Oh man, I haven't posted diddly squat since I published my last book. But that's because I've been working on my next book and not exactly thinking about randomly blogging into this here void.
Anywho, here's a sneak peak of a recipe from my next book, Some of That: Foraging in Seattle. My current plan is to make sure the book available in April on my Amazon author page.
Anywho, here's a sneak peak of a recipe from my next book, Some of That: Foraging in Seattle. My current plan is to make sure the book available in April on my Amazon author page.
Plum Excitement
(AKA Five Spice-Vanilla
Plum Clafoutis)
Seattle is an excellent
place to grow Italian prune plums because so many
people have planted the trees and forgotten about them. Once you have your “plum
eyes” on, you will be excited to find the trees dropping so much beautiful
fruit! Ask your neighbors if you can harvest their fruit— maybe you can thank
them later with a bite of this custardy plum dish if you don’t mind them
suddenly wising up. Italian plums are especially easy to deal with because they
can be eaten slightly firm or quite soft and they don’t seem to get bugs while
they’re chilling there in the tree waiting for you. Their flesh doesn’t stick
to their pit, so they’re a snap to slice open, cut up and dehydrate if you like.
I’ll shut up now and say that the below is one of my favorite ways to use fresh
plums! Be sure to use the heavy cream— this doesn’t taste as nice when you try
to go low-fat. Substitute very ripe pears in autumn or (pitted) sour cherries in
early summer if you hanker for the dish off-season. Double the five-spice
powder if you want!
INGREDIENTS
1 tablespoon soft butter
250 milliliters heavy
cream (1 cup)
110 milliliters whole
milk (1/2 cup)
2 large eggs
70 grams sugar (50-60
grams if you like things less sweet)
2 tablespoons cornstarch
2 tablespoons
all-purpose flour
¼ teaspoon kosher salt
seeds of a 1-inch piece
of vanilla bean
½ teaspoon Chinese
five-spice powder*
350-400 grams ripe pitted
Italian plums, artistically sliced in strips to an equal thinness of about ¼-½
inch
2 tablespoons brown or
turbinado sugar
DIRECTIONS
Preheat the oven to 350°
F and generously coat the bottom of a 9-inch glass or ceramic pie pan with the soft
butter.
Whisk together the cream
through five spice powder until fully combined, then pour about 2/3 cup of it
into the dish. Bake 12 minutes.
Now add the sliced plums
on top of the custard in a tidy, even arrangement, sprinkle on the turbinado
sugar, and gently pour the rest of the custard mixture over the plums.
Bake for about 50
minutes. If that seems long to you, you can tent aluminum foil over it for the
last 10 minutes. When it’s done, the custard will be puffy and pleasantly
browned. It will still jiggle in the middle. Let it cool to at least “warm”
level before consuming, but room temperature is best. It will be soft and yummy!
To fancy the dish up, right before serving, dust lightly with powdered sugar.
