Regional Cuisine: Alsace (Very French Pizza)

Today's recipes were from the Alsace region of Northeast France -- all about the pork, in all its forms. Four recipes were up: Choucroute Garni (ham hock, pork chops, slab bacon, sausages cooked in kraut, stock, and duck fat), Tarte au Pommes de Terre (potatoes, hard eggs, bacon, and cream sauce in a savory tart shell), Pikeperch fillet with Reisling, and, finally, the recipe I spent the day on, Tarte Flambée: extremely French pizza.

Dirty Dave and Speedy got into the kraut and pig, Chef Jr. took on the potato tart, and we sacrificed the fish & sauce to Dora the Explorer. The Tarte Flambée started with making, well, pizza dough, or in French, Pâte á Pain Ordinaire. One third of an ounce of fresh baker's yeast and a teaspoon of sugar were dissolved in 10 ounces of lukewarm water, then slowly fingered into a pound of AP flour and a teaspoon of salt. Coated in canola, the dough ball rose in a towel-covered bowl on a shelf above the burners for an hour. Punched down, it rose again for about 30 minutes.

While the dough was proofing, I assembled the mise. This tarte was topped by a sauce made up of 4 oz of cottage cheese blended to smooth, a tablespoon of AP flour, a pinch of salt, and four ounces of créme fraîche. Eight ounces of bacon cut into 1/4 inch cross-cuts were fried up, and eight ounces of thinly sliced onions were all brought to slightly brown and slightly soft in the bacon's fat.

Parchment was lightly oiled, and the dough was cut into six pieces, each rolled into discs then left to sit for 5 minutes to relax before rolling a final time to get nice and thin -- I don't know if the French have a particular preference, but my taste for Italian pizza leads me to thinner. The rolled dough was topped by a thin layer of the white cream concoction, then laid out with a light layer of bacon and onions. As with any good pizza, you must be mindful of ratios and balance -- too many of NYC's pizzas are cheesy messes, and a huge mouthful of cottage cheese sauce or a huge mouthful of greasy onions would be disgusting.

No pizza stones on-hand, put the pizzas on a sheet pan and parchment into a questionably 500- degree oven (they never seem to get hot enough). A proper hot oven can cook a pizza in less than 3 minutes, my pies took about 10 (they take about 4 at home). The whiteness of the sauce turned glazed and translucent, and the fatty onions melded nicely to the dough, allowing the fragments of bacon to stud the surface nicely.

Flavorwise, it tasted very....French. The unusual creamy sauce looked invisible on the finished pie, but packed a big personality, slightly funky, slightly creamy, slightly assertive in saying, "Yes, I'm nice, and here are my good friends, onion and bacon!" I'm definitely going to experiment with this at home, and whip it out on occasion if I need to blow a pizza-head's mind.

Today's class was, once again, distinctly low-energy. If the class was a person, I'd say it was depressed. Chef K interrupted the flow many times with demos, some of which could of been ganged up into the beginning of class. Midway through, Chef K announces, "Oh, I forgot, every time do spatzle!" and brought up a recipe on the front board. OK, we had room for one more recipe, but it would have been helpful had everyone known about it beforhand, for scheduling. Fortunately (Dora excluded), our team is pretty independent and intelligent. Dirty Dave prepped the mise while he was waiting on his pork, I made the batter and added chives to it while I was in a slow spot, and Speedy dripped the dough into boiling water and dried it after. We helped in sautéeing it in butter, and it came out OK.

The pork dish was over the top, like a pig fiesta on a plate. The potato tarte was kind of gross, with the mushy potato kind of getting lost into the mushy tart crust. Everyone avoided Dora's fish -- even though the recipe could of been cracked out in 30 minutes, she took a full 3 hours. The fish needed to be cooked for 10 minutes, she left it in for an indeterminate amount of time. The sauce needed an egg yolk to be delicately tempered in, she blasted it on high heat and made scrambled eggs in the sauce. The final product, suffice to say, did not look or smell appetizing.

I did go around and sample the other two group's pizza. One group mounded their topping in the middle and left too much crust uncovered, but the dough had a nice snap that mine was missing (maybe a hotter oven or more gluten developed in their dough?). The other group's pizzas were a lot thicker than mine, which is cool if you like it that style, but their toppings were much better seasoned -- I was too conservative with the salt.

ADDENDA:
Tired when I got to school. For the first time, I did not write out my recipes on to cards. For a hot minute, stared at my locker and was tempted to just pack it in and go home. Dirty Dave rolled in to the locker room looking like death warmed over and made me feel fortunate for the 6 hours of sleep I did get. Glad I didn't split, the pizza was fun.

Today was Dirty Kim's birthday. Someone brought a cake from Zaro's, which tasted fneh, but Speedy made a KILLER lemoncurd cheese cake that pretty much made me forgive him for being so unspeedy in getting the spatzle in the boiling water.

Made a large batch of pizza dough at home this evening -- Friday night, Dirties Kim and Dave, Stalker Kowalski and the Long Island Lolita will be coming over with their special someones to do a participation round of various kinds of pizzas...

BREAKFAST: 6:30am, good yogurt with honey, cashews, vanilla, .5 bowl, hunger 3/5

AM TASTINGS: 10:30am-11:45am, 1 appetizer-sized 'pizza', one small bite of eggy tart, a few bites of sausage and kraut, 1 bite of store-bought cake, 2 small pieces of homemade lemon-curd cheesecake, quart of water, 1 bowls, hunger 4/5
PM WATERING: 1:30pm, quart of seltzer

LUNCH: 3pm, school-made mushroom risotto, small green salad, 1.5 bowls, hunger 4/5

PM SNACK: 4:45pm, 8oz Wholefood Sportsdrink, .25 bowl, hunger 4/5
Had this in the fridge for a while, been looking for a better alternative to Gatorade for a while. This simulation contains cane sugar instead of corn syrup, natural (unnamed) flavors instead of kiddie lollipop flavors, and about one eighth the sodium, though it still has a long list of 'minerals' and stuff to supposedly help with exertion. Tastes more like fruitpunch than a fruitpunch-like go-juice (which it probably is.) Looking forward to trying it on a ride.

DINNER: 8:30pm. 3 slices with roast peppers, onions, mushrooms and sausage, 2 bowls, hunger 4/5
Usually at Patsy's I wolf down 4 slices, so I guess this is a step away from gluttony.

EVENING DRINK: 10pm, 12oz of beer
Met some school friends for a birthday drink at a VERY loud club. People were drinking fishbowls full of fruity booze. 'Nuff said.