Heirloom Tomato and Quinoa Galette with a Farmers Market Salad

This weekend was the last official weekend for our farmers market. I just cannot believe how time flies. It is almost May, which means we are going to be left without one of the things we look forward to the most every Sunday morning. Luckily, some of the farmers have chosen a close by location to set up stands for a couple more weeks, but not long enough.

I asked one of the farmers what they do in the summer and she told me, "Go on vacation". I smiled. So well deserved.



My first stop every Sunday, and definitely one of my favorites, is the heirloom tomato farm stand. Her tomatoes are like no other . Sweet, soft and buttery. Every Sunday we buy about five pounds of tomatoes to last us through the week. A little mid morning snack of sliced tomato with avocado, sea salt and olive oil. Nothing beats that.



Perhaps because my life has been a little chaotic lately, I have been craving simplicity all around and that includes food. It's not a stretch for me as Basque cuisine is all about ingredients and quality and little about method and technique. All I crave are soups and salads and quinoa has really become a staple in my diet. Quinoa porridge with hemp milk in the morning, quinoa tabouleh, quinoa with watercress and pumpkin seed pesto...

Our friend P. who is originally from Peru was telling me stories about how they used to make her eat quinoa as a kid. Her parents are taking a trip home soon and she was telling me about all the different varieties they have. Even pink. "Even pink?", I asked. "I must get my hands on some".



So when we thought about making a quick galette for lunch, I thought of making a quinoa crust for added protein and earthy flavor. We accompanied the galette with a simple salad of watercress, watermelon radish, edible flowers, baby carrots and a lemon vinaigrette.



Quinoa Pate Brisee

85 grams quinoa flour
65 grams superfine brown rice flour
20 grams potato starch
3 grams salt
2 grams xanthan gum
115 grams butter or non-hydrogenated shortening, cold and diced
80 grams ice water

Place all the dry ingredients in the food processor. Pulse to combine. Add the cold and diced butter (or shortening) and pulse about 10 times until butter is cut into the flour into chunks (not too small). Add the water and pulse until comes together. It does not need to form a ball. Just combined.

Dump the dough onto a board and form it into a disk. Wrap it in plastic wrap and flatten it a bit. Refrigerate for at least 2 hours.

Heirloom Tomato Galette

Quinoa pate brisee
2 lbs heirloom tomatoes
1 oz goat cheese
Olive oil
salt
Freshly ground pepper
Egg wash

Roll the pate brisee to about 1/16"-1/8" thick, forming a circle. You can cut the edges to make a perfect circle or just leave it as for a rustic look.

Cut the tomatoes in slices that are about 1/4" thick. Place the tomato slices on paper towels to drain some of the excess water. Pat the top also. Place the tomato slices on the rolled pate brisee. Fold the edges over the tomatoes.

Dab some goat cheese on top. Drizzle with olive oil, salt and pepper. brush some egg wash on the edges for a golden brown crust.

Bake in a preheated 450F on the lower half of the oven for 15 minutes. Turn oven down to 400F and finish baking for another 15 minutes until crust golden brown. Make sure the bottom crust is cooked. You can even bake it on a pizza stone if you have one.

Drizzle with more olive oil and serve with a green salad.

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Cherry Blossom Macarons for Martha Stewart Weddings

I have been waiting anxiously to share these photos with all of you. It was about two months ago when I received an email from Shira from Martha Stewart Weddings blog to see if I was interested in creating a little recipe and story. I was so honored and flattered. It is Martha Stewart Weddings after all, such a big inspiration for most of us.

The magazine had not come out yet, but the story had to follow the pink theme of the Spring issue that is on stands now. It was the beginning of Spring and I was dreaming about cherry blossoms, pinks and coppers. I asked Shira what she thought of the idea without knowing it would be one of the magazine themes. She loved it and as it turns out, it matched the magazine perfectly.



You can read the entire entry here. I hope it didn't disappoint. Thank you very much Shira and the rest of the team!

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Chocolate, Hazelnut and Coconut Mousse Cakes

Baking and cooking for me are often times much more than just eating. Particularly with baking. I enjoy the process of thinking about ingredients, scaling, folding and finishing. It's very therapeutic for me in a way that it almost feels like a necessity.

"What will happen to you now?", asked my brother once I told him about all the test results that came back to me last week. He was referring to the gluten intolerance diagnosis (amongst other issues) that my doctor had shared with me just a few hours prior. "Bake even more!", I replied.



For the last few months that I have given up gluten, going shopping has been like going to the candy shop. So many new ingredients to play around with. So many grains to cook with. My pantry and refrigerator shelves are full of grain flours, new nut and seed butters, oils...

It seems ironic how gluten, which for years has been the essence of my work and also life, has turned out to be not so good for me. I am sure that other factors besides gluten itself triggered all my immune responses, but gluten further aggravated them.



So as I told my brother, here I am, baking away. For the next couple of weeks, I will not be able to have any dairy either, so unfortunately, these chocolate, hazelnut and coconut mousse cakes were off limits, but I surely loved making them for my family. My mom, who is the chocoholic that she is, loved them. I will just have to make them again for me some time soon.



Chocolate and Hazelnut Biscuit

makes 1/2 sheet pan

180 grams egg whites
185 grams muscovado sugar
75 grams sugar
150 grams hazelnut flour
20 grams cocoa powder
pinch salt
225 grams butter, melted or coconut oil

Whisk together the egg whites and the sugars. Mix the dry ingredients in a bowl and add the whites to the dry. Whisk until combined. Whisk in the melted and cooled butter or the coconut oil.

Line half a sheetpan with parchment paper and spread the batter evenly.

Bake at 350F for about 15-20 minutes until cake baked.

Chocolate Mousse

enough for 10 3x2 ring molds

45 grams sugar
100 grams egg yolks
300 grams dark chocolate (use couverture if you can)
400 ml heavy cream, whipped to soft peaks

In the bowl of an electric mixer, whisk together the egg yolks and sugar until combined. Bring the bowl to a double boiler and cook until it starts to thicken, like making a sabayon. Remove from heat and bring to the mixer and whip to a thick ribbon.

In the meantime, melt the chocolate over a double boiler and let it cool.

When sabayon has cooled, fold in the soft peak whipped cream. Whisk some of the chocolate into it and then, fold in the rest.

Place the mousse in a piping bag. Line ring molds with acetate paper or parchment paper the fits around the circumference. Cut a disk of chocolate biscuit and place it on the bottom of the ring mold. Pipe in the chocolate mousse and refrigerate until set.

Coconut Mousse

150 ml heavy cream
30 ml heavy cream (to temper the gelatin)
10 grams freshly grated coconut or unsweeneted dry coconut
1 tsp coconut extract, optional
30 grams sugar
1 sheet of gelatin
100 grams plain whole yogurt

Whip the 150ml heavy cream with the sugar, coconut and coconut extract till soft peaks form. In the meantime, bloom the gelatin in ice water for 5 minutes. Squeeze out the excess water.

Heat the 30ml of heavy cream and dissolve the gelatin into it. Fold in a bit of the whipped cream into the gelatin mixture to temper. Fold back into the rest of the cream. Fold in yogurt.

Place the mousse in a piping bag and pipe on top of the chilled chocolate mousse. Refrigerate until it sets and serve with coconut shavings.

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Lemon and Buttermilk Sherbet, Stewed Rhubarb and Financiers

We have had gorgeous sunny and breezy weather these past few days. The first stalks of rhubarb also showed up at the produce stands really showcasing the best of Spring.



Easter Sunday, after the neighborhood egg hunt with all our friends, we had a quiet dinner at home with my parents. We churned a small batch of one of my all time favorite sherbets, David's lemon and buttermilk sherbet. I tried it a couple of years ago for the first time and it's one of the first things I crave when warm weather arrives. So simple, creamy and refreshing.



We took a long walk before dinner. I thought the sherbet would go perfectly with the rhubarb we had stewed that morning. Rhubarb is not something I grew up with, but I have grown to love it very much. I clearly remember the first time I ever had it when C. and I went on a camping trip to Glacier National Park and had one of the best rhubarb pies I have had in my life. One of those that sets the bar too high.

I had some leftover egg whites I needed to use up after our last pots de creme, so we also made financiers. Fragrant batter of toasted almond meal, quinoa, brown butter and some of the stewed rhubarb.



Stewed Rhubarb

225 grams rhubarb
60 grams sugar
1 lemon, juice and zest

Cut the rhubarb into pieces and toss them with sugar, lemon juice and zest. Cook for about 5 minutes until soft. Do not cook it to mush and keep pieces whole.


Rhubarb Financiers

120 grams whites
125 grams sugar
Zest of half a lemon
55 grams almond flour, toasted
55 grams quinoa flour
150 grams butter, browned
100 grams stewed rhubarb, strained

Brown the butter, strain it and let it cool. Toast the almond flour at 350F for about 5 minutes and let it cool.

Whisk together the egg whites with sugar and lemon zest. Add the dry ingredients and whisk. Add the cooled brown butter and whisk until all incorporated. Fold in the rhubarb.

Let the batter set in the refrigerator for about 4 hours or overnight.

Pipe into molds and bake at 350F until golden brown on top.

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Pixie Tangerine and Fennel Pots de Creme

A few days ago, as I was being interviewed by Raleigh's News Observer, I began thinking about inspiration. "What inspires you to cook?" is a question I get asked a lot. Right at that moment, I thought of these pixie tangerines we had just brought home days earlier. Anything this sweet, fragrant and beautiful to look at is always one of my biggest inspirations. I don't always know what I will be making with them and in my mind, that is part of the fun.



During my years in professional kitchens, menus were always strongly driven by seasons. Perhaps because I grew up close to nature and because we only ate what was in season, I cannot think of produce or cooking in any other way.

Every Sunday, my dad drove us to his parents farm in Zeberio. They grew most everything they ate and always had crates full of extras for us to take home. I remember the vivid smell of leeks that permeated my dad's car and lingered for days. Summer was vibrant with strawberries, summer squash, heirloom tomatoes, peas, figs... Winter was hearty with leeks, cabbage, red beans, potatoes... and a small orange tree that yielded fruit late into Spring. That's where my inspiration comes from.



"I feel like flan", I told my mom. Farmer Sal's eggs with their deep orange yolks were calling my name. We steeped cream and milk with the pixie tangerine zest, a bit of lemon zest, cinnamon and fennel seeds for this little pots de creme. Not quite flan, but we always seem to call any custard flan, whether it has caramel or not.

We spent the whole afternoon at home playing with M., baking, reading and eating this little custard jars.



I had bookmarked Tara's tangerine and almond cake recipe a few weeks before and this was the perfect time to make it. A flourless, super moist cake that I adapted to incorporate pistachios and a gluten-free crumb topping. Barely had any time to photograph them as they were our snack for the afternoon we spent strawberry picking.

And then... there's our little "txinbito", like we call her. "Jateko modukoa ama".



Pixie Tangerine and Fennel Pots de Creme

makes about 10 small ramekins

500 ml milk
500 ml heavy cream
Zest of 6 pixie tangerines or 3 regular ones
Zest of 1 lemon
1 cinnamon stick
1 tsp fennel seeds, crushed
3 eggs
3 egg yolks
175 grams sugar

Heat the milk, heavy cream, zest, cinnamon and fennel seeds. Steep for about 10 minutes.

Whisk the eggs, egg yolks and sugar together in a bowl. Temper in the hot liquid. Strain through a fine sieve.

Pour the custard into ramekins. Place ramekins on a baking tray. Bring the tray to a preheated 300F oven. Pour hot water in the baking tray about 1" high. Bake the pots de creme until set. Time will vary depending on the size of the ramekin.

Let them cool and refrigerate them for up to 3 days. We seem to like them best at room temperature but that might be just us.

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Zucchini Blossoms

There are certain fruits and vegetables that are so delicate and elusive that every year when I do have a chance to get my hands on them, I feel like it's the biggest gift ever.

This winter has been tough on local crops and the wait for the arrival of the much beloved zucchini blossoms has been endless. Every weekend I would go to the farmers market and inquire the farmer about them. "Not yet, maybe next week", he kept saying week after week. I would even call a few days before so I knew what to expect and to have the rest of my ingredients ready for when the much anticipated blossoms arrived.

Even my friend D. who also goes to the farmers market religiously was so intrigued by these little flowers. She had never seen or heard of them and was curious to taste what I was so enthusiastic about.



A couple of Sundays ago, we arrived early and waited and waited for the second delivery van to arrive. If you have ever held a zucchini blossom in your hand, you know how delicate they are and must be picked right before selling them or cooking with them otherwise they wilt quickly. We stood there first in line to get the best of the pick and laid them carefully on a tray to bring them home.

We decided to stuff them with a brown rice couscous, sauteed shiitakes, herbs and goat cheese mixture. Then quickly browned them in olive oil and finished them with a splash of lemon juice and a dab of butter. We had some leftover for the next day so I made a quick tart with goat cheese and the blossoms for my mom inspired by my dear friend Penny's cover of Saveur magazine. We loved them and what a way to begin Spring.



Brown Rice Couscous, Goat Cheese and Shiitake Zucchini Blossoms

12 zucchini blossoms
1 cup cooked brown rice couscous or quinoa
1/4 cup shiitakes, sauteed in olive oil
1 Tbs goat cheese, crumbled
1 Tbs parsley, chopped
1 Tbs basil, chopped
1 tsp oregano
Salt and pepper to taste
1 clove of garlic
2 Tbs Olive oil
Juice of half a lemon
1 Tbs butter

Mix together the cooked couscous, cooked shiitakes, goat cheese, fresh herbs. Season with a bit of salt and pepper and taste it. Adjust seasoning.

Stuff the blossoms with about 1-2 tsp of the mixture and roll the tops to seal in the filling.

Heat the olive oil in a large non stick pan. Cook the garlic clove slowly until it infuses the oil and then remove it. Brown the stuffed zucchini blossoms for about 1 minute on each side. Add the lemon juice. Turn the heat off and add the butter. Swirl the pan to create a bit of a sauce. Serve immediately.

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