"Tarte aux quetches" or damson plums fruit tart
Ingredients
* for the shortcrust pastry
- 250 grams of flour
- 125 grams of butter at room temperature
- 5 grams of salt
- 1 egg
- 2 tablespoons of water to make the dough a bit less friable
* the topping
- 1 tablespoon of sugar
- 1 tablespoon of flour
- about 40 damson plums (or others)
Preparation
* shortcrust pastry
Gently mix all the ingredients together until you obtain a firm dough and leave it to rest in the fridge for about an hour.
Roll out the pastry and place it on a pie dish.
* the topping
Mix the sugar and and the flour and sprinkle it over the pastry. This mixture is used to absorb some of the juice from the plums.
Cut the plums in two and stone them. Then spread them with the skin facing downwards over the the pastry until the whole pie is filled up.
The plums are placed skin downards to retain the juice and to prevent them from soaking the pastry.
Bake the damson plum fruit tart for about 25 minutes in a preheated oven at a temperature of 200°C.
Bon appétit!
The story about this recipe
On my way to Reims in the Champagne region of France, I stopped for the night at Guignicourt, a little village in the Picardy region. As I randomly rang at a house to ask to place my tent in the garden, I was charmingly received by Mr Compra who welcomed me with a Belgian beer and a nice piece of savoury pie with broccoli, potato and lard. Wow, that tasted absolutely delicious! As I explained the project of Kitchenroots on the road while we stringed some fresh beans together, he suggested to take me to his parents where I could spend the night in a descent bed rather then on my mattress in a tent outside. His father was a former pastry chef and his mother a cook, which was exactly what I was looking for along my journey; meeting the locals and learning all about the regional terroir. Alongside a nice glass of wine and a so-called biscuits roses de Reims, I was honoured with a lovely piece of tarte aux quetches or damsons plums fruit tart, all recipe credits to Mr and Mrs Compra of course! The pink biscuits of Reims, created around 1690, are traditionally soaked in red wine or in champagne. And by the way, did you know that the word "biscuit" is derived from "bis-cuit", which literally means "baked twice" and that these sweet pink biscuits or naturally coloured with the Cochineal insect?
Comments
Bravo!