Tart Love: Sassy, Savory, and Sweet

By Holly Herrick

From the award-winning food writer and author of Southern Farmers Market Cookbook, a collection of sweet and savory tart recipes.

What is a tart? It’s an open-faced, skinny kind of pie. It never has a double crust (like an apple pie might) and can be filled with anything from custard to Camembert.

Here is a short, delicious course in tart making. Filled with sweet and savory recipes for marvelous little pies, Tart Love also guides you in using seasonal fruits and produce to create scrumptious, palate-pleasing desserts and main-dish tarts.

Holly Herrick shares methods and recipes for fresh tart versions of southern favorites, like Feisty Fried Shrimp and Grits Pockets, savory Lowcountry Boil Puff Tart, and sweet Lavender Buttermilk Tart. Her step-by-step instructions will have you making perfect pastry in no time, and master pastry recipes will let you make all the recipes in this book plus creations of your own.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media
• Release date: Oct 1, 2011
• ISBN: 9781423618959

Book preview

Preface

My relationship with tarts has not always been sweet. In fact, it could more accurately be defined as a mild dislike that eventually developed into a true love—a little like that pesky boy you knew in third grade who by the time high school rolled around had morphed into the man of your dreams.

My first exposure to the term tart had nothing to do with food. It came via my older brother Tom when he was in tenth grade and just beginning to expand his vocabulary for upcoming college exams. He learned in English class that a tart was a kind of wanton woman. He couldn’t resist throwing the term relentlessly at my twin sister Heather and me, declaring almost daily for what seemed like a very long time, You silly tarts, with aggravating adolescent swagger punctuated by an obnoxious giggle. Of course, at least at that young age, we were nothing of the kind, but it sent my mind wondering about the true meaning of tarts, and especially their edible casing, pastry. That wouldn’t come until a decade later when I got married and simultaneously met and adopted Doris Herrick as my mother-in-law.

Dori, as she was affectionately called, amazed me. She cooked three delicious meals a day, always neatly coiffed and made up, wearing heels and a pretty dress. She never looked flustered in the kitchen, certainly never perspired, and practically always whistled while she worked. An Iowa farm girl at heart, she ate pig virtually three meals a day and never gained an ounce. But the thing that impressed me more than anything else was that Dori could make pie pastry that could make a grown man cry, or at least come begging for more. I came to believe it was this skill that in no small part contributed to her very happy 50-plus year marriage to the love of her life, Walt.

I marveled at Dori’s deftness with pastry and told her so. Slowly but surely, she began to teach me in her gentle, motherly way. For Dori, pastry was always made by hand, using a pastry blender and a bowl, and it always included equal parts lard (she swore by leaf lard, the rendered lard from the fat surrounding the pig’s kidney) and sweet butter to two parts flour. After that, it was simply a matter of adding just enough water to hold it together. The rest was elementary, or so she said. She never fussed with tart pans and was ardently committed to the world of deep-dish pies, usually fruit or pecan.

At home, in my own kitchen, I tried to replicate Dori’s pastry for several years, but I always felt that mine fell short. It just didn’t have the right flake factor or buttery deliciousness. I didn’t hold that against Dori. She became one of my best friends, and though she’s now passed, remains the same in my heart. She was the person who set me on the path of learning the joys of cooking. I can never make pastry without thinking of her.

Dori was my inspiration for pursuing culinary training at Le Cordon Bleu, Paris, France, where I learned the mechanics of pastry (we’ll get there in the Perfecting Pastry chapter), was introduced to tarts, and finally got comfortable in my own tart skin. But it was a petite woman with a huge heart who I met in the soulfully beautiful Pays Cathare in the Languedoc-Roussillon region of France that fully opened the doors of my mind to the limitless possibilities of tarts.

After graduating from cooking school in Paris and falling in love with France, my by now tart-happy husband and I decided to buy a small house in that rugged part of the country. Simone lived in a tiny village about 12 kilometers from mine called St.-Jean-de-Paracol. We met through mutual friends in her beautiful, bougainvillea-walled garden over glasses of Blanquette de Limoux and a savory platter of—what else?—tarts.

Besides her celebrated couscous and choucroute garni (sausage and sauerkraut dish), Simone was best known for her tarts, especially the savory kind. A frugal widow of limited financial means and mother of two young girls, she was most often found in her rocky garden with a Mediterranean view, cultivating the foods that fed her family and, often, friends. Winter squash, fennel, figs, tomatoes, zucchini, mushrooms, apples, cherries, onions, arugula, spinach, endives and assorted cheeses and meats from the local marches—any and all—were delicious tart-topping fare. Encased in simple pastry, and often puff pastry, these became low-cost, high-nutrient meals-in-one and were frequent features at her always delicious table.

Before Simone, I thought of tarts as sweet, a kind of dessert. After Simone, the universe of tarts became literally limitless.

In Tart Love, it is my desire to share some of Dori’s, Simone’s and my pastry and tart wisdom so that you, too, can revel in the joy and delicious diversity of tarts. As you read the following book and practice the techniques, hopefully you, like I did, will shed any trepidation you may have about pastry and experience firsthand the pleasure of flour-dusted hands, the heady aroma of baking butter, and the unparalleled beauty of the tart. Perhaps with patience and renewed confidence, you’ll even fall in love.

Introduction

So what exactly is a tart? Literally, a tart is an open-faced, skinny kind of pie. Usually only one inch deep and straight-sided, tarts are pies’ sleeker, sexier culinary cousins. A tart never has a double crust with a pastry lid (like an apple pie might) and can be filled with anything from custard to Camembert. The pastry can be baked ahead (see Blind Baking and filled, or filled and then baked. Tarts come in all shapes and sizes (see Tart Equipment Cupboard), the smallest of which is the diminutive, single-serving tartlet. The pastry can be a savory or sweet short pastry, a puff pastry, or even a crumble pastry (Perfecting Pastry).

But the figurative definition of tarts is so much more fun! I think of them as delectable, delicate and beautiful food vessels. With tarts, the filling and presentation possibilities are endless. I had more fun coming up with recipe ideas for this book than any other I have ever written. Saturday mornings at the Charleston Farmers Market, from early spring through late fall, became inspirational forays into the infinite realm of possibilities for tarts. Rhubarb one hot summer day was the imaginational fodder for Rosy Rhubarb and Apricot Tartlets, while small green baskets brimming with fat, purple, early fall figs would eventually become Panna Cotta Tart with Roasted Fresh Figs in Balsamic Honey Sauce. I eventually started calling myself queen of tarts because tarts were all I thought about for months on end. There were days when I was so distracted by the tart head phenomenon I questioned whether it was safe to drive. Once you get started thinking about the vast universe of sassy tart flavor and texture possibilities, I think and hope you’ll become similarly and happily tart-obsessed, except for the dangerous driving potential part, of course.

I am a southern woman. Although there are variations on southern themes such as cheese, buttermilk, or sweet potato custards, this book is not southern in the sense that it is chock full of classic southern tart and pie fillings. Rather, it’s southern in the sense that it follows the South’s long growing season for fresh inspiration and includes whimsical, delicious recipes that are essentially fresh tart versions of old southern favorites like Feisty Fried Shrimp and Grits Pockets, Lowcountry Boil Puff Tart, and Lavender Buttermilk Tart. Recipes are organized in each chapter by season. With limited exceptions, such as scuppernongs (large grapes of the muscadine family, native to the Southeast), most of the ingredients are available anywhere, though they may grow at a different time of year depending on the region.

Like Simone, always keep Mother Nature and her seasonal produce bounty close to your heart in your tart kitchen. The results will be fresher, more delicious, more nutritious and kinder to planet Earth.

Because everyone loves them and because they showcase the versatility of pastry, I’ve also included a few tart variations in pot pie recipes, such as Pot Roast Pot Pies and fried pie pocket recipes, such as Deep Purple Fresh Cherry Pie Pockets.

As you delve into the world of tarts and in all cooking adventures, always remember the most important ingredient is love. If you sprinkle it into all you do, in both your kitchen and your life, everything will taste, look and feel better.

Introduction

The Complete Tart Kitchen

Making tarts does not require a fully stocked professional kitchen, but it makes things easier if you have a few basic ingredients and equipment on hand. Below are some of the items I find to be useful in my kitchen. Start small and build your tart-preparing supplies as you go. In general, I find it’s better to lean more heavily on quality than quantity in both ingredients and equipment, as both will take you the distance much more efficiently and deliciously than cheap substitutes.

Tart Ingredients Pantry

White Lily Flour—Milled from 100 percent soft winter wheat, which is naturally lower in protein, White Lily Flour yields exceptionally tender pastry every time. Aptly nicknamed the light baking flour, it is pre-sifted and all-purpose. Find it locally or visit www.whitelily.com. Before measuring, simply fluff the flour bag with a fork. I use White Lily for all my pastries and find it makes a remarkable difference in the texture over other brands of flour I’ve tested. It stores well in the refrigerator unopened. Once opened, store in a sealed, wide-mouth dry-goods container for easy measuring access.

AA Grade Unsalted Butter—Butter makes up nearly half of the content of the Master Pastry recipes in this book, so buy the best you can afford. Unsalted butter is best because you get to decide how much salt you want to add to a recipe. More perishable than salted butter, it’s best stored in the freezer until ready to use. I use Land O’ Lakes Sweet Cream Unsalted butter because it’s readily available and I find it to be very dependable in quality. If you’re lucky enough to know an artisanal dairy/cheese/butter vendor at your local farmers market, go for it—you’re in for a treat.

Sea salt or kosher salt—Both sea salt and kosher salt are additive-free and therefore devoid of the strong chemical flavor present in processed salt. Use these whenever possible. Measured salt (and pepper) quantities are suggested when necessary throughout the book, but generally speaking, I suggest that you season to taste. Tasting as you cook and to your liking will make your food taste better and make you happier.

Pure Vanilla Extract—The FDA requires 13.35 ounces of vanilla beans per gallon during the flavor extraction process, ensuring a beautifully aromatic wave of pure vanilla flavor. Buy the best quality you can afford and try to avoid imitation vanilla at all costs.

Honey—Buy local honey produced near where you live for multi-dimensional, additive-free antibody-building goodness. It is well worth the extra cost for the rich flavor and color dividends it delivers.

The Complete Tart Kitchen