French Onion Soup

                                                   6 portions

Ingredients:

    1/4-cup butter
    6 Yellow onions, thinly sliced (no finger allowed in the soup)
    2 teaspoon white sugar
    2-tablespoon all-purpose flour
    3 1/2 cups water
    1/2 cup dry red wine
    16 ounce of a good can beef broth
    Fresh or dry thyme
    1 bay leaf
    ½ French baguette (12 slices)
    12 ounces Swiss cheese (slice or grated)

Procedure:

• Melt butter in a 4-quart saucepan. Stir in sugar. Cook onions over medium heat for 10 minutes, or until golden brown.
• Stir in flour until well blended with the onions and pan juices. Add water, wine, and beef broth and thyme and bay leaf; heat to boiling. Reduce heat to low. Cover soup, and simmer for 10 minutes.
• Cut 12 one inch thick slices of bread from the loaf. Toast the bread slices just until browned.Reserve the remaining bread to serve with the soup. Remove the bay leaf, if you can.
• Ladle soup into four 12 ounce oven-safe bowls. Place 2 slices toasted bread on top of the soup in each bowl. Fold Swiss cheese slices or grated, and fit onto toasted bread slices. Don’t be shy, put a lot of cheese. Place soup bowls on a cookie sheet for easier handling.
• Bake at 425 degrees F (220 degrees C) for 10 minutes, or just until cheese is melted and golden brown.

Fruit Sorbet

 

Portion 4

Ingredients:

2 pounds of fruit
1 1⁄2 cups of sugar
1 cup (250 ml) Sugar 
1 cup (250 ml) Water 
-both boiled together and cooled
1 Densitometer (1 chicken Egg )


Procedure:

• All fruit is great and easy to make sorbet. 
• Seed and chop the fruit leaving the skin on. Add into a pot with the sugar and bring to the boil. 
• When it comes to a boil and is soft and just cooked (not for long at all, like 2-3 minutes) blend it and pass it through a fine mesh sieve. 
• When cold, put the whole uncracked egg in the liquid, and if it floats and shows the size of a quarter dollar, it is ready to freeze in the sorbet machine. 
• If it sinks, add a bit of syrup at a time and mix well, until it floats. If it really just stays up on top, add water until it sinks. 
• Remember to keep everything cold cold when spinning the sorbet. Also, help the machine by scraping it a few times in the process, and it should be done inside of 10 minutes.
  
  

Suggestion:

Apricot Ginger 
Cherry 
Peach Gooseberry 
Nectarine Vanilla 
Raspberry Strawberry
(Also, Don’t use Alcohol. It won’t freeze) Try any seasonal fruit!

Tomato Tarte Tatin

                                                    8 Portions

Ingredients:

3 T Olive oil 

3 sweet onions, julienned 

Mix of heirloom and/or cherry tomatoes: 

3 green, 3 yellow, 14 red cherry, for example 

Some sprigs of fresh basil 

225g/1/2 lb firm mild goat’s cheese 

1-2 cloves garlic, minced 

optional spoon of fresh thyme, bay leaf 

Pate brisée Pastry 

200 g (7oz.) all-purpose flour 

100 g (3.5oz.) soft, cool butter diced 

50 g (scant 2oz.) cold water

Procedure:

• For the dough, work 3/4 of the flour and a pinch of salt into the butter with a fork until you have small crumbs, then mix in the water till you has a homogenous paste. 
• Add the remaining flour and incorporate by hand without overworking. 
• If dough still sticks, add another spoon or so of flour, but incorporate fully. 
• Roll into ball, dust lightly with flour, wrap in plastic, and cool at least one hour. 
• In a medium size non-stick sauté pan with oven-proof handle, sauté onions in olive oil till light brown. 
• Cut tomatoes into large wedges, removing water and seeds if necessary, and leave cherry tomatoes whole. 
• Add to pan with garlic, bay leaf, thyme and tomatoes and cook a very short time just to soften tomatoes and evaporate excess moisture. If very watery, incorporate a spoon or two of sifted flour. Salt and pepper to taste. 
• Top with sliced cheese. Bring pastry to room temperature and roll out just larger than pan diameter. 
• Lift off with scraper and rolling pin and place over tomato mix, tucking sides under a bit. 
• Score top to allow release of steam and bake about 30 minutes at 375 F/160 C on bottom rack, or until pastry has browned lightly all over. 
• Remove and cool 5 minutes before inverting onto serving plate. Serve warm or cold.
• Optionally add some capers or anchovies, or top with more cheese.

Wine Suggestion:

Rosés from Provence, Corsica or Languedoc. Dry Riesling or young unoaked Chardonnay.


Made in the Market class with chef Brian Defehr and his students.