Pre week one

[Plongeur]

Because I actually started at school a couple of months ago, I'll be posting episodes of this journal as I finish them up, a few a week or so until I catch up with where we are now.
This episode took place in late August, the week before I started at cookery school in early September.


After I taught him something last week (how to quickly clean the inside of a pepper), this week Chef has been giving me some cooking lessons. I start at cookery school next week, and he's keen that I have a head start on the other pupils so, armed with a copy of the syllabus, we've been working on some recipes - in particular apple tart since the apple trees in the restaurant orchard are producing tonnes of fruit at the moment.
I'm going to the Ecole Hoteliere d'Avignon - http://www.provence.org/eha/ - one day a week for ten hours of classes every Monday to get a CAP, a Certificat d'Aptitude Professionnel as a Commis de Cuisine - a Commis Chef, i.e. the lowest form of cook (but not life!) that lives in kitchens. I have 34 weeks of classes in all, and when I get my Diplôme next May (assuming I pass the exam) I'll be qualified to style myself 'Commis de Cuisine' and work in that post in any restaurant. Well, any restaurant that'll have me.
So, says Chef, first we start with a Pate Sablée, a basic sugary pastry used for many dishes. A kilo of flour, half a kilo of butter, 250 grammes of sugar and four eggs together with a pinch of salt. I've also always added salt to all kinds of pastry, and wonder why?
Because, he says, its slight savoury flavour actually helps bring out the sweetness in the pastry and it also helps along the chemical reaction to get the pastry working.
So. Mix together the dry ingredients, crack the eggs into a basin (to make sure none are rotten and you don't get any shell in the mix), pour the dry onto your marble counter (we have a special patisserie room off the main kitchen where it's cooler, and the pink marble countertop stretches the length of it), make a large swimming-pool sized well in the middle and add the butter and eggs. Mix the eggs and butter together and then start pulling in the flour until it's all assimilated.. The butter needs to be at room temperature and you mix it with your fingertips to avoid heating it to much. Mix well, the idea being to surround every single grain of flour with its own layer of butter.
Then you 'sable' (pronounce saab-lay) the mixture, rubbing it between the palms of your hands repeatedly until it takes on the consistency of sand (which is what the word sable means in French). Then you 'fraise' the mixture, pushing away small lumps of it from you with the heel of your hand to make sure there are no lumps of butter left in the mixture. Form it into a lump and wrap it in clear film and refrigerate, preferably overnight.
Now you make your apple mix to go in. Take up to two kilos/four pounds of apples, peel and core them and slice as thinly as possible. The rubbish half you've made a mess of goes into a saucepan with a little (half a centimetre/quarter of an inch) of water, a little (teaspoonful) cinnamon and a generous sprinkle of sugar and a few lumps of butter. Set it over a low heat for about 45 minutes, stirring occasionally until the apples are nice and soft and mushy. This is a 'compote' which will cover the base of the tart.
So, take the pastry out of the fridge five to ten minutes ago (to give it time to come back towards room temperature) and set it on your floured marble, removing the film. Give it three whacks across the top with a rolling pin, turn 90 degrees, three more whacks, 90 degrees, whacks and so on until it starts to spread a little. Then start rolling. You're aiming for a thickness of about three millimetres/one sixth of an inch, and for it to be a perfect circle. Flour the table (always lightly, with a delicate flick of the wrist) and keep turning the pastry 90 degrees as you roll. Use your largest palette knife to lift it from the marble when it gets larger.
When it's the size of your tart mould, roll it around your rolling pin and lay it across the top of the mould (we use metal circles about 25 centimetres/10 inches in diameter with no base, set on silicone paper on a baking sheet). Lift the edges so they're perpendicular to the sides and gently press into the corner of the base. Don't stretch the pastry at all. Then work round with a thumb and forefinger to make a small lip leaning into the centre of the pie, then roll across in two directions with the pin to cut off the excess. Press around the rim again with thumb and forefinger to make the edge stand up slightly, then run your thumbnail around the rim between metal and pastry to make sure it doesn't stick.
Refrigerate the base for 10-20 minutes, then prick it all over with a fork before you add the cooled compote which you mash with a fork to give it an even texture. Now take your nice apple slices and set them in a fan design around the edge of the mould. Make a second, inner circle and finish with half an apple's worth of slices in the middle.
Sprinkle with brown sugar and bake at 220 centigrade/420 Fahrenheit for 30 to 45 minutes, turning 180 degrees halfway through so it bakes evenly. When you check the tart, look at the pastry underneath by lifting very gently with a knife tip at several points to make sure it's all good.
And there we have it: It may be a sacrilegious recipe for those of you, especially Americans, who have Mom's recipe for apple pie, but this is an authentic French Tarte aux Pommes.