Caramelised Onion And Mushroom Tarte Tatin

I made this dish last week for one of our vegetarian meals and it was delicious. Sorry it's taken me so long to get around to writing about it.

The onions took a little while to caramelise, but once the filling was prepared the rest of the cooking didn't take too long at all. Using frozen puff pastry made it really quick and really quite light. If you had the time, you could make your own pastry, which would make it a bit more special and a bit richer.

I used my gorgeous red Emile Henry tarte tatin dish, but you could use any ovenproof frypan or even a round cake tin if you didn't have anything else suitable to put in the oven.

The recipe came from a mushroom cookbook called 'Mushrooms - The Great All-Rounder' which was put out by the Australian Mushroom Growers Association. This recipe book contains lots of great recipes using mushrooms as one of the main ingredients. Some recipes are vegetarian, others have a meat component. The one thing in common is that they are all quite easy and look delicious!

This tarte tatin was lovely as a light meal with a rocket, pear and parmesan salad with a balsamic vinegar dressing. Next time I make it, I think I'll dot a bit of soft goat's curd or thin slices of brie over the top of the tarte when I turn it out. I think that the extra creaminess and acidity would be perfect.

Give this recipe a try. It looks great and tastes even better!

Caramelised Onion and Mushroom Tarte Tatin

4 onions, halved and thinly sliced

50g butter

1 Tbs olive oil

2 tsp brown sugar

300g swiss brown mushrooms, thinly sliced

2 Tbs thyme leaves

2 Tbs balsamic vinegar

Salt and pepper to taste

1 sheet frozen puff pastry, thawed

50g goat's curd or brie (optional)

Rocket, pear and parmesan salad, to serve

Preheat the oven to 220 degrees.

Place onions in a large bowl, cover loosely with a lid and microwave for 3 minutes, or until softened.

Heat the butter and oil in a tarte tatin dish or large oven proof frypan until bubbling.

Add the onions and sugar and cook until lightly golden.

Add the mushrooms, thyme and vinegar and cook for another 3-4 minutes or until the onions are soft.

Season to taste with salt and pepper.

Evenly spread the onion and mushroom mixture over the base of the pan and gently lay the pastry over the top, tucking the edges in.

Place the dish or frypan in the oven and bake until the pastry is golden and the filling bubbling.

Carefully turn the tarte onto a large serving plate and serve to the table whole.

If you are using the cheese, place blobs of the goat's curd or thin slices of the brie over the hot tarte to slightly melt with the remaining heat.

To serve, cut the tarte into generous wedges and serve with the salad.

Enjoy!

And To Drink....

Mushrooms and pinot go together like a horse and carriage, so this is an obvious match. I'm sure we drank a pinot with this dish, but I completely forgot to take a picture of it! Oops!

Choose a pinot from the Yarra Valley or Mornigton Peninsula that is young and fruity with just a little bit of funkiness. The sweetness of the onions overpowers the earthiness of the mushrooms to some extent, so you don't really want a wine that has too much of the forest floor characteristics.

If you make this dish, let me know what you choose to drink with it and how it matches. :-)

Sweet Maple Mustard Salmon (And an Apple Tarte Tartan)

A feast was had in the eat quaff laugh household last night to farewell my parents, who had been staying with us for the week. We've had an awful lot of food and wine this week, so I wanted to cook something special, but different to everything else we've had.

Given my love of salmon, fish it was to be. I wanted to try doing something a bit more fancy and a bit more interesting than I usually do, so set about looking for recipes. The Tassal salmon website has loads of great recipes on it for using all sorts of salmon pieces - fresh fillets, hot and cold smoked, whole fish. I stumbled across a recipe for maple mustard salmon and my decision was made!

This recipe was so easy and the flavour imparted to the salmon was delicious. The recipe says to coat the fish in the marinade/glaze just before cooking, but I left mine to marinate in the fridge for about three hours. I wanted to have everything prepared so that when my guests arrived there wasn't much to run around and do. Whether marinating for  a longer time made much difference to the intensity of the flavour, I don't know, but it tasted great and the flesh was lovely and moist.

I served my fish with potatoes and green beans, as suggested on the recipe. The potatoes I simply roasted with oil, salt, white pepper and rosemary and the beans were steamed and drizzled with a lemon infused olive oil, salt and pepper. I purposely kept the vegies quite simple, because I didn't want too many competing flavours on the plate.

I was really happy with how this dish turned out, and will definitely be making it regularly from now on. I might even experiment with different sorts of mustards. The sweetness wasn't overpowering, which I thought it might have been. In fact, it would be great with chicken or pork too.

If you have a moment, swing past the Tassal website and have a look at their great recipes. If you live in Melbourne or Hobart, the Tassal Salmon Shop is a great place to pick up some beautifully fresh fish, and other related products, at a wonderful price. They also hold cooking classes and other events, which are all listed on the website. The Melbourne store in Kew has a cafe too, which is a great place to stop for a bite to eat.

Maple Mustard Salmon

6 salmon fillets, skin removed 

2 Tbs grainy mustard

1/2 cup maple syrup

Salt and pepper to taste

Roasted potatoes and steamed green beans, to serve

Carefully pin bone the salmon fillets to remove any small bones that might be remaining.

Rinse and pat dry with kitchen paper.

Combine mustard and maple syrup in a large container.

Place fish fillets into the container and turn gently to cover in the marinade.

Leave to marinate in the fridge for a few hours, if you have time.

Preheat the oven to 180 degrees.

Line a baking tray with baking paper and place the salmon fillets on the tray so that they are evenly spaced.

Bake for 15-20 minutes, or until just cooked, but a little pink on the inside.

Heat the remaining marinade in the microwave or on the stove top for a couple of minutes until it boils and thickens slightly.

Serve the fish on plates with the vegetables and spoon over a little more of the sauce.

Enjoy!

Apple Tarte Tartin

Dessert was an apple tarte tartin, which was delicious. I was given an Emile Henry Tarte Tartin dish by my inlaws for Christmas, and given they were coming over for dinner too, I figured it was the perfect opportunity to use it again. On a cold and wet Melbourne night, it was a wonderful dessert. You don't need a specific tarte tartin dish to cook this though. As long as you have a fry pan with an oven proof handle, you can make it just as well.

125g butter

250g plain flour

1/4 tsp salt

50ml water

1 egg yolk

8 small granny smith apples

200g caster sugar

80g butter, cut into small cubes

To make the pastry, place butter, flour and salt in a food processor and blitz until it resembles fine breadcrumbs.

Add the egg yolk and water and blitz again until it comes together and forms a ball.

Knead gently on a lightly floured surface and then wrap in plastic wrap and place in the fridge for about 1 hour.

Remove the pastry from the fridge about 30 mins before you want to roll it out so that it softens a little.

Pre-heat oven to 180 degrees.

Peel and quarter the apples, removing and discarding the core. Set aside.

Heat the fry pan or tarte dish for a few minutes over low heat to pre-warm.

Pour in 170g of the sugar and allow to melt and caramelise. Swirl gently to prevent the sugar burning in the middle.

Once the sugar is mostly caramelised, add 50g of butter and allow it to melt.

Remove the pan from the heat and arrange a layer of the apples, rounded side down, pushing them close together.

Add a second layer of the apples, rounded side up, so that you fill most of the gaps.

Sprinkle the remaining sugar over the top and dot with the remaining butter cubes.

Roll out the pastry to a rough round slightly bigger than the circle of apples.

Gently place it over the top of the apples and tuck the edges around the fruit.

Bake the tarte in the oven for about 40 minutes, or until the pastry is golden and the caramel sauce bubbling.

Remove from the oven and allow to rest for 10 minutes.

Invert onto a serving plate and serve to the table in all it's glory!

Serve with dollops of pure cream for some cold weather indulgence.

And To Drink....

To go with the fish, I wanted a dry style wine that had enough body and acidity to match with the sweetness in the marinade.

This Rochford 'Cerberus' was perfect. Made from Yarra Valley gewurtztraminer, riesling and pinot gris it had plenty of lovely aromatics, with a little bit of sweetness. There was still plenty of acidity from the riesling and this matched wonderfully with the maple mustard flavours. 

We bought this wine a couple of years ago when we visited the Yarra Valley on a weekend. Rochford make a large range of red and white wines, with the usual varieties for the Yarra Valley, including pinot noir, chardonnay and riesling. They also make a couple of interesting blends or varieties, like a straight cabernet franc and this white blend.

As well as making some lovely wines, Rochford hold a number of concerts, including the 'A Day on the Green' series of music events. We have never been to any of the events, but I know they are incredibly popular. Definitely worth looking into if you feel like a weekend away!