Blackberry, blackberry, blackberry

We seem to be at the peak of a Mexican blackberry glut here in the U.S., with really nice blackberries showing up at Trader Joe's in New York for $3 a 12 oz. box. We've made blackberry muffins, blackberry clafoutis, blackberry martinis, and today we're having a blackberry tart. Here's a basic recipe that will work with just about any fruit that isn't hard like an apple, but if you wanted to make an apple or pear tart, you could steam, parboil, or saute the fruit to get it to the right consistency, so that the fruit won't be undercooked when the custard sets.

You can even use canned fruit. I've done this with canned mangosteen, which isn't commonly available fresh in New York. If you do use canned fruit, pour the syrup into a pan or a pot and boil it down to about half its volume, and pour it over the tart as a glaze when it comes out of the oven.

Shortbread crust: This all should be done quickly without handling the dough more than necessary. You want to keep it cool. Sift 1 cup of pastry flour into a bowl and cream a half cup (one stick) of cold butter in a stand mixer if you have one, or with a wooden spoon in a bowl. You can also grate the zest of half a lemon or lime or a whole key lime into the butter, if you like. Toss the butter in the flour, make a well in the center, and add an egg, a half cup of sugar, and a little vanilla extract, and mix by hand quickly with a pastry blender or two table knives just until it all comes together to form a dough. Flatten into a disk and refrigerate for at least an hour.

Preheat the oven to 375 deg. F, and roll out the dough to fill a 10-inch tart pan. Prick the dough all over with a fork and bake the shell for about 25 minutes, or until lightly browned. Right when it comes out of the oven, if the sides have sunk, you can use the tip of the handle of a knife to push the sides back up a bit. Cool in the pan on a rack and turn the oven down to 350 deg. F.

Custard: Bring 1/2 cup milk, 1/2 cup cream, and 1 tsp. vanilla extract to a boil, either in a pot or the microwave is handy for this (about 2-3 min.). With a mixer or a whisk, beat four eggs and about 1/3 cup of sugar, and as the eggs start to thicken, add the hot milk mixture in a slow stream while beating continuously.

Put it all together: Arrange the berries or other fruit in the tart shell.

Here's a great trick from Anthony Bourdain's Les Halles Cookbook--Put the shell on the oven rack with the rack pulled halfway out, supporting the rack with one hand so that it stays level, and pour the custard over the fruit just until it reaches the top of the shell. Close the oven and set a timer for 25 minutes.

You'll probably have some custard left over for some extra treats. Pour it into some small ramekins or coffee cups, and when there's 20 minutes left on the timer, put them in the oven. Remove the tart and the custards when just set, taking care not to overcook them. Let the tart sit at least 15-20 minutes before serving.

For crème brûlée--If you've got a torch, refrigerate the extra custards, and spoon about a teaspoon of sugar on top of each one and melt the sugar when ready to serve.

Updates--Frozen fish and the Fabulous $6 Wok Grate

I've updated a few past posts with new information.

We've added a new photograph of the iron wok grate showing the grate in action in our post on that topic.

Also, check out our entry on Trader Joe's frozen fish for some more information about the freezing process and a few more varieties we've tested.

Frozen Fish from Trader Joe's

I'm usually a bit dubious about the idea of frozen fish, but I noticed that one of our new Trader Joe's stores here out east had some interesting selections of mostly wild caught fish that looked good in the packages and was very reasonably priced, so I thought I'd sample a few--mahi mahi, swordfish, Dover sole, and coho salmon. Modern "individually quick frozen" (IQF) processes that use vacuum packaging and flash freezing have greatly improved upon the frozen fish of yesteryear. The fish seems to be glazed with ice, which is probably part of the secret. I defrosted the fish overnight in the refrigerator, and all the selections I tried smelled fresh and had good texture when I took them out of the package, and all were very neatly cut and filleted.

I've grilled the Trader Joe's wild Coho salmon in a very hot cast iron grill pan twice now, once with garlic butter, once with a teriyaki style marinade. This kind of salmon has a good flavor, but it tends to be a bit on the dry side, so it needs to be just barely cooked through--about two and a half minutes on a side--and a marinade to add to the moisture doesn't hurt. I've had plank roasted Scottish wild salmon that was like this in England. It's very easy to overcook, but if you get it right, it's perfect.

The Dover sole was the least freezable fish of those we tried. Even though the texture was good in general, the thin frozen fillets had evidently cracked in shipping and storage. It held together well enough to roll and bake with a crab and spinach stuffing, but it would have fallen apart, if I'd tried to broil it.

The swordfish was a success--maybe not as high a fat content as the best swordfish I've had, but that kind of swordfish is hard to find in general. 4 minutes on a side in the cast iron grill pan with garlic butter and a little lemon zest was perfect.

We're used to fresh caught local mahi-mahi when we're in Hawai'i, but even with that as a point of reference, Trader Joe's Peruvian wild caught mahi-mahi made a very respectable showing, grilled about three minutes on a side with garlic butter and lemon in the hot cast iron grill pan. It's not fresh from the shores of Moloka'i, but for what we can get in New York, it's excellent.

We're fortunate to live close enough to water to find fresh local fish in the markets and from the Greenmarkets around the city, but for fish that aren't local to our waters and the convenience of being able to have fish of good quality on hand in the freezer Trader Joe's gets a thumbs up.

Update (14 May 2009): A couple others we've tried since this post are the sockeye salmon, wild halibut steaks and the Alaskan wild cod. The halibut grilled very nicely. The cod had a good flavor but was maybe a bit chewy for a grilled fish; however, it seemed to have enough substance to hold up well braised or in a stew, so we might try it again that way. The sockeye salmon was first rate.