Zucchini tart and string beans

Don't just think that hardly any time for food excludes the home-made vegetable tart. Here is a meal gilded by the evening light of a side order of string beans, stewed in some oil and their own juices, and a vegetable tart filled with zucchini and goat cheese. Hey, why not a string beans and goat cheese tart next time?

Key message of this post: Jason Epstein's memoir Eating has liberated me once and for all of the imperative that we should at all cost let a dough of pâte brisée (in some older posts on vegetable tarts I've spoken of pâte sablée) rest after blending the ingredients. Epstein doesn't bother, and I don't either, ever.

Pâte brisée (my recipe, see also Taty's in her book Tartes et Légumineuses)
10 dl (100 ml) cold water
250 g flour
125 g butter
pinch of salt (or add other spices e.g. paprika, curry)

Combine until you have the consistency of a soft leather glove. Quickly flatten and in one move, drape over a round baking tin. Cut off remaining edges if needed, form a smaller ball with them, and use the next day for something else (like a covered fruit dessert for instance).

Side Order of Stuffed zucchini

Spotting some round zucchini at the supermarket resulted in a simple gesture later at home: stuffing them. An easy side dish for meat (see next post). Explaining the procedure takes longer than preparing.

Side Order of Stuffed zucchini

Serves 4

4 round zucchini
2 onions, chopped
2 cloves of garlic, chopped
optional: fresh herbs (e.g. sage) or parsley
cheese (soft -pâte molle- I used Pas de rouge -cow's milk, with red washed rind)

Cut of the heads of the zucchini, then with a knife cut loose a quadrangle, then scoop out the zucchini flesh with a tablespoon until you arrive at a nice stuffable round hole.

Steam these zucchini bottom up with the lids quickly, perhaps only 2 minutes, until 3/4 done. Everything should still be firm.

Meanwhile stew the chopped onion, garlic together with the chopped flesh of the zucchini (the firm parts with less seeds). Season, add herbs or parsley and pieces of cheese at the end until the cheese melts. I used some slices of pakhsoy as decoration (and not sage, as I wrote previously).

Fill the zucchini with this mixture, and serve. Variations are legion.

Chicken and chores: (2): Green olive chicken stew

A women's magazine's October issue had recipes by Sophie Dahl, apparently she wrote a cookbook called Miss Dahl's Voluptuous Delights; I took cues from here Green olive chicken stew, in fact a classic from Provence. It seems miss Dahl is borrowing a bit from here and there, just like I do in these pages. I cooked this in advance to speed up a Sunday meal on a weekend full of chores. I used two chicken legs.

Green olive chicken stew

Serves 4

1 chicken, in pieces
olive oil
2 cloves of garlic, minced
1 fennel bulb, coarsely chopped
2,5 dl white wine
400 g tinned tomatoes
2,5 dl chicken stock
150 pitted green olives
fresh basil, chopped

Heat the oil, and brown the chicken pieces all over for about 15 minutes. Remove them from the pan.

Fry garlic and fennel in that same pan for a few minutes, add the wine, add the tomatoes, and let stew for 10 minutes over low heat. Add the chicken again, and let stew for 30 minutes more. Slowly add the chicken stock.

In the last few minutes, add the olives, and the basil.

Notes:
I used tarragon instead of basil, and zucchini instead of fennel. I added the olives a lot sooner, and on account of the tomatoes, I let this dish stew a whole lot longer until a lot of liquid evaporated and the sauce thickened. Hearty dish, great with potatoes.