i picked this 'elegant chocolate tart' recipe for my wife's birthday. she's ga-ga over the whole desert scene, so my being the novice cake/pie house husband isn't such a bad thing because of her sheer enthusiasm. i tend to choose deserts laden with eggs, butter, sugar, and in this case chocolate (%70 cocoa), vanilla, and dark rum. mix those together, bake, and the chances of fucking up are slim unless....
you have no idea what a two part tart pan is. i did not. so i went to our cute little island cooking store, The Gourmet Galley, and asked for 'a 10 inch two part tart pan.' turns out they were all sold out but they did have several 8 inch tart pans. i took one look at them and thought of individual savory meat pies..." i'll take two." but one thing the Bosch engineers taught me at BMW was a strict adherence to procedures and specifications. and the recipe was for one 10 inch tart, not two 8 inch tarts. that bugged me on the way home. and yes that means i'm anal.
but thanks to a calculator for geriatrics, grade 10 math, the village idiot over sized pencil, and the OXO digi-scale, i persevered. and pi. i remember it to five decimals not because of being a nerd but because the nerds i went to high school with were constantly reciting far more decimal places. i was the obnoxious preppy jock that mimicked the nerds. and 3.14159 is good enough for baking a friggin tart man.
as for the black beans...
as for the black beans...
'pie weights' also aren't a part of my pantry inventory. so in Greg Atkinson's book West Coast Cooking he suggests using rice or dried beans (in lieu of proper pie weights) to keep the pastry shell from rising while baking.
so i just baked 3 cups of black beans on the tarts, i can't just put them back in the pantry half baked. soup! soaked them over night, simmered in stock with onion and bay leaf @5 hours, then added lots of diced scallions and smashed garlic, simmered another hour, ran about half of the soup thru blender until i got the desired consistency, then added a big tablespoon of a chipotle chili powder (from World Market) and a bag of frozen corn, simmered more and made rice.
so i just baked 3 cups of black beans on the tarts, i can't just put them back in the pantry half baked. soup! soaked them over night, simmered in stock with onion and bay leaf @5 hours, then added lots of diced scallions and smashed garlic, simmered another hour, ran about half of the soup thru blender until i got the desired consistency, then added a big tablespoon of a chipotle chili powder (from World Market) and a bag of frozen corn, simmered more and made rice.
left over black bean soup with rice, cheese, egg. and of course chives and rooster.
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