Text 31588, 96 rader
Skriven 2009-11-29 18:48:00 av JIM WELLER (1:123/140)
Ärende: baking 3
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MMMMM-----Meal-Master - formatted by MMCONV  2.10

     Title: Chouquettes
Categories: French, Doughnuts
  Servings: 4

      1    stick unsalted butter
      1 c  water
      1 TB sugar
    1/8 ts salt
      1 c  flour
      3    eggs
      2 TB half and half cream
      3 TB pearl sugar

Pate a choux, or choux pastry, is the Madonna of doughs. It is
always reinventing itself. It can be fried into beignets; boiled
into Parisian gnocchi; piped into eclairs; piped with cheese and
roasted in gougeres; sliced and sandwiched into profiteroles. But
the most simple and perfect of them all is when they're crusted in
sugar and baked into the little-known (Stateside) chouquettes.

Chouquettes loosely translates to "little bits of choux." They are
usually sold in baskets perched atop the glass pastry cases of
bakeries and pastry shops in France. A sort of afterthought, they
are just profiteroles shells: crisp, airy, and hollow, crusted in
lumps of pearl sugar. They are just a bit sweet, and slightly rich
and eggy from the pastry. They make the perfect snack: unassuming,
unextravagant, unfilling. But yet they add that touch of afternoon
sweetness to the day, and take the edge off a rumbling belly.

Choux pastry is one of the easiest doughs to make, and unusual in
process too, so that you feel accomplished and chef-y. And once
you've mastered choux, you can make any of the things I enumerated
above.

The basic method to making choux pastry is to boil together one cup
of water and one stick of butter, with some salt or sugar or both.
Take it off the heat, and dump in one cup of flour. You don't even
need a recipe! Then put it back on the heat, stir for 30 seconds,
dump it into a bowl, add some eggs, and you're done. I don't even
pipe these; I just scoop them onto a sheet and bake them, topped in
that iconic pearl sugar like a crusty snow crown.

Chouquettes are snowflake festive in the winter, and perfect for all
the holiday teas, breakfasts, brunches, and desserts we all make or
attend over the next few months. It is the kind of cooking I call
therapy cooking: a process that always turns out the same, requires
minimal work, but a bit of attention, and coaxes you back to sanity
after a workday. Eating them is a just reward.

- makes 30 chouquettes -

1. Preheat the oven to 400 F.

2. To make choux pastry, place the butter, water, sugar, and salt in
a saucepan, cover, and bring to a boil. Take the pan off the heat
when it boils, and dump in the flour. Stir to incorporate with a
wooden spoon. Return to the pan to medium-low heat, and stir
constantly for about 30 seconds, until the dough comes away from the
pan. Scoop the dough out of the pan and into a bowl to cool down for
just a couple minutes. You'll want to put that pan to soak right
now. Then, add one egg at a time, stirring for all you're worth with
that wooden spoon. When all three eggs are absorbed, you'll have a
thick, smooth, and sticky dough. Voila! Choux pastry.

3. Use two tablespoons to drop tablespoon-sized mounds of choux
pastry onto a Silpat-lined baking sheet. Brush lightly with the
milk/half and half/cream, and sprinkle with pearl sugar, remembering
that these chouquettes will puff up and be much larger later than
now, and so can probably handle more sugar than you think.

4. Bake for 10 minutes at 400 F. Lower the heat to 350 F, and bake
for 35 to 40 minutes, until the chouquettes are puffed, golden, and
hard to the touch. Cool on a rack. Eat them as is, or drizzle with
honey or smother with jam.

Posted by Kerry Saretsky

French in a Flash


From: Serious Eats

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Cheers

YK Jim


... Crispy pork and dessert are not mutually exclusive.

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