Tomato Tart & Apple Pie with Butter Pie Crust

Mile-high apple pie is all about the apples and the crust. Flaky and light, encasing a big pile of three different kinds of apples. In order to learn how to make the best pâté brisé, you should really just follow the golden rules. Make it cold, bake it hot, and if possible, use a food processor. And so it's two and a half cups of all-purpose flour, one teaspoon of salt, and you can just pulse that so the salt is evenly distributed. Even the salt can be cold. And two sticks of butter, and it should be cold and hard for this process of cutting the butter into the flour. And we're going to measure a half a cup of iced water. So you want to pour your water while you pulse on the outside of your tube. So it looks like it's pretty much done. Okay, so just wrap this in a flat round in a piece of plastic wrap, and that is going to roll into one good pie crust. You need two of these. And now we're going to use our first batch of pâté brisé for mile-high apple pie. Today we're using different kinds of apples from Breezy Hill Orchards up in Statsburg, New York. Jonagold, these big red-tinged apples, very tart, very nice. Mutsu, these are large with a lot of deep flavor. And we're also adding to the mix today Granny Smith's. We're using five and a half pounds of apples in this one pie. And we're going to also add to the apples to keep them from turning brown, the juice of two lemons. I'm cutting off the tips of the lemons because they squeeze better in this handy tool that we use. Okay, so there. Now the apples also get one cup of sugar, and we're going to just sprinkle that over, and two teaspoons of cinnamon, and a little pinch of salt, and a third of a cup of flour, just all-purpose flour. Now if you use a metal spoon you might break up your apples, so I suggest using either your hands to toss the fruit or a big rubber scraper like this. And so you're distributing all those lovely ingredients throughout the apples. Perfect. Ready for the filling. So now we have a nice crust rolled out to a little less than an eighth of an inch thick. And then to get it into the bottom crust, just roll it up like this on your pin. And having a good rolling pin is important too, a big enough pin. So look how nice this looks. Put in the apples. You know these are going to cook down a little bit. They're going to get tender, and they will make a most exquisite pie. There. Oh, and before I forget, dot your pie filling with a little bit of unsalted butter. Okay, so here we have our crust for the top. And I think so that we have no chance of breakage, I'm going to just roll this on my rolling pin. This is a very good method for lifting up a delicate crust. Once you form your crust, crimp your edges. We're going to re-chill the pie in the refrigerator for about 20 minutes. You need a pair of scissors. And I'm just going to cut off the excess. Leave half an inch or so hanging over the edge of the dish. Now watch, you're going to turn this over. Work fast because the pastry does soften up. That's nice. And now if you want to cut a few vent holes in the top, good idea. There, just little slits like this. Oh, and now crimp the edges. There's various ways to crimp. You can use these two fingers and your thumb of your other hand. My mom used a fork. Whatever is your favorite way of making a pretty decorative edge. Okay, so now from your leftover pastry, I'll make a couple decorations for the top and vein the leaves at the back of your little paring knife. Chill these 20 minutes. We're ready to glaze the top of the pie. So the pie is nicely chilled. Let's apply the branches and leaves using water as your glue. Water works remarkably well in making sure that the pastry adheres to the other pastry. And just put on your leaves. That looks very nice. We're ready to glaze the top of the pie. We are going to use one egg yolk and two tablespoons of water. And use a soft bristle brush to not tear your pastry or to make marks on your beautiful pie. Work quickly because you want to get this cold pie into a hot oven, preheated to 450 degrees for 15 minutes. You'll then lower that temperature and bake the pie until it's done. That may take an hour. It may take an hour and 15 more minutes, but it's essential that the juices in the middle of the pie are bubbling. So see now I'm just sprinkling a light sprinkling of this sparkly sugar. So get it in the oven and set your timer. Now this apple pie took one hour and 35 minutes to bake. The way I can tell the apples are done is with a bamboo skewer. And you can just go into one of the vent holes and push down through the pie. I meet no resistance, meaning the apples are cooked. And the crust itself is glistening with that sanding sugar. The pie looks done. I first started making pear dumplings when I was a caterer. A soft poached pear encased in a light flaky pâté brisé. They're delicious. This recipe for one recipe of pâté brisé, which is enough to completely encase five large pears like this. And we're going to poach these in a white wine. Oh, the poached pears are so delicious, flavored with cinnamon and vanilla. Very tasty. So there, five pears. Now we want the skin of two lemons, just the yellow, and use a paring knife like that. And notice I'm not taking too much of the pith, although there isn't very much. Now cut the ends off and cut the lemons in half and squeeze the juice right into your pan. You don't want any pith, so use one of these little hand squeezers. Two bottles of a flavorful white wine. We're using an Italian wine made with organic grapes. One whole vanilla bean. And to get the seeds out of a vanilla bean, just cut it lengthwise like that. And then with the back of your knife, scrape out the seeds. You can see on my knife, look at that. That's thousands and thousands of little vanilla bean seeds. And make sure you put the whole bean casing too, right inside. Two cinnamon sticks. So this is equal to two. So very fragrant. And don't forget two cups of sugar. Now bring this to a boil on the stove before you add your pears. And now the poaching liquid is boiling. I'm going to add the pears. Just very carefully drop them in. And we're going to cook these until they're tender, anywhere from 30 to 35 minutes. Now we have some pears that are already poached. They have been chilled in the cooking liquid and then drained into a bowl. And now the cooking liquid has also been reheated, boiled, and reduced to half the amount. So this can get poured back over the pears and then refrigerated overnight until they are really, really cold. The added refrigeration really does intensify the flavor of the pears. Now our pears have been drained and we want to scoop out the bottom with this little melon baller scoop. You want to get the seeds out of the pear. There's a nice little hole in the pear. And you're going to just sprinkle the inside of the pear with cinnamon sugar. Four teaspoons of cinnamon into about a cup of sugar. And some unsalted butter, just a few pieces, right into the pear like that. Now that is ready to encase in our pastry. You see there are triangles. Place the pear right in the center. Brush the edges with egg wash. You want this to be secure and stay in place. You just want to make sure that the pastry reaches the top. So you can do it like that. Apply one of these pretty leaves with a little bit more of this egg wash. And this will be put back on a cookie sheet and you must chill it before you bake it. So here we have one little dumpling and that's going to look very beautiful when it's baked. Well now our pears have chilled. They're looking very nice. And it's time to apply the final wash, the final egg wash, all over them and get them into the oven. And if you want to gild the pear, sprinkle sanding sugar all over them. And because we don't want the stems to burn, we've made little parchment caps to put over the stems like this. Get that into the oven, 400 degrees, 30 to 35 minutes until they are a luscious golden brown. I'm spooning just a couple tablespoons of the poaching liquid, which I've reduced to about three quarters of a cup. It makes a thick, lustrous, shiny jelly. Look how pretty it looks around each of the pastry pears that we've just made. What a beautiful dessert and very, very tasty. A great tomato tart with a topping of cheese and confit tomatoes, a little bit of thyme and some roasted garlic. A savory, gorgeous tart. This is a great crust. It's very similar to the pâté brisé, but I'm adding an egg to it, a whole egg and a little less water. So it's two cups of flour, all-purpose flour, teaspoon of sugar, three quarters of a teaspoon of salt, and just mix this up. We're using a food processor again, which makes the pastry so quickly. One stick of unsalted butter, which is a quarter of a pound, and it is cold. All the ingredients are cold, the flour, the sugar, the butter. And now cut this in. And now we're going to add one egg. I'm going to just mix that egg up before I add it into the dry ingredients. Now blend that in and add anywhere between two and three tablespoons of aced water. Try not to get any ace in your paste. Now wrap this in plastic wrap. This dough gets chilled for at least a half an hour before you use it. While my crust for the tomato tart chills, I am going to prepare the tomatoes. Now you can use sliced tomatoes and cheese, but we're doing something a little bit differently. We're going to confit the tomatoes. And so I'm peeling first and then seeding the tomatoes. I make a little X in the bottom of the tomato. I immerse the tomato into boiling water. I have a big bowl of iced water right here. And it's like 30 seconds they stay immersed in the boiling water. And you just look to see when they peel. Oh, there, that one started to peel. See that? Now just put that into the cold water. This is the way you can peel dozens and dozens of tomatoes for canning. There it is. And let this just chill and put them into a bowl. This is the fastest way I've found to peel the tomatoes. And now to seed, just once you get the tomato peel off, see how easily it comes off? You want to then cut this part of the tomato off. And there are the cavities with all the seeds. And I just squeeze. Now onto parchment goes the peeled tomato. And these are already prepared. Now another thing that we want to put into this tart is roasted garlic. An effective way to roast garlic is to encase it in a little parchment package with a little bit of salt, olive oil, and just make a little package like that. The garlic will steam and roast. That's going to go into the oven at the same time as the tomatoes. And we just want to put a little olive oil on each tomato, sprinkle with salt and pepper, fresh thyme from the garden, and have your oven preheated to 275 degrees. Cook these very, very slowly. When they come out, they're going to look like this. They do shrink and they are now the essence of tomato. That is exactly what you're looking for. Now we're going to roll out our pastry to fit this removable bottom tart pan, this black steel. I love those. I've always used those. Flour your surface very well. We're going to blind bake. Now blind baking means that you are going to cook, basically cook in the oven, an empty tart shell. Flour your rolling pin and want to make sure that you roll it out without any cracks. Now spray your pan just very lightly so that the ultimate tart will come right out of the pan. And then gently release your pastry into the pan. That is a nice looking crust. Now to reinforce the sides of your tart shell, fold the dough down, making the sides a little bit thicker. This really does help remove the shell when it's baked from the pan and it also holds the filling in very nicely. You can very quickly just use your rolling pin and go like this and take off all the pastry with your rolling pin. So now I'm going to dock with a fork. This will prevent the crust from bubbling up. You won't be able to fill it if that happens. And then line it with a piece of parchment paper and you fill it with beans or nuts or clay weights, whatever you have. These are my lentils that are about 10 years old and I use these for all my crust. And press this down into the shell. Now get this right into a 425 degree oven and check it after 10 minutes. Then you remove the lentils and let it brown in the oven. It's going to be a beautiful crust. After about 15 minutes, the pie crust is browned. So now here is your roasted garlic. Look how easily it slides out of its casings. So one head of garlic or one and a half heads per tart. And you spread this with an offset spatula all over the bottom so everybody will get a little bit of this extraordinary flavor. There, okay. Now a little sprinkling of cheese. Now here we're using Comte cheese. C-O-M-T-E. It is a semi-hard cheese, kind of like a Gruyere. And a little bit of thyme. And we're going to put a little bit in the bottom like that. And now place the tomatoes. These have cooled and you just pick them up with a spatula and start squishing them in place very tightly. Kind of looks like a beautiful flower. So for each 11-inch tart, you're going to need 24 of these oven-dried tomatoes. Okay, now a little bit more salt. Not too much. And a little bit more pepper. Not too much. And more cheese. And we grated 10 ounces of the Comte cheese. And I'm going to use it all. And this is going to bake in a 375 degree oven until the cheese is melted and serve hot. It's a great tart.