Italy Part 17

I will never forget what I ate for breakfast the first time I visited Joe's family cabin: cherry pie.  Despite all of the mental stress associated with "meeting the family" for the first time, remembering names and table manners and so forth, I remember a piece of pie?  Little do they know but eating that piece of cherry pie for breakfast made me feel like a million bucks. Since that day, it has continued to be a tradition in our lives, too! 

Honey and pine nut tart (p. 149).
 I think of this tart (which turned into a pie for lack of a
tart pan) as an Italian version of pecan pie.
Try it topped with sliced, ripe peaches and creme fraiche! 

As lovely as this pie turned out, it made quite a mess in the oven and created quite a stir with my neighbors the next morning! I'll reveal details of that at the end...

This culinary adventure began in my local grocery stores, hunting for various seafoods. I had previously completed the messy undertaking of gutting and cleaning 3-lbs of fresh squids (Italy Part 11). Wanting to make that a one-time undertaking, I took a bit of extra time placing pre-weighed remains into my freezer for the other two squid-requiring recipes in this section, such as this Insalata di frutti di mare (seafood salad) (p. 99).  However, I still needed 0.5-lb raw shrimps, 1-lb of black mussels and 1-lb of fresh clams. Grocery store #1 had shrimp and some sorry looking clams for $0.99 each. The butcher convinced me to purchase a pound of pre-shelled clams in the freezer section. He said it would be easier and cheaper.  I caved and purchased the bag, not wanting to spend a fortune on this recipe.  So I traveled to grocery store #2, specializing in natural and fresh foods, and I stood admiring their large case of beautiful, fresh seafoods. I was tempted buy the deep purple tuna steaks on-sale, but I kept to my mission and purchased enough black mussels for this recipe and the Mussels in tomato herd sauce (p. 133), which I'll talk about next time. 

Pre-prepared squid parts :)

Thawing squid, shrimp, and clams.
Washing and weighing out fresh mussels.
As you can see by the clock, I started early.

Now that I had successfully acquired my ingredients, it was time to start cooking. Knowing that this recipe, and the tart, had long methods of ingredient preparation spread out by longer cooking periods, I decided to try to balance my time by beginning both.  Therefore, as the pine nuts were slowly toasting on the stove, and the butter softening for the tart, I began thawing the clams and washing the mussels. To wash mussels, I learned that you must first throw out any shells that have already opened. They must be shut prior to heating. Then, with a brush, I scrubbed the exterior of their shells. The recipe said to also remove their "beards," but apparently my handsome mussels had come well-groomed and ready for cooking!

After my mussels were cleaned and rinsed, I left them sitting in a colander while I prepared the dry ingredients for the tart crust. As I was mixing flour and sugar, I began to hear hissing noises from the sink with the mussels. What on earth? As I put my ear down to them to see if it was just my imagination, one of the mussels popped open! Oh my! They were detesting their time out of refrigeration! I needed to get them cooking quickly before they all open up and I would have to toss the whole lot of them out. As I waiting for pan of water and parsley stems to simmer, I placed them back into the fridge.  Thankfully, only that one mussel was sacrificed during this learning process.  

The first of three other seafoods to enter the pot.
Note: If you purchase fresh mussels or clams ahead of time,
place them on top of a bed of ice in an uncovered baking tin.
Doing so will keep them happy for up to about two days. 

Once all of the mussels where happily bathing in hot water, it became a gabfest. One by one they all started hissing and popped open! In just 3-5 minutes, it was time to take them out of the pan to allow them to cool before shelling. During this time, I decided to plop the thawed, shelled clams into the warm water to allow their flavors to steep as well.  It was also time to finish the tart crust.

Flour, sugar, soda, and 1 stick of chilled, chopped butter.
To mix the butter into the flour mixture, the recipe called for
careful pinching using fingertips. Fun!

Once a breadcrumb consistency was reached, it was time to dig a
well into the middle of the flour mixture to allow for a beaten egg
and some water to pool. Using a flat butter knife, I worked the wet
and dry ingredients together using a cutting motion.
This step took a pinch of patience.

Eventually, the dough was ready to be rolled out on my floured
counter top into a thin layer and placed gingerly into my pie pan.

The scraps of dough, taken from cutting off the overhangs,
were combined and once again rolled out. Using a knife, I cut
out three leaves.  Aren't they beautiful? I usually botch crust
so I was feeling very optimistic with the way this turned out. 

The assembled crust needed to be refrigerated so I finished cooking the clams, then the shrimps, and finally the squid parts. Cooking each sea creature took only a minutes each, and by the end, a fragrant broth remained. I poured the broth in a jar to freeze for future risotto or soup. I also decided to refreeze the squid tentacles (not the hoods) and use them another day, since the recipe didn't really specify that they were needed... but mostly because they give Joe the willies. As the newly cooked seafood was draining, the cooled mussels were shelled, and the marinade of olive oil, lemon juice, garlic, and salt was prepared. 

Shelling mussels.
I found it was easiest to use one of the shell
halves as a spoon to scrap out the meat.

Once all of the seafood was tossed with marinade, into the refrigerator it went until dinner time. With only the tart filling to prepare and cook, I decided it was a good time to break for dishes.  

This is probably why most people prefer to avoid cooking if possible.
It is messy!  For me, I don't mind doing dishes, but the space limitations
is the major obstacle. With so little counter space in my kitchen,
I'm forced to clean up messes as I make them.

Now for the tart once again. The crust was chilled and ready for pre-baking. This required parchment paper and baking weights. I didn't have baking weights, let alone ever heard of them, so I substituted using a can opener. As this was baking, I stirred up the tart filling. The filling consisted of mixing three eggs, pine nuts, honey, another stick of butter, sugar, vanilla, almond liqueur, lemon juice, and grated lemon rind. Whomever thought of this ingredient combo is someone I would like to be friends with.

This metal can opener was the only heat-proof kitchen accessory I could
find to hold the paper down, fit within the crust diameter, and also light
enough not to damage the soft crust below. It got the job done!  

The assembled tart ready for baking!

To bake the filling of the tart, the temperature in the oven needed to be reduced. By mistake, I reduce the oven temperature from 375 degrees F to 180 degrees F, when in actuality, the recipe called for 350 degrees F.  I mixed up degrees F for degrees C (this recipe is part of a European cookbook after all)!  Needless to say, when the timer for the tart sounded, it came out looking like this... 

An uncooked pool of butter and honey. Where are the leaves?
I was peeved because I was felt like if I could master the crust,
I might actually pull this tart off without messing it up (as I usually
do with baked items).  Without even realizing my temperature
mix-up yet, I turned the temperature up to 350 degrees F
(as it should have been) and cooked it for another 15 minutes.  

After some additional baking, it turned out like this!
If I had gotten the temperature right from the start, perhaps the
leaves could have remained a float since the egg would have
set sooner.  Still, this was not a bad recovery.  

When Joe and I sat down for this coastal Mediterranean-inspired dinner, the kitchen was perfuming with the smells of honey and butter. I felt accomplished sitting down to our exotic meal of Insalata di frutti di mare. The mussels, clams, shrimp, and squid tasted incredibly fresh and fancy, all dressed up in their lemon-garlic sauce. 

The fruit of the sea. 

Time for dessert/tomorrow's breakfast!
Instead of whipped cream, we tried creme fraiche.
But a light dusting of powdered sugar does wonders too. 

As for the story about making a scene with my neighbors the following morning....
Well, I had planned on baking another loaf of focaccia to go with this dinner. I had taken out my frozen loaf of dough early that morning and was waiting for it to rise in a baking dish. Come dinner time, the focaccia dough was thawed, but flat as a pancake. I went to bed with it on top of my warm refrigerator thinking that maybe the dormant yeast just needs a little extra TLC. Sure enough, when I woke up the following morning the focaccia was fluffy and bubbly! Knowing that it was going to go flat again if I didn't cook it soon, I started the oven up.  I was really enjoying the quiet morning with coffee and a book while I waited for my sleeping bear (Joe) to rise. Soon, the light on the oven blinked off, signaling that it was time to put the bread into its preheated interior. But when I opened the oven door, a giant plum of smoke came out! What is going on? Before I could think, the fire alarms in my apartment started screaming. I flipped on the oven hood fan to HIGH, and ran into the bedroom to grab a pillow to help wave the smoke away from the alarm. However, as flustered as I was, I left the oven on, so the smoke just kept pouring out! My sleeping bear is now stirring with irritation from the horrid noise, but then then I start handing him pillows and dragging him out to the kitchen to help me shake away the smoke from the alarm while I go running to turn off the oven, open the window and doors and turn on every fan we own. And since we had opened out apartment up to get fresh air in and smoke out, we were completely exposed as we ran around in our PJ's flapping pillows. In deed, some neighbors popped their heads out of their own apartments wondering who the heck is responsible for such nonsense so early on a weekend morning! It's O.K., I'm just trying to bake some focaccia at 8:00 in the morning! 


After the chaos settled, but still feeling like an idiot, I inspected the oven for what the cause of the smoke might be from. Turns out, when I went to put the half-baked Honey and pine nut tart into the oven for the second round of baking, I failed to return the baking sheet. If I would have placed the baking sheet into the oven underneath the pie dish (as the recipe directed), the escaping sugary filling juices would have fallen onto that baking sheet and would have avoided collecting as kinder on the oven floor. Another valuable lesson learned! Mussels need to be cooked immediately or they start talking, frozen focaccia requires a good night's rest before rising, and sometimes pie filling decides to express a bit of independence by jumping out of its crust... so use a baking sheet or oven liner.