Chris Hennes

Onion Tart (Take 2) For my second attempt at the Onion Tart I made some changes. First, I made sure that the onion arlettes were appropriately crisp. Second, I used a much thinner sablé. Third, I tried not to reduce the onions for the gratin as much so that I had more of it. Last, I played around with the plating. Some of these things worked, and some did not. The arlette was a huge improvement, they turned out much better. Interestingly, the thinner sablé was not: I used the 1.25mm version, and thought is was too thin, both visually and texturally. The 2.5mm version would have been best, I think. While I did end up with more of the gratin, as hoped, the taste and texture were not as good: the onions were too al dente. If it make this again I'll go back to the way I made the gratin the first time, and just increase the quantities to compensate for the lack of volume. I thought this plating was unattractive, and also resulted in an unbalanced quantity of gratin to custard: I think it's important that you wind up with, by volume, about twice as much gratin on the plate as custard, and I had that ratio reversed when plated like this. So some good, some bad: still not perfect.

Right: and my point is that while that applies to the stuff being sold at Williams Sonoma, it doesn't apply to stuff like the plastic lid that Andie linked to above: it's a product that they had to develop, manufacture, market, etc. etc. (I'm not arguing the merit of the product, just rationalizing its price!) It's a totally different beast from a $200 egg poacher sold by WS, and I think their $7.99 price tag is not at all "outrageous." I wouldn't pay it, but I think it's completely reasonable.

Finishing up the arlettes this afternoon. This time around I let the dough get harder, I sliced them thinner, rolled them thinner, sprinkled with less sugar, and baked them longer. They were also made with homemade puff pastry instead of store bought, and I didn't accidentally skip any steps in the recipe. Just off the slicer: Rolled thin (sorry, no thickness reference this time): Sprinkled with onion sugar: Baked seven minutes at 340°F: Sprinkled with more sugar: Baked until crisp, about eight more minutes: This batch was much more successful than the last: they were thinner, crisper, and both looked and tasted better. As long as they hold for another day without any problems I am confident that this next time through the dish will be completely successful. It's also much easier the second time around!

And if you sold your chocolates at less than your operating cost, you'd be bankrupt then, too. If the market can't bear that minimum price, you're screwed.

I finally got off my butt and measured my cooler: it's a 24 qt. With preheated water and a styrofoam lid the SideKIC has no trouble maintaining the temp for as long as you want it to (I've done a couple of 72 hour cooks as well as a 36 and a 24, plus a couple dozen short-term).

I still don't get the point: so you've got the butter on the outside. Why? And isn't it a complete mess, especially when it comes time to bake?

While that's true of the stuff at WS, it's certainly not true of things like Andie's plastic lid: you might be surprised by how much it costs to start up a company and produce a product: there is a LOT of overhead. $7.99 is expensive for a lid, but I bet the company owner's profit margins are slim indeed, after he's paid for manufacturing, storage, shipping, packaging and website design, legal fees, incorporation fees, etc. etc.

The pounding is only necessary if your dough is too cold, isn't it? If the dough and butter are both at 65°F it should roll out pretty easily, no, just like the demi? I didn't think there was a difference besides how you packaged up the butter initially, and how exactly you did the turns.

I haven't tried it directly, but when I made the lasagna the sheets stuck to one another if they were wet, so I'd guess that the standard brush of water between pasta layers would do the trick. Only one way to find out for sure...

I doubt that firm "al dente" texture is desirable in a filled pasta product: it was OK in lasagna, but I can't see it working all that well for, say, ravioli.

It is not coincidental that my sablés were either the thickness of bamboo skewers or the thickness of 26 gauge wire...

Success at last... I figured out what (I think) caused my overly-fragile sablés. I am using the C&K Products Isomalt Crystals sold here. A close examination of the crystals shows what I believe is the problem: Note that a US penny is about 1.4mm thick, and we are told to roll the dough to 1mm. Some of the bits of isomalt are actually substantially thicker than a penny, and represent a significant inclusion in the dough. My previous solutions to this problem were to try to cream the isomalt with the butter to get it to disolve, to no avail. Figuring this was just the way isomalt worked, I plowed ahead and just rolled it, accepting the roughness to the dough. However, when I made yesterday's thinner batch, the isomalt inclusions caused the dough to become too fragile. So today I pre-processed the isomalt to a powder, and then followed a standard sablé mixing method. Here are the sablés as 2.65mm (the thickness of a bamboo skewer): This baked up just fine, so I attempted to get even thinner: 1.25mm (the thickness of insulated, stranded 26 gauge wire) These wound up significantly darker because I didn't even check them until 11 minutes in, but the taste was still good, so I'll keep them. They are fragile due to thinness, of course, but still strong enough to withstand being moved a bit. ETA: Oh, and I took Paul's suggestion above and re-creamed the onion butter to get more of a "whole butter" effect. I don't know if it had any effect.

Paul, how thin would you say you rolled the dough for the sablés? I tried to take mine down to 2.5mm yesterday, and the resulting sablé was so fragile I couldn't move it off the silpat. Do you suppose this was a deficiency in my mixing method, or did I go too thin?

Yeah, three-folds are definitely easier: it's not at all clear to me why any other folding style would have an advantage over the three fold, other than speed. The method where you fold in both ends to the middle, and then in half, gives you more layers per fold. But I also find it awkward, especially for small (home-use-sized) batches of dough.

That's the method Child describes for Pâte Feuilletée Fine (the square of butter in the middle).

The main differences between the recipes are a) the type of flour, b) the fat inclusion in the dough itself (butter or oil), and c) the folding method(s).

I've done plenty of cures in vacuum bags, where the same principle applies: it works very well, in my opinion, and I find the resulting texture to be excellent.

Interesting, my butter separated itself during the cooling process, leaving a layer of oniony butterfat on top and then some onion and milk solids below. I just used the butterfat. Unfortunately I tried to make these again today but they were too fragile to handle, so it's back to the drawing board.

Nope, early sounds good to me.

Onion Arlette, take two, this time with homemade puff pastry, and this time remembering to layer with butter and onion sugar (I actually used some leftover onion butter rather than plain, since it was handy).

I believe I can answer my own question: yes, I should have done another turn (or maybe two). At four turns, the bouchées I made for dinner turned out a bit short... For its main purpose this puff pastry will work just fine, but for auxiliary uses like this one I wish I had taken the time to do another round.

Are you frying at a "normal" frying temp? 350°F, 375°F, something like that?

OK, I went with Julia's recipe, given the overwhelming support for it. So far so good: four turns in with no problems. Now the question comes: give it another turn, or no? Child says it's "optional, and rarely needed." Will I get more rise if I give it another fold?

That sounds like the technique Modernist Cuisine espouses for their fish and chips. Are you dispensing the batter into a bowl and then dipping, or are you putting it directly on the rings?

So, due to a slight grocery store snafu today, I have about six extra pounds of sweet onions. What can I do with all of these things?