Daring Baker's Challenge: Crostata

I've finally had enough time to complete the November Daring Baker's Challenge.

My aim is to go back and complete the ones I missed out on. But for now. Crostata!

Blog-checking lines:The 2010 November Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Simona of briciole. She chose to challenge Daring Bakers’ to make pasta frolla for a crostata. She used her own experience as a source, as well as information from Pellegrino Artusi’s Science in the Kitchen and the Art of Eating Well.

Pastry Recipe used for challenge:

Preparation time:

The following times are approximate, as the time depends on your dexterity to cut the butter and work the dough (which should not be overworked) and your familiarity with the rolling pin.
Preparing pasta frolla with a food processor takes 10-15 minutes
Preparing pasta frolla without a food processor takes 20-25 minutes
Allow the pasta frolla to chill thoroughly. I recommend at least two hours.
Rolling the pasta frolla and assembling the crostata takes 25-30 minutes, if you use fruit preserves.
Baking the crostata takes about 35 minutes, if you use fruit preserves.
Preparation time for other types of crostata vary. For example, making crostata with pastry cream requires the time to make pastry cream (25-30 minutes) and a longer baking time. If you make crostata with fresh fruit, you'll need time to prepare the fruit, besides the time needed to prepare pastry cream. In this case, you assemble the crostata after the crust is baked.

Equipment required:

bowls, as needed
fork
knife
bench (or pastry) scraper
rolling pin
pastry brush
9 or 9.5-inch [23-24 cm] fluted round tart pan with removable bottom, about 1 inch [2.5 cm] high. (Note: If you don't have a tart pan with a removable bottom, don’t worry! You can make crostata using a 9-inch cake pan or even a 9-inch pie plate. See the Additional Information section for information on using different pans.
a food processor is useful, but not required

Version 1 of pasta frolla

Ingredients:
1/2 c. minus 1 tablespoon [105 ml, 100 g, 3 ½ oz] superfine sugar (see Note 1) or a scant 3/4 cup [180ml, 90g, 3 oz] of powdered sugar
1 and 3/4 cup [420 ml, 235 g, 8 1/4 oz.] unbleached all-purpose flour
a pinch of salt
1 stick [8 tablespoons / 4 oz. / 115 g] cold unsalted butter, cut into small pieces
grated zest of half a lemon (you could also use vanilla sugar as an option, see Note 2)
1 large egg and 1 large egg yolk, lightly beaten in a small bowl
Note 1: Superfine sugar is often also referred to as ultrafine, baker’s sugar or caster sugar. It’s available in most supermarkets. If you cannot find “superfine” sugar, you can make your own by putting some regular granulated sugar in a food processor or blender and letting it run until the sugar is finely ground.
Note 2: There are different ways of making vanilla sugar. I keep vanilla beans in a jar half-filled with sugar until I need to use them, for example, to make vanilla ice cream. After I remove the split bean from the custard that will go into the ice cream maker, I rinse it, dry it and put it back in the jar with sugar.

Making pasta frolla by hand:
Whisk together sugar, flour and salt in a bowl.
Rub or cut the butter into the flour until the mixture has the consistency of coarse crumbs. You can do this in the bowl or on your work surface, using your fingertips or an implement of choice.

Make a well in the center of the mounded flour and butter mixture and pour the beaten eggs into it (reserve about a teaspoon of the egg mixture for glazing purposes later on – place in the refrigerator, covered, until ready to use).
Add the lemon zest to your flour/butter/egg mixture.

Use a fork to incorporate the liquid into the solid ingredients, and then use your fingertips.
Knead lightly just until the dough comes together into a ball.
Shape the dough into a flat disk and wrap in plastic wrap. Place the dough in the refrigerator and chill for at least two hours. You can refrigerate the dough overnight.

Making pasta frolla with a food processor:
Put sugar, flour, salt, and lemon zest in the food processor and pulse a few times to mix.
Add butter and pulse a few times, until the mixture has the consistency of coarse meal.
Empty food processor's bowl onto your work surface
See step 3 above and continue as explained in the following steps (minus the lemon zest, which you have already added).

Now, I love cherries. Don't really know why, other then they taste pretty good when you don't get a sour one.

So I used an easy cherry pie filling recipe. Which consisted of 2 jars of cherries, heated and mixed with caster sugar and a bit of corn flour for thickening.

It actually looked pretty good for my first ever pastry attempt. However...I forgot it was in the oven and it overflowed a bit...

Still tasted great though!

Okonomiyaki!

So the partner and I have always been interested in Japan.

The culture, food, anime, manga, and all of the above.

I don't quite remember how we stumbled across this dish, but we've made it twice now and it's so easy! And so yummy!



Okonomiyaki - derived from the word okonomi, meaning "what you like" or "what you want", and yaki meaning "grilled".



Toppings and batters varies in the different areas of Japan. I would probably class the one we cooked as an Osaka style, which is cooked with the batter and other ingredients fried on both sides.



Ok first! Ingrediants!

Now this made 4 decent sized individual okonomiyaki.



1/4-1/2 a cabbage

2 cups of flour

2 eggs

1 1/2 cups of miso

250g bacon

4 small chinese pork sausage

1 bunch of shallots (spring onion)

1 pk udon noodles

Peanut oil



For garnishing:

Benito flakes (dried fish flakes)

Kewpie mayonaise (popular asian used mayonaise, tastes like whole egg mayo, but I'm sure any will work)

Dried shallots

Katsu sauce.



Katsu sauce version:

BBQ Sauce

Worcestershire sauce

Soy Sauce

- Equal quantities of all sauces mixed together.

1tbsp Corn Flour (for thickening only, mix with a bit of the sauce seperately before adding)





Directions!



Fry udon noodles quickly in a pan with a bit of peanut oil.

Seperately, fry bacon off so it's pre-cooked.



Slice cabbage up into long thin strips. Don't worry about it too much, any shape will work but long thinner strips seems to work best.

Slice half of the shallots finely.



Mix miso paste with 1 1/2 cups of warm water til it dissolves.

Put miso into a large bowl. Whisk 2 cups of flour into miso.

Add 2 eggs and whisk in.



Add the cabbage and udon noodles to batter mix.



Slice the bacon and the chinese sausage. Place in a seperately bowl and mix in half of the shallots.



Heat a flat pan with a bit of peanut oil. On about medium-low heat.

Place a quarter of the bacon, sausage and shallot mix in the middle of the pan and shape into a round. Cook for 2-5mins.



Place a large spoon of batter, enough to cover the meat generously - on top of the meat mix and shape into a round. Cook for 5mins.



Flip carefully. Then cook for 5-10mins or until the batter is cooked through.



Remove from pan onto plate. Top with katsu sauce, mayonaise, shallots, benito flakes and dried shallots.



Repeat 3 more times!

Enjoy!