Mâche with Roquefort, Walnuts and Caramelised Pear

Now that July has arrived and the sky is about to catch on fire, it's time to put away the pots and pans and pull out the salad spinner!

When I visited the Main Street Market today  I spotted something that I rarely see in Ottawa but I see every day in France, a tender, tiny, slow growing green called mâche.  In France you can buy pre-washed bags of mâche for a few euro, even from the most modest of supermarkets.  I bought some Canadian grown mâche (for a lot more than a few euro I might add) and whipped up one of my favourite salads, Mâche with Roquefort and Walnuts. 

The first time I had this salad (without the pear) was in France 11 years ago and I've been making it at home ever since.  As a child one of my favourite snacks was blue cheese spread in the grooves of celery stalks so this salad my grown up version of one of my childhood comfort foods.

Mâche is quite versatile.  It has tender leaves but it's also sturdy so it supports heavier accompaniments that would normally collapse other greens.  Also you can eat the entire plant, roots and all.  Now that's ecological!

Authentic French Roquefort like Société Roquefort is made with ewe's milk, has an official French A.O.C. designation, and it's traditionally matured in caves in the region surrounding the village of Roquefort in South Central France.  Its creamy texture and intense flavour is a good choice for this salad but its admirable provenance aside, I prefer the the flavour and creaminess of the less urbane Saint Agur.  Why not try both and decide for yourself?

Any fresh French or Californian walnut will do but take this advice:  buy them at a bulk food store so you can take a big sniff to make sure they are fresh before you buy them. I've been disappointed too many times buying stale walnuts in sealed bags from evil doers who sell them...

Cream Filled Genoise with the First Summer Strawberries

The main thoroughfare in  our neighbourhood in Ottawa is undergoing massive reconstruction which means that vehicles are being redirected onto the less travelled side streets.  

One of these side streets leads to the entrance of the weekly Lansdowne Farmer's Market and to keep this street safe from frustrated speeding drivers, the city installed a traffic "speed minder" that clocks a driver's speed he zooms towards it.  Above it is a huge digital sign that displays the speed at which one is travelling.   
On Sunday morning as I walked towards the market and the speed minder, the display clocked me in at 10 kph.  

Why the rush?  The season's first fresh, luscious strawberries of course!

Worth hurrying down the street

To celebrate the arrival of the delicious local strawberries, I created this simple cake.  It's easy to make, quite light, not too sweet, and it's pretty too!

The base is a cake called Genoise which I posted a few weeks back. I hope you practised it because here is a great way to use it. 

For this cake you will need:

One genoise sponge cake at room temperature.

The Strawberries:

1 quart plus one pint ripe strawberries

1 tablespoon granulated sugar

Optional aromatic additions to the strawberries according to your tastes:  1/8 teaspoon of any one of finely chopped: fresh lemon thyme, fresh lemon balm, fresh rosemary, fresh mint, fresh lavender, or lemon zest

Cream Filling:

1 1/2 cups (355ml/348g) whipping cream

1/4 cup (22g) powdered sugar 

1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract or vanilla bean paste

  
Soaking Syrup:

1/2 cup (118ml/118g) water

1/3 cup (70g) granulated sugar

Optional:  1/4 cup less 1 tablespoon (40ml/40g) white rum

Finishing:

1-2 tablespoons (10-20g) powdered sugar

Equipment:

Serrated bread knife or cake slicing knife
Hand held beaters or a stand mixer with a whip attachment
Parchment paper 
Pastry brush
Small offset spatula

Optional:  Piping bag with a Wilton "1M" star tip or Kaiser 13mm star tip, 9" cardboard cake round, pretty cake stand or cake plate

Prepare the Strawberries
Wash the berries and set aside 8 of the best ones for garnish. Remove the calyx from the remaining berries and slice them lengthwise into halves or quarters depending on their size.  Sprinkle them with sugar and the optional aromatics if you are using them.  Mix gently and set aside. 

Prepare the Soaking Syrup
In a small saucepan, combine the water and sugar. Allow the mixture to boil for 2 minutes.  Pour the syrup into a bowl and set aside to cool to room temperature.

Assembly 

Slice the cake in half and place it on the parchment paper

Cover your work surface with parchment, enough to accommodate at least twice the width of the cake.

With a sharp, serrated bread knife or a cake cutting knife, slice the cake in half lengthwise.  The bottom of the cake will become the top of the finished cake and the top will become the bottom.  If you lined the cake pan with parchment, remember to remove it.  Place the bottom layer on a cardboard round if you have one.  This will make it easier to lift the cake to its final destination.

Now is the time to add liqueur to the syrup if you are using it.

Using a pastry brush, brush both halves of the cake with syrup making sure that there is syrup everywhere on the cake, especially towards the sides.  Don't saturate the cake, just moisten it.  You may have some syrup left over. 

Prepare the Cream 

Spread the cream

Pour the cream into a chilled bowl and add the powdered sugar and vanilla. Beat on high to stiff peaks. Set aside.
First, reserve about 3/4 cup of the whipped cream for making the rosettes on the top of the cake.
Divide the remaining cream into two.  Using an offset spatula, gently spread out half the cream on each half of the cake.  Spread the cream within 1/2" (1cm) from the edge.  If you put cream too close to the edge of the cake the cream will squeeze out the sides when you put the top on.

Arrange the berries

Pour the macerated strawberries into a sieve to separate the liquid from the berries.  Arrange half of the berries in the cream on one half of the cake. Return the remaining berries back into the reserved liquid and refrigerate.  

Flip the half of the cake without the berries on top of the one with the berries and press gently until the cream comes closer to the edge.  Don't press too hard - you don't want the cream to squirt out the sides.

Dust the top with powdered sugar

Finishing

Put the 10g of finishing powdered sugar into a fine sieve.  Tap the side of the sieve to lightly powder the top of the cake.  Now gently lift the cake and place it on a serving plate or cake stand or you can do this after you have finished the next steps.

If you have a piping bag, fill it with the reserved 3/4 cup cream.  Pipe 8 evenly spaced rosettes around the top of the cake and top each of them with a strawberry.  If you don't have a piping bag, just drop the cream by the spoonful.

Pipe rosettes on top of the cake

   

To make an even pattern, imagine your cake as a clock face.  Start by piping one rosette at 12:00 then 6:00, 3:00 and 9:00.  Finally, pipe a rosette in between each.  This will create 8 equal servings. Place a reserved whole strawberry on top of each rosette. 

Serving

Cut and serve the cake at the table and pass the remaining macerated berries with a spoon so guests can help themselves.


This cake is best served the day that it is made. After that the cream's texture changes.  Of course this doesn't mean that you can't have a piece as a midnight snack.  All for the greater good, of course.

Socca in Ottawa? Mais Oui!

Mark Snyder at the Lansdowne Farmer's Market

I arrived in Canada on a Monday for my annual summer visit so for the entire week I was chomping at the bit, waiting for Sunday morning so I could zip over to the Lansdowne Farmer's Market and load up on delicious Canadian spring things to eat.

I love my first visit of the season.  It's fun to get caught up with old friends and vendors, see what's new and dream of dinners to come.

Well, what was new this spring was Mark and Kendra Snyder's Flatbread Pizza Company and their handsome portable wood-fired pizza oven.  Inspired by the pizza he enjoyed while travelling through Northern Italy,  Mark is now making fabulous pizzas in Ottawa.  Lucky us!  But that's not all...

Their oven reminded me immediately of traditional Socca vendors in the South of France, their wood-fired clay ovens attracting a stream of people eagerly awaiting a paper plate filled with it, hot, delicious and salty.  By far the best Socca comes from those who make and serve it in the traditional way:  out in the open air, baked in an olive wood fuelled oven, cut into little squares, powdered with pepper and shared.  My mouth waters just thinking about it.   

Socca at the Fête de l'Olive in Castellar, France

Socca is a traditional street food on the Cote d'Azur.  You can sometimes find the same dish across the border in Italy although there it's called Farinata.  It is believed to have been brought to the South of France in the nineteenth century by the Genoese.  In both countries it's made from the same four simple ingredients:  chick pea flour, water, salt and olive oil and it's always cooked in shallow, copper coated pans that have been liberally coated with olive oil before pouring in the runny batter.

A Nçoise Socca Vendor

You can sometimes find Socca in French boulangeries (bakeries) but it's never as good as the real thing.  Socca is meant to be consumed standing around in the open air, straight from the oven.  The flavour that the ultra high heat and a wood fire imparts to it is what makes it so delicious. 

The last time I had traditional Socca in France was this March at the Fête de l'Olive (Olive Festival) in the charming hilltop village of Castellar, a 20 minute drive from our house in Menton and it was delicious.    Socca vendors appear quite often in towns and villages around the region, and usually set up shop for the day as in the case of Castellar's festival or for the duration of a longer event like the months-long annual winter Foire (Fair) in Port Hercule in Monaco where they sell generous portions of Socca for a mere €3.  Quite a contrast against a backdrop of multi-million dollar super yachts.  

Mark's Wood-Fired Pizza Oven

So, three weeks ago when I saw Mark's pizza oven we talked about Socca and this Sunday morning when I spotted him stirring a bowl of thin yellow batter my heart jumped.  Could that be Socca batter?  Yes, it was!  Mark is now offering it as a base for his new Gluten Free Pizza.  What a brilliant idea!

Socca Baking

Licking my chops, I ran home, dug out my copper coated traditional Socca pan and bolted back to the market.  Mark graciously made me some Socca in my own pan and it was absolutely delicious.  I ate most of it on the spot, in the fresh morning air and happily shared some of it with curious passers-by who mistakenly thought that the little squares were free samples.

Baked Perfectly

Luckily I managed to rescue a few squares to take home to my husband who agreed with me that Mark’s Socca was as good as the best Socca we’ve had in France.

Cut into Squares in the Traditional Way

You can find Mark, Kendra, their helpers and his wood-fired oven pizzas and Socca at the Main Farmer's Market every 2^nd Saturday starting on June 11 and every Sunday at the Lansdowne Farmer's Market.

My advice?  Go early – they sell out every week.

Delicious News!