Monday, August 20, 2012

Blackberries


Sorry to have been absent but part of whatever ails me has become total loss of appetite and 12 lbs in 3 weeks.
But I am back to cruising farmers markets, determined to go on. Mid August is of course the height of the season for those favorite all-American crops, corn and tomatoes, but it's also blackberry time and since their season is much shorter and they are much less beloved, let's start there. After all those little black thimbles are full of antioxidants and fiber with a bit of calcium thrown in.

Blackberries don't make great jam unless you are willing to strain the seeds out of the hot, cooked jam. They are the stuff of the famed French brandy, cassis, but let's not go there. They are fine in a pie or crisp but most people tend to turn them into cobblers which have more cake and less blackberry. A few of these fruits go a long way. My absolute favorite is a simple Provencal clafouti and the real French housewife recipe, so simple a 6-year-old can make it, is in the book, How to Fix a Leek... Now available for $2.99 as an eBook if you want to download it onto your tablet or smart phone and take it with you to the market.

I got my hands on a pile of blackberries this past week and after staring at them for days, yesterday I decided to play with them and try something new. Not a crisp or cobbler, not a pie. Or at least a plain blackberry pie. And because I so love blackberries in that pudding-like clafouti, I came up with a blackberry custard tart. I had six people for dinner last night and it vanished from the dish five minutes after it was served.

So, if you want to go a step beyond the ridiculously simple clafouti, here you go:
For the crust, I made a cookie dough, the easiest kind to create.

In a food processor--and mind you, I did this in a mini one, so know you don't need fancy expensive equipment-- combine 1 1/3 cups flour with 1 stick unsalted butter cut into pieces. Process just until coarsely blended. Add 2 tbsp brown sugar, a pinch of salt, 1 egg, 2 tbsp milk and 1/8 tsp nutmeg. (Optionally, if you are a ginger fan, add 1/2 inch piece of fresh ginger, chopped.) Process into lumps.

Preheat oven to 350º. Butter a 9-10" pie plate. If you have a metal one with holes in the bottom, this crust will be crisper. If you don't, you can try baking it empty for 10 minutes or not, as you see fit.

Press the dough into the pie plate all the way up the sides and a little over the top so you can crimp it between your thumb and first finger to make it look pretty. Be sure it is even all around. Now optionally you can bake it 10 minutes if you want to make it crisper in the end.

Otherwise pour in 3-4 cups of fresh, clean blackberries and distribute them evenly.

In a medium size bowl, combine 4 egg yolks, 1/3 cup white sugar, 1 tsp vanilla, 1/8 tsp ground cinnamon and 2 cups of any combination of the following that produces a thick liquid: heavy cream, yogurt, ricotta, mascarpone, creme fraiche. I used up 1 cup of heavy cream I had on hand, mixing it with 1 cup yogurt. (As it happened 1/2 of that was lemon yogurt and it added a delightful tang to the pie.) Mix all this together with a hand beater or whisk.

Pour into the pie shell.
Bake this at 350º about 40 minutes or until a cake tester comes out clean.
Serve warm or at room temperature just as it is or if you want to jazz it up and can take the calories, top it with whipped cream.

If you want to go even further, I found a recipe for blackberry cookies which I will post shortly.
Then onto what to do with corn when you can't face it on the cob one more time.


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