friederike's Reviews
2 recipe(s) reviewed. Showing 1 to 2Sort by: Title 
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The Collection
By James Martin
Mitchell Beazley - 2008
Imagine this: James Martin in his early twenties. Comes home late. Hungry. Darn, empty cupboard, empty fridge. The only things left are some fillet of fish, some sprouts, a lonely lime, some sesame oil and some mango chutney. Never mind, he’s hungry, so he’ll just fry the fish, warm up the mango chutney to make it work as a kind of sauce and eat it with the sprouts.
That’s approximately how this dish must have developed – warm up some ingredients without combining them and see if you can eat the result together. To me, that's not cooking, that's warming up. Worse, the ingredients are a mismatch both in taste and in style – no, you can’t just pair off Indian mango chutney with rather Chinese sesame oil just because both are from Asia...
Sea bass is a very nice fish, but it was boring because nothing was done with it. The sprouts were okay – more about that in a moment. The warmed up (!) mango chutney was just blech – it might have been the warming up, it might have been the brand (or even the fact that it wasn’t home-made, but let’s not exaggerate).
I admit that I didn’t make the red pepper essence, as it seemed such a waste to me. Instead I cut the (mixed) peppers into cubes, grilled them shortly and added them to the sprouts, along with some toasted sesame seeds. The sprouts were in fact quite nice (apart from the fact that we had bought them too early and then froze and defrosted them), but they missed extra zing. Toasted sesame seeds were a good idea, but I’m also thinking about adding some grated ginger and perhaps some lemon grass next time (and then serve it as a side dish along with something completely different from this).
useful (1)
Shallot Tarte Tatin : page 95
Summary: A recipe with potential, but it definitely needs tweaking (it's too sweet!), and the badly written/edited recipe instructions nearly drove me mad.
Let's start with the recipe instructions. I had the idea that they were hastily written as there were several writing/editing mistakes; that combined with how the final dish would have tasted makes me wonder if it had been tested at all.
First, the shallots: I wasn't sure what to do with them. Use them whole, cut them into halves or rings? No instructions at all. In the end, I used some whole, some where cut in half, both turned out fine. I also had to use a lot more than the 350 g indicated; my ramekins were larger (11 cm instead of 7,5 cm), and my estimate is that I needed about 8 shallots resp. a bit more than 100 g per ramekin, if used whole.
Then, the "ovenproof pan": Why am I supposed to melt the sugar in a "clean nonstick ovenproof pan", if said pan will never actually meet the oven? Or was I supposed to melt the sugar in the oven, instead of on the stove top, before pouring it into the individual ramekins? That wouldn't make sense.
It seems obvious that the recipe was originally written to make a single large tarte tatin instead of using individual ramekins. Given that this is a fairly common recipe, I wouldn't even be surprised if it was copied from somewhere else, with the use of individual ramekins added as personal spin; it's a pity that the text wasn't altered accordingly.
And just in case that wasn't clear: my pans are always clean (before use), no need to specifically require a clean pan!
And another thing I found ludicrous: while the tarte tatins are baking in the oven, you're supposed to preheat the grill for the goat's cheese. Obviously a professional who forgot that that won't be possible in an amateur kitchen. Bad writing/editing again.
The main problem, however, were the proportions of the ingredients, or rather the amounts of sweet ingredients. You see, shallots are the sweet little sibling of onions. Roasting them slowly makes them even sweeter. Adding lots of sugar (2 tablespoons per person!) will make them even sweeter. And then serving that with a salad that has been dressed with nothing else but 8 tablespoons of honey and a hint of truffle oil - all the rocket leaves and goat's cheese in the whole world won't be able to save that.
I followed the recipe faithfully until the moment I had poured the caramel into the ramekins. Once I saw how much that would be per portion, I began doubting the recipe, but it was too late, as the caramel had immediately begun to set. I added the shallots and a good measure of salt and pepper (and thyme!), covered with puff pastry and sent them off to the oven, and then decided I would do something else for the salad. I ended up with a dressing made of 3 tbsp olive oil, 1 tbsp white wine vinegar (in retrospect, lemon juice might have been better but white wine vinegar worked as well) and some truffle oil. The truffle oil is by no means essential.
I also decided not to grill the goat's cheese as you would need to do that on top of the finished tarte tatins after they have been turned upside down, after which you would need to transfer them again to a serving dish - too much of a hassle for me, and this worked just as well.
In the end, the tarte tatins looked pretty and tasted nice, provided that you eat them together with a bit of goat's cheese and a few rocket leaves in the same mouthful. If not, it was definitely too sweet. I do believe this dish has some potential, hence the 4 star rating, but it does need tweaking.
For example, instead of making the caramel I might consider making a syrup of (a little!) sugar and balsamic vinegar, in which I would coat the shallots. Alternatively, you could just make less caramel (about half or even less), and add the few drops of balsamic vinegar before covering with puff pastry. Or, if you want to keep the honey in there somewhere, use honey instead of caramel. Use a fairly normal dressing for the rocket salad; if you're not using truffle oil, I would even suggest making a sharp marinade, e.g. with a spoonful of mustard. And: in the oven, make sure that you have an extra baking tray below the tarte tatins to catch any overflowing caramel.
A few years ago we made this very similar tarte tatin. I only remember it very vaguely, but apparently it faced more or less the same problems as this one, though this new recipe is saved by the addition of the rocket salad and goat's cheese; also, individual ramekins work better (crisper pastry!) than a single large tart.
Prepared on 22 July 2013 in honour of Pi Approximation Day (22/7).
Edited a few weeks later:
Downgraded on second thought. There was just too much wrong with this recipe to justify a 4 star rating.
useful (0)