Caramelized Apples

I wouldn't want you getting the wrong impression--we didn't just make la mayonnaise in our cooking class. Oooohhh no, it was far more than that. La mayonnaise, which we had as our appetizer, was followed by a fresh fish that one of our teacher's friends caught in Normandy; rice cooked with garlic and ginger; a green, onion-looking veggy that, I confess, I neither knew the name of nor recognized; and an apple tart we made wholly from scratch. This was a cooking class in which we learned in the kitchen, and then enjoyed the four course (because there was cheese before the dessert, naturally) meal in the dining room.

Like the fish dishes I'd grown accustomed to in China, this one was also a whole-fish-dish. Americans seem to be too squeamish to deal with their food staring back at them; I was, too, for a long time, but those days are gone. However, it was my friend who had the joy of massaging our little fish friend with oil. Any un-oiled part would be stuck to the pan, so she got well aquatinted with the little swimmer. We then cut cherry tomatoes in two, seasoned them with salt and pepper, and popped all of it in the oven. Once out of the oven, we bathed this fish in a light, flavorful, buttery sauce. The little guy got quite the treatment, I think--a massage and a special bath all in one day.

After dinner, of course, we enjoyed dessert. However, it was really the dessert we started cooking first. We began by cutting and peeling apples. Our teacher said to use harder apples, because you don't want to have your apples fall apart mid-caramelization. All apple slices must be peeled and rid of any hard spots so that one does not bit into a piece of cake and have to spit out a piece of leftover core--how unseemly! Once the apples were ready, we placed them carefully into a pan coated with butter and sugar. It is important to have the apples as close together as possible, so you end up with a tart that's fully applefied--no empty spaces.

We watched the apples huddled together in the pan, tiny bubbles of sugar and butter gathering in the crevices. As the apples browned and sweat out their sweet juices, we started making the dough for the tart. Personally, I think that there's a shortage of mixers in France (at least that I've seen so far). The French prefer food processors, but I personally think there's no substitute for the reward of licking the mixer after your baked good rests safely in the oven. Who licks their cuisinart? It's a lost experience.

Another big difference between a French kitchen and an American one is the tools we use to measure our ingredients. Somehow America got the brilliant idea to name to call a system that no one else in the world uses "standard", while every other country has the ease of just moving around a tiny decimal to do all their everyday math. Genius. Well, I've grown up with cups, half-cups, teaspoons, and tablespoons. The French don't often measure things, I find. Their stoves don't have numbers, their ovens don't have temperature gages, and their drawers don't have more than ONE cup in which they measure the vast majority of whatever needs measuring. However, this house had something special: a scale. Just place weights on one side and pour flour on the other until the scale balances out. (You'll notice the different weights on the left, which, can be combined in different ways to get all your necessary units of measure.)

Although no one was licking any mixers, I did witness something pretty cool with the food processor. After having measured and added the flour, sugar, milk, and butter (yes, folks, that's all there is in this dough), Madame Beguin pressed the button in short spurts to mix everything together. Not one minute later, the batter had gathered together in such a perfect, well-mixed ball that I almost wanted to bow my head to the cooking gods. She simply picked up the ball of dough and laid it on the counter for rolling just like that. Wow. The key, she said, was in the amount of milk. Milk also changes the elasticity of a dough, making it spring back every time you roll it out and causing great frustration to the chef if you don't add the right amount. Our dough rolled perfectly.

Once it was just slightly larger than our pan of apples, we draped it over the whole thing and put it in the oven. This is what came out.

And then we flipped it over to get the final result.

Our feast wasn't just about good food. We sat around the table stocked with fresh bread and good wine, and we talked while we enjoyed the meal we had worked hard to create. It had lasting effects, too. Since then I've caramelized two batches of apples, throwing in peeled pears the second time. It's so easy, which is frightening because there are no time or talent issues that stop you from caramelizing up a storm. Both times I topped my apples (and pears) with warm creme anglaise, watched the remaining butter from the caramelization mix into the cream, and then enjoyed it down to the last swipe and lick of the finger.