Food Blog:
Cook In.
Eat Out.
Miss Tenacity.
New Mexico.
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Friday, May 20
When presented with perfect berries....
...what else is there to do but to make a tart?
My brothers claimed the raspberry patch when we were growing up. They ate everything that came off those bushes with gusto. I relinquished my claim easily enough, as I had decided that I did not like raspberries. Too red, too tart, too.... something. Who knows. However, by never getting near the big overgrown patch myself, I was free to discover and pillage the wild blackberries that were growing behind our garage. Wild they may not have truly been in taxonomy, but only in the sense that we did not "intend" for them to be there and no one tended to them like the rest of the gardens. Those huge overly sweet fruits were just what I was after - and I had them all to myself. They may have even been one of my first "food epiphanies" that vastly preceded my true interest in taste and culinary creations, which only set in after I was in my 20's. When I was 10, offer me red raspberries? "No, thank you, I'll be behind the garage."
When at Wild Oats recently, I was picking up a few of the usual things - Gala apples, steel-cut oatmeal, the indulgent and irresistable Larabar(s) - when I spotted the sale on raspberries. A pint was $2, they were organic, and they were gorgeous. Obviously you wouldn't think I would leap on even perfect raspberries, but of course I cannot resist a lovely ripe specimen of nearly anything, so I grab one container on my way out.
And then they sit in my kitchen for a day and a half. What am I going to do with them? They are too excellent to ruin by whizzing into a smoothie, too firm and fragrant to need to liven them up by baking into a crumble. The remaining options all vary on the "fruit tart" theme - whether it be an actual fruit tart, or a cheesecake garnished with fresh berries, or something of that nature.
I searched my newest cookbook acquisition, "Canyon Ranch Cooks", a spa cookbook, which means that everything in it is "lite" in some way, caloric or unhealthy-ingredients. Towards the back I found a blackberry and lemon pie, and after some obvious tweaks, I had my plan:
Raspberry and Lemon Pie-Tart
Start with:
1 cup whole wheat flour
1/4 t salt
2T sugar
4T cold butter, cut into dice
6T ice cold water
Take the flour, salt and sugar and whiz a few seconds in the food processor until combined, then add the butter and pulse until the butter is mostly broken up and the mixture looks sandy. Add the water 1 T at a time, until you think the dough is wet enough to mash into a stable ball. You do not necessarily need all 6 T of water. Gather into a ball, wrap in plastic and chuck into the fridge for at least 30 minutes. Once it has rested, plop onto a floured surface and gently roll it out large enough to fit an 8" pie pan. GREASE (or Pam or butter) the pie pan and then dust it with flour. Lay the dough into the pan, patch any holes that may have occurred, and bake at 400 until lightly browned (about 8-10 minutes).
(While the crust is baking, start prepping the lemons for the filling, below...)
Remove crust from oven and allow it to cool....
While that is cooling off, make the filling:
grated zest of 2 lemons
juice of 2 the lemons
1/3 cup sugar
2 eggs
2T melted butter
1 pint perfect raspberries
Beat together the lemon juice and sugar, then add the eggs and beat until bright yellow and almost ribbony in texture.
Add the lemon peel and melted butter and mix to combine.
Arrange the raspberries on the crust as haphazardly or symmetrically as you'd like.
Pour the lemon filling over:
Bake at 400 for 30 minutes or until the filling is no longer jiggly. Let cool before cutting and serving. Share with friends, or eat it mostly yourself while wishing that perfect raspberry season was just a wee bit longer....
Time posted: 08:23 [permalink]
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CONTACT ME: tenacity -at- gmail.com
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