FRENCH WORD-A-DAY

I can tell you--after seeing them in the bathroom mirror this morning--this shortcrust pastry recipe will give you les poignées d'amour. That's French for "love handles." Même pas peur? Not even scared? Good! Read on and discover a truly delicious and versatile pâte brisée. I should know...I've tested 10 of them in the past week--ever since you asked for the recipe!  

Today's Word: la pâte brisée

    : shortcrust pastry, a rich dough for making pie crust

Audio: Listen to the words pâte brisée in this soundfile
En cuisine, la pâte brisée est une pâte servant de base aux tartes salées ou sucrées.  La pâte brisée désigne généralement une pâte composée principalement de farine et de matière grasse sans sucre.
In cooking, shortcrust pastry is a dough used as a base for savory or sweet pies. Shortcrust pastry generally refers to a dough composed mainly of flour and fat, without sugar.

Jérôme's Pâte Brisée: 4-ingredient Shortcrust Pastry
(makes one large or two small tarts!)

Ingredients...
2 cups flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 cup white wine
1/2 cup sunflower oil

Note: ordinary white wine is all you need. Leftover wine will work as long as it hasn't turned to vinegar. For oil, we used sunflower, but olive oil or other oils could work.
 
Optional additions to the dough: pinches of salt, poppy or sesame or flax seeds, cumin, herbes de Provence or other spices.... The sky's the limit!

Method:
Pour 1/2 cup wine and 1/2 cup oil into a cup. Heat 1.5 minutes (until very warm) in a microwave. In a bowl combine flour and baking powder. Slowly pour in wine/oil mixture, stirring as you go with a fork or your hands.

Do not over mix. The shortcrust pastry dough is ready when it is no longer sticky.

Note: Having gradually added it to the mix until a good consistency was achieved, I had about 1/8 cup of wine/oil liquid mix leftover. 

Roll out the shortcrust pastry dough on a floured surface. Or roll it out onto some cooking paper, for easy transfer to the pie pan.  (No rolling pin? You could use a bottle of wine or similar.)

Pre-cook the dough
Cook the pâte brisée at 180c (350F) for 15 minutes or until golden and firm. (No need to add weights, such as beans, to the shortcrust pastry dough).

Your pie crust is ready! Just add your favorite filling: for savory tarts try grilled vegetables, one or two eggs whisked with sour cream, salt, pepper, herbs = a good basic (cook in a 180C/350F oven for approximately 30 minutes. For sweet: fry some bananas in butter, add a little sugar (and rum if you like), and arrange in pastry (photo below). I recommend Mimi Thorisson's simple and delicious lemon tart (pictured in the opening photo, above), using Jérôme's Pâte Brisée. A winning combination!

Give this oil and wine-based pâte brisée a try and let Cécile and me know here in the comments how it worked out for you. Bonne chance et bon appétit!

Cécile, rolling out the shortcrust pastry, a recipe she learned from her friend Jérôme. Little does he know what a big part of our lives his 4-ingredient recipe has become. Mille mercis, Jérôme! And a thousand thanks, Cécile, for all you gave when you were with us these past two weeks. Thank you for cleaning up our porch, for all the cooking, for repairing those broken tiles on the outdoor stairs, and for the mega project of creating a tool room in our unruly cafoutche (before and after photos coming!). You are truly my rock star sister-in-law, and you will never know what an example you are to all of us. 


The last quiche  Cécile made for us using leftovers in the fridge--including leftover pastry dough. There are sauteed yellow peppers, mushrooms, and she added Dijon mustard + cumin to the egg/sour cream base. Our son Max loved this one!


Thanks to the additional pâte brisée in my frigo (as mentioned, today's recipe will make one large or 2 small-medium tarts) it will be easy to throw together another meal. I'm off to make an All-time Favorite Tomato Tart for lunch (recipe here). Will worry about those love handles--those poignées d'amour--later. On second thought, même pas peur!  

FRENCH VOCABULARY
la pâte brisée = shortcrust pastry
les poignées d'amour = love handles
même pas peur! = not scared! (word of the day on Jan 7 2013)
bonne chance = good luck
bon appétit = enjoy your meal
le frigo = fridge

Banana tart with caramel filling.