Apple and Cinnamon Crostata

Apple and Cinnamon Crostata

from The Country Cookbook: seasonal jottings and recipes, Belinda Jeffery, Lantern, 2010

This recipe had me googling to find some information. What exactly was a crostata and how did digestive biscuits come by that name? Do they aid the digestion?

The crostata was quite easy: it’s an Italian fruit tart.

The digestive biscuits have apparently been around since the late 1800s and, as sodium bicarbonate was one of the ingredients when they were first developed, it was thought that they could have had antacid properties. Well, whatever their possible property then, now, in this recipe, they were used as a sort of base inside the pastry to soak up the juices of the apples as they cooked.

Making the crostata was easy though a little time-consuming. I didn’t follow the method of making the pastry given in the book. I prefer to make it by hand rather than using equipment. It still turns out the same.

The crushed digestive biscuits were laid down inside the pastry base and the sliced apples placed on top. I did like the touch of folding the edge of the pastry back over the apples as a holding border.

It was all good eating. Applies pies always go down well—and equally so when they happen to be an Italian crostata. The digestive biscuits had become an apple-flavoured cake-like layer between the apples and the pastry. Very nice.

Taste: ✔✔✔✔

Ease of cooking: ✔✔✔

Eggplant Torta

Eggplant, Mozzarella & Parmesan Torta

from The Country Cookbook: seasonal jottings and recipes, Belinda Jeffery, Lantern, 2010

Again I have gone back to this cookbook, this time to make this savoury torta of layered eggplant and cheeses. While I really like eggplant, I dislike it immensely if it is not fully cooked. The thin slices of eggplant are first grilled and I made sure at this stage that they received a good grilling.

The meal was a bit of mucking around preparing the eggplant first and then building up the torta. It was interesting to make though.

The result was a large, flattish-looking cake on a plate. Served in slices with vegetables it made a tasty and different meal. It also went down well served cold the next day.

Taste: ✔✔✔

Ease of cooking: ✔✔

As some of these books may be out of print if anyone would like a particular recipe, email me (alfcooksvegetarian@ozemail.com.au) and I'll send an abbreviated version. Of course, the whole book would be better; it's loaded with other goodies. 

Discovering Quinces

Slow-Cooked Vanilla Quinces

from The Country Cookbook: Seasonal jottings and recipes, Belinda Jeffery, Lantern an imprint of Penguin Books, 2010.

Seeing a recipe for quinces in this book and not having a lot of knowledge about the fruit, I went looking for them. There they were. This book being arranged in months you can be fairly sure that the ingredients are in season.

Thankfully the conversational tone of the recipe helped immeasurably when cooking, warning about oxidation and the difficulty of cutting the fruit up. It was really tough to get at the flesh but once the preparation was done the cooking was a breeze.

I had not thought that the skins and cores would have to be cooked first to make a stock to cook the flesh in but the results were so good.

The fruit turns a beautiful pink colour when it is cooked over a long time and it looks really appetising. It tastes great too. 

We had it with vanilla ice-cream at one time and then with cream straight from the container at another. I preferred the cream as it tends to moderate the sweetness a little.

Taste: ✔✔✔✔

Ease of cooking: ✔✔✔✔

Quince facts

Caught up with the thrill of the quinces I went looking for more information.

• They are related to apples and pears

• Apparently Turkey is the world’s top producer of the fruit  

• There are a couple of varieties that do ripen sufficiently to eat

• It is believed that the golden apple that Paris awarded to Aphrodite was actually a quince. I wonder if it was a quince that Eve offered to Adam.