 
• 1/2 teaspoon salt 
• 1 stick plus 2 Tablespoons unsalted butter (10 TBS total), chilled and cut in small pieces
• 2 Tablespoons sour cream 
• 3 to 4 Tablespoons ice water 

Filling:

• 4 firm-ripe Bosc or Bartlett pears (about 1 1/2 pounds) halved, cored and quartered, each quarter cut in 3 slices 
• 1/2 cup freshly ground almonds
• 2 teaspoons fresh lemon juice 
• 1/2 cup brown sugar 
• 2 tablespoons flour or cornstarch
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon 
• 1/2 teaspoon powdered ginger
• 1 pinch freshly ground nutmeg 
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1Tablespoon unsalted butter, cut into small pieces
• 1 Tablespoon of milk or cream

 Instructions 

For the pastry: 

Combine flour, sugar and salt in a food processor bowl
Cut butter in until the dry dough resembles cornmeal.
Quickly pulse in sour cream and up 3 to 4 tablespoons ice water—adding 1 Tablespoon at a time, just enough so mixture barely begins to hold together, and rolls into a ball
Remove from food processor
Pat into a disc, cover with plastic wrap; refrigerate 2 hours.

When chilled, pull out of the fridge, let dough rest at room temperature 5 -10 minutes.
Roll dough out on a sheet of parchment paper to a 12-inch circle, and roughly trim (it needn’t be perfect).

Slide parchment onto a baking sheet and chill 30 minutes in refrigerator.

Preheat oven to 400F.


For the filling: 

Toss pears with lemon juice in a medium bowl. Combine sugar with flour, almonds, cinnamon, ginger and nutmeg in a small bowl. Sprinkle over pears; toss gently. Add vanilla; toss again. Arrange pear filling in center of pastry to within 1 1/2 inches of the edges. Working quickly, fold and pleat edges of dough up and over pears. Dot pears with butter, brush top of pastry with milk, and sprinkle remaining 1½ teaspoons sugar over top of pastry and pears. Bake 40 minutes, or until pastry is golden and pears are tender. Let cool 10 minutes before slicing.

Pumpkin Cheesecake w/
Gingersnap Macadamia Nut Crust

I HIGHLY recommend having pumpkin cheesecake with a gingersnap-macadamia nut crust for breakfast. It is life-altering. Subbing out a cup of sour cream for a cup of cream cheese was HUGE value add... it made it so silky and gave it a tiny bit of bite... so was using molasses in the batter, more depth of flavor than plain granulated sugar, though naturally I was forced to use plain sugar, too. This cheesecake originally called for 4 packages of cream cheese...I used 3-1/2 plus 1 cup sour cream. The recipe also initially called for a graham cracker crust, but that is sooooo boring. I used gingersnap cookies and macadamia nuts instead. I also added ginger, cinnamon, allspice and nutmeg to the crumbs after pulverizing them in my food processor. This recipe calls for patience. The assembly of it is a snap, but that two hour time period of resting in the oven after baking with the temperature off is essential to keeping the surface from cracking. I also added a pan of boiling hot water on a lower rack in the oven to keep the oven humid which also prevents the pumpkin custard from cracking while it cooks. Make it the night before you want to serve it. Then you won't feel rushed.



INGREDIENTS FOR THE CRUST

• 1 1/4 cups ginger snap cookies 
• 1/4 cup granulated sugar 
• 4 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted 
• 1/2 cup macadamia nuts
• 1 teaspoon of cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon ginger
• 1/4 teaspoon allspice
• 1/8 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg

FOR THE FILLING 

• 3 packages (8 ounces each) bar cream cheese, very soft
• 1 cup sour cream
• 3/4 cups granulated sugar 
• 3 tablespoons all-purpose flour
• 1 15 oz can of pumpkin puree 
• 1/3 cup of molasses
• 1 Tablespoon cinnamon
• 1 1/2 teaspoons ginger
• 1/2 teaspoon allspice
• 1/4 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
• 1 tablespoon vanilla extract 
• 1/2 teaspoon salt 
• 4 large eggs, room temperature 

DIRECTIONS 

 Preheat oven to 350 degrees, with 1 rack in center. 1 rack in the bottom.
Assemble a 9-inch nonstick springform pan, with the raised side of the bottom part facing up. 


Make the crust: 

In a food processor, pulse ginger snaps, sugar, and macadamia nuts until crumbly
Add melted butter until moistened; remove from food processor, press firmly into bottom of the buttered pan. Bake until golden around edges, 10 to 12 minutes. 

Make the filling: 

With an electric mixer, beat cream cheese, sour cream and sugar on low speed until smooth;

Add pumpkin puree, molasses, pie spice, vanilla, and salt; mix just until smooth. Add eggs one at a time, mixing until each is incorporated before adding the next. Mix in flour (do not overmix).

Place springform pan on a rimmed baking sheet. Pour filling into springform, and gently smooth top. Heat water in a tea kettle, pour into a roasting pan. Transfer both pans to oven; placing the water pan in the lowest rack and the cake pan on the center rack; reduce oven heat to 300 degrees. Bake 45 minutes without opening the oven. Turn off oven; to prevent the top from cracking, let cheesecake stay in oven 2 hours more (without opening). Remove from oven; cool completely. Cover with plastic wrap; refrigerate until firm, at least 4 hours. Unmold before serving.

Apple-Chestnut Cheesecake Tart

Okay, so... I still had apples, half a jar of chestnuts, half a package of cream cheese, Greek yogurt, an egg, and a little creme fraiche leftover from Thanksgiving. I was feeling creative and thrifty and opted to wing an apple-chestnut cheesecake tart with the available ingredients. Tis very much of the season.  This is the most labor intensive of the three desserts, but only because the three part filling must be prepared separately before adding them together. It's a fairly straightforward assembly. The actual technique required is elementary and the lush cheesecake custard perfumed by the aromatic and rich chestnut cream is sublime, add the tart sweetness and texture of the apples and you have the best there is to enjoy of winter's mellow fruitfulness... You can make this all apple, or all pear. I just used what I had, but I absolutely loved the combination.  

Ingredients

Pastry: 

• 1-1/4  cup all-purpose flour 
• 2 Tablespoons sugar 
• 1/2 teaspoon salt 
• 1 stick plus 2 Tablespoons unsalted butter (10 TBS total), chilled and cut in small pieces
• 2 Tablespoons sour cream 
• 3 to 4 Tablespoons ice water 
• 1 fluted 12 inch tart pan 

Filling

Ingredients for the Chestnut Cream:

• 7 ounces jar roasted, peeled chestnuts 
• 3/4  cup half and half or heavy cream 
• ⅓ cup granulated sugar 
• 1/2 teaspoon fine sea salt 
• 1 vanilla bean, split or 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• a couple of generous splashes of Sweet Marsala

Ingredients for the Cheesecake Batter:

Note: Everything must be brought to room temperature before mixing

• 4 oz of cream cheese
• 1/3 cup of creme fraiche
• 1 cup of Greek Yogurt
• 2 TBS granulated sugar
• 1 large egg 

Ingredients for Fruit Topping

• 3 Gala apples, peeled, cored & sliced 1/4 inch thick 
• 1 Bosc pear,  peeled, cored & sliced 1/4 inch thick
• 2 TBS fresh lemon juice ( I used a Meyer lemon, much sweeter)
• 2 TBS granulated sugar
• 1 TBS cinnamon
• 1 TBS cornstarch
  
  
  
  Ingredients for Glaze

• 1 TBS sugar
• 1 TBS unsalted butter 
• 1 teaspoon water

Instructions 

MAKE THE PIE CRUST:

Combine flour, sugar and salt in a food processor bowl
Cut butter in until the dry dough resembles cornmeal.
Quickly pulse in sour cream and up 3 to 4 tablespoons ice water—adding 1 Tablespoon at a time, just enough so mixture barely begins to hold together, and rolls into a ball
Remove from food processor
Pat into a disc, cover with plastic wrap; refrigerate 2 hours.

When chilled, pull out of the fridge, let dough rest at room temperature 5 -10 minutes.
Roll dough out on a sheet of parchment paper or plastic wrap to a 14-inch circle

Place crust parchment/plastic wrap side up into tart pan, firmly pressing dough into the fluted edges and bottom, and chill 30 minutes in refrigerator.

Preheat oven to 400F. Be sure to have a rack in the center. 

When dough is chilled, place a sheet of aluminum foil or parchment paper enough to cover entire surface and sides of pan over dough, cover surface with  pie weights or dried beans and blind bake for 25 minutes. Remove from oven. Remove foil & pie weights. Set aside.


MAKE THE FILLING:

Combine apples, pear, lemon juice, cinnamon and sugar and cornstarch. Set aside.

Simmering chestnuts in half and half, sugar, vanilla, marsala, a pinch of sea salt, and cinnamon until they are soft (about 20 minutes), then puree them into a chestnut cream; set aside and let cool...

Meanwhile, make cream cheese batter by processing cream cheese, creme fraiche, and Greek yogurt with sugar until mixture is silky smooth and shimmering, then blend in egg until just combined and add cooled chestnut puree to batter until well mixed.


ASSEMBLE TART:

1. Lower oven temperature to 350 degrees.
2. Place tart tin on a baking sheet, fill with chestnut cream cheese cake batter.
3. Smooth batter.
4. Starting from the outside edge, gently lay the apple-pear slices one at a time slightly overlapping the edges, working your way into concentric circles, until you have completely covered the top of the tart. 
5. Place pan in the center rack of the oven.
6. Bake undisturbed for 45 minutes.
7. While tart is baking making the glaze by combining butter, sugar & water in a small heavy bottomed pan over medium heat. Using a heat-proof pastry brush, combine ingredients, bring to a boil, stirring gently but constantly, until butter & sugar become viscous, but not brown.  
8. After 45 minutes, remove tart from oven to glaze fruit with sugar mixture; using pastry basting brush. Cover surface thoroughly.
9. When completely glazed, return tart to oven for an additional 15 minutes or until knife inserted into center of tart comes out clean & fruit is golden. 
10. When tart is done, turn off oven, allow tart to cool undisturbed in oven for an hour or so. Then remove from oven. Chill tart for a minimum of four hours before serving.  

Merry Christmas!

The authoress as a sweet little cherub in the St. Lucy's School Christmas Pageant

Let's Talk Turkey

"Tell me what you eat and I'll tell you who you are."
~Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin

Identity is entwined with culture, and food is entwined with culture, so it isn't at all far-fetched a notion to associate food with identity.  However, Monsieur Brillat-Savarin, it's Thanksgiving. I'm an American, so I'll be eating turkey. I often act like a turkey. Guess that makes me a cannibal. Of course, Monsieur Brillat-Savarin does have a cheese named after him:
 Brillat-Savarin... the oooey gooiest bit of lactose intolerance-inducing deliciousness I heartily recommend you all invest in, one wheel at a time, slice it through its meridian, and spread a luscious layer of Italian black truffle paste (or 'truffle pate' as the snootier vendor prefers to call it) on one half and then sandwich it by covering one half with the other half, allow it to sit for a few hours, then serve it with hunks of warm toasted baguette for the most decadent appetizer that will ever coat your tongue and glide down your gullet. A soft, white-crusted cow's milk cheese with at least 75% fat, created c. 1890 as "Excelsior" or "Délice des gourmets" ("Gourmets' delight") by the Dubuc family, near Forges-les-Eaux. Cheese-maker Henri Androuët renamed it in the 1930s, as an homage to 18th-century French gourmet and political figure Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin. His most famous work, The Physiology of Taste, was published in December 1825, two months before his death. The full title is Physiologie du goût, ou Méditations de gastronomie transcendante; ouvrage théorique, historique et à l'ordre du jour, dédié aux Gastronomes parisiens, par un Professeur, membre de plusieurs sociétés littéraires et savantes. The book has not been out of print since it first appeared, shortly before Brillat-Savarin's death. In a series of meditations that owe something to Montaigne's Essays, Brillat-Savarin discourses on the pleasures of the table, which he considered nothing less than a science. The philosophy of Epicurus lies at the back of every page; the simplest meal satisfied Brillat-Savarin, as long as it was executed with artistry.

You can buy truffled Brillat-Savarin in the cheese sections of markets like Whole Foods, but making it yourself is simple enough. Still, no matter whether you buy it prepared or not, serve it at room temperature which means removing it from your fridge at least an hour before eating, garnish it artfully with a few sliced figs, a bit of honeycomb, a pile of  Marcona almonds, a few Picholine olives and you will have a cheese plate worthy of being painted by a 17th Century Flemish Master. Simple, elegant and scrumptious. Maximal impact for minimal effort is the key to many a holiday hostess' success. Perfect start or finish to any holiday meal.

But I digress... I'm here to talk turkey.

"What we're really talking about is a wonderful day set aside on the fourth Thursday of November when no one diets. I mean, why else would they call it Thanksgiving?
~Erma Bombeck, "No One Diets on Thanksgiving," November 1981

I so adore this holiday, doing one of the things I love doing most in the world! It's all fun to make and fun to eat, but I would cook it all even if I weren't going to eat a bite myself. Cooking Thanksgiving dinner is an active meditation for me. I enjoy every aspect of making this holiday's meal - well, almost every aspect of it. I hate peeling and coring apples, and really don't like cleaning up the wreckage afterwards. Luckily, el hubby loves to get in there and tackle the dishes. We usually do an encore meal on Saturday because el hubby adores this meal. Naturally we'll have turkey sandwiches for lunch the next day, I get some avocado and provolone for them. I make enchiladas with leftovers on the following Monday or Tuesday. I nearly always use leftover cream-based soup as the base for a pasta dish; leftover stuffing is a rarity, but when we do have some, I use it to stuff portobello mushrooms or eggplant, adding only a bit of grated parmesan to the stuffing before baking.

The history of the Thanksgiving turkey is a bit of a mystery. Nobody knows exactly how it earned its dubious place of honor at the table each November, but historians have a few different theories. Thanks to letters and records kept by early American settlers, we know that when the colonists sat down to dine with the Wampanoag Indians, beef and fowl were on the menu. This historical meal would later become known as the first Thanksgiving. Although historians cannot say for sure which types of fowl were served up that day, a letter written by pilgrim Edward Winslow mentions a turkey hunting trip before the meal.

Another theory attributes the Thanksgiving turkey to the Queen of England. During the 16th century, a fleet of Spanish ships sunk on their way to attack England. According to legend, Queen Elizabeth received this news while eating dinner. She was so thrilled that she ordered another goose be served. Some historians say the early settlers were inspired by the queen's actions and roasted a turkey instead of a goose.

 The wild turkey is a native bird of North America. Turkey was a favored food of Native Americans. When Europeans arrived, they made it one of only two domestic birds native to the Americas—the Muscovy duck shares the distinction. The turkey was Benjamin Franklin's choice for the United States national bird. He claimed the fact that it was indigenous to America made the turkey a more suitable national bird for the United States than the bald eagle. Not everyone agreed with Franklin, however, and the bald eagle became the national emblem for the United States in 1782.

Yet by the early 20th century, wild turkeys no longer roamed over much of their traditional range. They had been wiped out by hunting and the disappearance of their favored woodland habitat. Wild turkeys typically forage on forest floors, but can also be found in grasslands and swamps. They feed on nuts, seeds, fruits, insects, and salamanders. Wild turkey reintroduction programs began in the 1940s, and the birds were relocated to areas where populations had been decimated but woodlands were recovering. Such efforts worked so well that wild turkeys now live in areas where they may not have occurred when Europeans first reached the Americas. Today, flocks are also found in Hawaii, Europe, and New Zealand. Here's a little turkey trivia to deflect Aunt Edna's prying questions about who you voted for this past election: Wild turkeys can fly, but domestic turkeys can't. Turkeys can run up to 20 miles per hour. The long, loose skin that hangs down on a turkey's neck is called a “wattle." Maybe you should keep that last bit of trivia to yourself. Aunt Edna might think you're referring to loose skin around her neck.

So, for whatever the reason, Thanksgiving Day is Turkey Day, unless you're vegan and even then you probably have some seitan (wheat gluten) roll or Tofurkey atrocity front and center, plattered up and garnished. A proper Thanksgiving Day meal is always days in the making. Even if you keep it down to the basic bird, potatoes, stuffing, gravy my husband prefers to say his grace over. "I want everything to be brown on my plate." is his request, and I acquiesce (mostly). I sneak a veggie and some cranberry sauce on the table every year, as well as something pumpkinesque and yammy, and since brown is in the red family, as is orange, I have technically kept the requested palette palatable. After all, rituals and traditions are above all about comfort and security: the lark's on the wing, the snail's on the thorn, the turkey and stuffing's in your belly, and all is right with the world. I have 364 other days of the year to concoct my Frankenstein-like food experiments which he happily eats.


Last year went well. His eons old hope that we eat a holiday dinner before 9 pm was finally realized. We didn't start stuffing ourselves at the oft requested 5 pm, but service did start at 6. I had fully organized my week with  (for this Caribbean descendant) the precision of a Swiss watchmaker from the Third Reich. I practically goose-stepped around the kitchen. But well... it did fray my nerves a bit...   It was two days before T-Day. The apartment smelled divine. The stock was simmering, the cranberry sauce is made,  the bread for the stuffing prepared and I took a break from kitchen duty before seasoning the turkey breast and setting it aside. All very homey. My loving husband had his beloved futbol on. Manchester United was playing,  I was feeling cranky. Not thankful. My having a stomach virus didn't make things any better... there is nothing worse than cooking when you can't stomach eating, especially while having to listen to someone - even someone you love - mercilessly scrape the bowl of his salad, and chomp on his pizza like a savage beast partaking of more than his fair share of antelope after several days wandering the Serengeti sans nourishment... I prefer to create my edibles to more melodious music. Something less like the soundtrack of National Geographic WILD and more Debussy Claire de Lune, Miles Davis Kind of Blue.

 On the other hand, this was the man who called me whilst I was in a frantic search for brioche (with my stomach virus asserting itself the entire time and nary a public toilet facility to be found). His first suggestion was that I abandon the holy quest and simply buy prepared croutons for our stuffing. When I said I'd rather go without stuffing than eat chemically-laden croutons, he very sweetly offered to go to other stores to search for it, so that we could divide and conquer - and what's more, he did find the blessed loaves of brioche, just as I finally did...

 He went all the way on the other side of town, and what was even lovelier was after we confirmed his acquisition of the holy grail, and hung up, he called me back immediately just to ask me if I was looking at the moon because it was so spectacularly large and luminous it looked surreal - like something out of an old Hollywood film set... and he wanted to make sure I saw because he knows what a moonatic I am.

 "But please pay attention to where you're walking and be aware of your surroundings, I don't want you attacked because you are mesmerized by the moon."

We discussed the little fluffy clouds that were framing the moon with their kisses, and I promised him I'd be careful, told him what street I'd walk down to reassure him, and hung up. THEN as I was walking back home, he surprised me by driving directly to where I was walking to give me a lift home. He had been following me for three blocks quietly before announcing his presence.

 "It's frightening how oblivious you were. I could have been anyone with intent to do you harm!"

 "I was looking at the moon. I'd love to get a good picture of it but it's impossible. These new iPhones have light meters that automatically adjust the flash. I'm so disappointed."

"Come on, when we get to a good dark spot, I'll let you off, and wait while you take pictures." 

"Yay! Okay..."

 He chauffeured me to two locations where I could take dramatic photos of the moon, patiently waiting for me, drove us home, put away the groceries, put away the dishes in the dishwasher, and reloaded it with this mornings dishes (all while I went running to the bathroom - this stomach virus had been kicking my ass for three days now). So sweet and solicitous. I adore him. I'm very lucky but (and you knew there had to be a "but") I just wish the man would spare me the play by play and color commentary about the futbol game he's watching... and he's not speaking rhetorically, he expects me to react to his every utterance... I couldn't keep pretending to care for long... I hadn't the energy... desperate measures were taken. I  beaned him over the noggin with my turkey baster. Lovingly.

Herb-Roasted Turkey Breast with Citrus Butter and Chanterelle Mushroom Gravy

I chose to use a turkey breast because there were only four of us. The turkey breast stays juicy and dripping with delight since it doesn't have to wait for the darker meat to cook. I love the chicharron that the skin creates. It really crackles! When choosing a size appropriate for guests, allow about 1 pound of raw turkey per person. Sounds like a lot, I know, but you want to have leftovers, don't you? That's the best part. Frankly, hot turkey leaves me cold. I love the sandwiches later on Kaiser rolls or Dutch Crunch bread with stuffing, avocado, and cranberry sauce... Yummy, Yummy!!!

BTW, you can substitute any kind of mushroom you like for the gravy. Chanterelles are expensive. I chose them because this meal is small in scale which meant I could spend more per person, but good old button mushrooms or criminis will work just fine, if that's all you have. Hell, you don't even need any mushrooms.

The consistency of my gravy is much thinner than most. I prefer the good wholesome turkey flavor of the jus and stock not the taste of a floury pasty goopy gravy... yuk! I achieve the thickening with a minimum of starch and a maximum of reduction. I boil the hell out of the stock to reduce it to an almost gelatinous consistency which means you must minimize the use of any salt products until the gravy is made, then add the seasoning or else it will taste way salty. The turkey should be seasoned the night before roasting. 

For the Turkey

Ingredients

• 1 whole bone-in turkey breast, 6 1/2 to 7 pounds
• 1 tablespoon minced garlic (3 cloves)
• 2 teaspoons dry mustard
• 1 tablespoon chopped fresh rosemary leaves
• 1 tablespoon chopped fresh sage leaves
• 1 teaspoon chopped fresh thyme leaves
• 2 teaspoons kosher salt
• 1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
• 2 tablespoons good olive oil
• 2 tablespoons freshly squeezed lemon juice
• 1 cup dry white wine
• 1 onion, skin removed & cut in half
• 1 leek, cleaned & sliced length-wise
• 1 carrot, cut into quarters
• 1 lemon, cut in quarters, juiced with juice reserved
• 2 teaspoons  (approximately) powdered smoked paprika (for dusting over skin)

Directions

1.  Place the turkey breast, skin side up, on a rack ( I use a trivet) in a roasting pan. Nestle the onion, leek, carrot & juiced lemon & place it inside the breast cavity. Be sure that you have cut the pieces in large enough sections so that they don't fall through your rack or trivet.
2. In a small bowl, combine the garlic, mustard, herbs, salt, pepper, olive oil, and lemon juice to make a paste. Loosen the skin from the meat gently with your fingers and smear half of the paste directly on the meat. Spread the remaining paste evenly on the skin. Dust with paprika. Pour the wine into the bottom of the roasting pan. Cover and store turkey breast in roasting pan on a trivet in the refrigerator overnight. Remove from fridge one hour prior to roasting. Preheat the oven to 450 degrees.
3. When oven is hot, heat up Citrus Butter in small sauce pan until melted & keep warm.
4. Roast turkey for 20 minutes at 450, then lower the oven temperature to 350 degrees.
5. Baste with Citrus Butter.
6. Roast the turkey for 1 3/4 to 2 hours, until the skin is golden brown and an instant-read thermometer registers 165 degrees F when inserted into the thickest and meatiest areas of the breast. (I test in several places.) If the skin is over-browning, cover the breast loosely with aluminum foil. Occasionally basting with citrus butter.
7. When the turkey is done, cover with foil and allow it to rest at room temperature for 15 minutes while you make the gravy. Slice and serve with the jus & gravy spooned over the turkey.

For the Citrus Butter:

Ingredients

• 1 teaspoon grated lime rind
• 1 teaspoon grated lemon rind
• 1 teaspoon grated orange rind
• 1/2 cup butter, softened to room temperature
• 2 tablespoons fresh lime juice
• 2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
• 2 tablespoons fresh orange juice
• 1 shallot, finely minced

Directions

1. Stir rinds into boiling water; pour through a wire-mesh strainer. Drain on paper towels.
2. Beat butter at medium speed with an electric mixer or by hand until creamy; gradually add juices, & shallot beating until blended. Stir in rinds. Chill. Can be made 3 days ahead or more if you freeze it.

For the Chanterelle Gravy:

About the stock: make your own if you have the time (recipe below), I do every year... it's easy to prepare, just takes a bit of time to cook,  if not buy it frozen from your butcher; you can substitute prepared chicken stock, but make sure it has no or low-sodium. This gravy will be dark , almost mahogany in color, if you take the time to roast your turkey giblets & wings first, really worth it. It's only once a year & a lot cheaper than buying canned, plus you can make extra & freeze until Christmas to use it then!
Cornstarch & arrowroot are almost flavorless & tend to dissolve more quickly than flour which is why I am using it here, but heat destroys it's coagulating properties so you must wait to add it until the last minute or so to the gravy. I scrape up ALL the pan fond. It adds a gorgeous color to the gravy and loads of flavor, PLUS it makes it MUCH easier to clean up the damn pan! Do not boil the gravy after you add the thickening agent. Then serve immediately.

Ingredients

• 2 big handfuls (handfuls is an industry term ;P) of chanterelles or your mushrooms of choice, cleaned & sliced
• 2 large shallots, sliced thinly
• 6 sage leaves, in chiffonade (sliced very, very thinly length-wise)
• half a handful of parsley, minced
• 2 tablespoons of unsalted butter
• 1 tablespoon of extra-virgin olive oil
• 4 cups of fresh turkey stock
• pan drippings from turkey
• scant tablespoon of low sodium soy sauce
• 1/2 cup of dry vermouth or any acidy, un-oaked wine such as sauvignon blanc
• sea salt & fresh cracked pepper to taste
• 1 Tbs. cornstarch or arrowroot

Directions

1. Heat a saute pan over medium-high heat. Add 1 Tbs. butter & olive oil, when butter is foamy & melted, add a tiny pinch of sea salt to the pan followed by the shallots. Saute until they just change color.
2. Add the mushrooms, add the additional tablespoon of butter, if the mushrooms appear to absorb the fat in the pan. Saute until mushrooms are softened, lower heat to medium-low.
3. Add the parsley and sage. Stir in & when the mushrooms appear to be slightly glazed, season lightly with salt & pepper. Turn off the heat & set aside in a warm place.
4. Place roasting pan over medium heat on the range burners. When hot, deglaze pan with the wine or vermouth, being sure to scrape off all the pan fond (the stuck on brown bits) & incorporate into the wine.
5. Add the stock to the pan & reduce by half; about 10 minutes. Reserve 1/4 cup of stock & mix that into a slurry with the cornstarch. Set aside.
6. When stock, is reduced add the mushroom mixture, season with soy sauce; stirring well to incorporate it. Taste for seasoning & then add salt & pepper to taste.
7. When everything is to your liking, turn the heat down to very low & add cornstarch mixture, stirring really rapidly to avoid making lumps.
8. Heat for another minute or two over low heat until the cornstarch flavor is gone.
9. Place in gravy boat. Serve immediately.

Turkey Stock

I buy two wings, a turkey back, add aromatics & herbs to roast the bones. I make the turkey stock the day night before, but you can make it up to three days before. I do NOT peel the onions for this, it is important to keep the skins on... It adds a beautiful color to the stock. Add any veggie peelings or parts you like, it will only enrich the flavor. A stockpot is a must. If you don't have one, you can use a larger dutch oven.

Ingredients

• 2 turkey wings/and or 1 turkey back (I like both)
• fennel bulb, rough chopped
• whole onion, unpeeled, cut in half
• 3 garlic cloves, smashed
• two carrots, cut in quarters
• 2 celery stalks, cut into quarters
• 3 sprigs of rosemary, left whole
• 3 sprigs or oregano, left whole
• 1 leek, cleaned well, white part only, cut in half
• a couple of button mushrooms
• sea salt (to taste)
• peppercorns (to taste)
• water

Directions

1. Place all of your ingredients in a roasting pan into a preheated 400 degree oven
2. Roast for 20-30 minutes or until turkey is browned
3. Empty contents of the roasting pan into stock pot, include all accumulated juices
4. Deglaze roasting pan with water, scrape up all pan fond (burnt bits that stick to bottom), add to stock pot
5. Fill stock pot with fresh cold water
6. Set pot over low heat
7. Allow it to simmer for 12 hours, undisturbed 
8. Remove from heat, let it cool, then strain contents into a storage container until ready for use. I usually remove the turkey parts & the large pieces of vegetables after straining, and save them to add to gravy or soup later in the week 

Shiitake, Chestnut and Sausage-Apple Stuffing

Be sure to cut all the aromatics the same size small dice. Makes a big difference in texture.


Ingredients

• 16 ounces Challah bread or any brioche (use white bread if you can't find an egg bread), cut into 3/4-inch cubes (about 12 cups)
• 1 pound sweet Italian sausages, casings removed
• 1/4 cup (1/2 stick) butter - plus additional to add atop the casserole 
• 6 cups onions, about 2 large, finely chopped
• 1 pound tart green apples, peeled, cored, diced small
• 2 handfuls of shiitake mushrooms (you can use oyster, button, whatever you like)
• 1 large carrot, peeled & cut into small dice
• 2 celery ribs with leaves, diced small
• 4 teaspoons poultry seasoning
• 1 jar of whole roasted chestnuts a.k.a marron glace', rough chopped
• 4 sprigs of finely chopped fresh rosemary
• 8 sprigs of finely chopped fresh sage
• 2/3 cup chopped fresh parsley
• 3 eggs, beaten to blend
• 1 and 1/2 cups to 2 cups (about) fresh turkey stock or canned low-salt chicken broth

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350°F. Divide bread cubes between 2 large baking sheets. Bake until slightly dry, about 15 minutes. Cool completely.
2. Sauté sausages in heavy large skillet over medium-high heat until cooked through, crumbling coarsely with back of spoon, about 10 minutes.
3. Using slotted spoon, transfer sausage to large bowl. Pour off any drippings from skillet.
4. Melt butter in same skillet over medium-high heat. Add onions, carrots, apples, celery, mushrooms and poultry seasoning to skillet; sauté until onions soften, about 8 minutes. Mix in chopped chestnuts and rosemary & sage. Add mixture to sausage, then mix in bread and parsley. Season stuffing to taste with salt and pepper. (Can be prepared 1 day ahead. Cover and refrigerate.)
5. Mix eggs into stuffing just before baking.
6. Preheat oven to 350°F. Butter 15x10x2-inch baking dish. Mix 1 1/3 cups broth into stuffing. Transfer to prepared dish. Cover with buttered foil and bake until heated through, about 45 minutes. Uncover, add butter evenly over the top,  and bake until top is golden brown, about 15 minutes.

THE PLACE GRATITUDE FILLS IN A FINE CHARACTER 

 by Walt Whitman from the Philadelphia Press, Nov. 27, 1884,

—A large family supper party, a night or two ago, with voices and laughter of the young, mellow faces of the old, and a by-and-by pause in the general joviality. “Now, Mr. Whitman,” spoke up one of the girls, “what have you to say about Thanksgiving? Won’t you give us a sermon in advance, to sober us down?” The sage nodded smilingly, look’d a moment at the blaze of the great wood fire, ran his forefinger right and left through the heavy white mustache that might have otherwise impeded his voice, and began: “Thanksgiving goes probably far deeper than you folks suppose. I am not sure but it is the source of the highest poetry—as in parts of the Bible. Ruskin, indeed, makes the central source of all great art to be praise (gratitude) to the Almighty for life, and the universe with its objects and play of action.

 “We Americans devote an official day to it every year; yet I sometimes fear the real article is almost dead or dying in our self-sufficient, independent Republic. Gratitude, anyhow, has never been made half enough of by the moralists; it is indispensable to a complete character, man’s or woman’s—the disposition to be appreciative, thankful. That is the main matter, the element, inclination—what geologists call the trend. Of my own life and writings I estimate the giving thanks part, with what it infers, as essentially the best item. I should say the quality of gratitude rounds the whole emotional nature; I should say love and faith would quite lack vitality without it. There are people—shall I call them even religious people, as things go?—who have no such trend to their disposition.”

Happy Thanksgiving to you all!