Friday, June 5, 2015

French Fridays with Dorie - Celebration Week #2: "The Never-Doubt-Dorie Moment”


Hard to believe that after four years, seven months, and twenty-one days, the very talented, utterly determined, and quite industrious members of the online cooking group French Fridays with Dorie, finished cooking their way through Dorie Greenspan’s book Around My French Table. In order to celebrate that momentous occasion, we were asked to post a few celebratory posts for four more Fridays.




Given this week’s theme which is the “Never-Doubt-Dorie Moment”, we were asked to chose a recipe which that provided us with „an unexpected nugget, a new technique, our own bonne idée or some other lesson". Considering that there were about three hundred recipes to chose from, predictably, this proved to be a rather lengthy task. But it was also a lot of fun, as it gave me a chance to revisit all those recipes that I made from this book – no, I did not reach the finish line but I participated in French Fridays for about three years and did my best to make as many of Dorie´s recipes as I could. Not all that bad considering that I am by no means what you would call a native English speaker (it was actually the third language I learned) and in light of the fact that I have a rather smallish kitchen....




For today I chose the Fresh Tuna, Mozzarella, and Basil Pizza that we made back in September of 2013. The technique that I took away from this particular recipe is one that I have come back to many times since - it is actually the making of the crispy, flat puff pastry rounds as bases for this „pizza“ . Since making that recipe for the first time almost two years ago, I have served these crispy rounds with all sorts of lovely appetizers. Everything from honey-roasted tomatoes to walnut-olive tapenade has graced these during the last two years. A wonderful and easy technique that I learned while merrily cooking my way through the bulk of the recipes from Dorie´s book. A technique that I would probably not have tried had it not been for this particular recipe - Thank you, Dorie!




To see what the other members of the French Fridays with Dorie group included in their celebratory posts, please go here.

For copyright reasons, we do and did not publish the recipes from the book. But you can find the recipe for the Fresh Tuna, Mozzarella, and Basil Pizza on pages 166-7 in Dorie Greenspan´s cookbook "Around my French Table".



36 comments:

  1. I commend you! I have lived in Germany for 8 years and can babble away happily in the language, but writing in German is still an ordeal which requires a lot of patience and many visits to Leo:-) I have recently started trying to read more in German, in the hopes that this will somehow improve my writing. We shall see. In the meantime I've completely forgotten all of my French, so it seems that there is only room for two languages in my brain.

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    1. Rose, languages are so important to learn - after all, it is the only way we can communicate with each other. Since I attended a German-French high school in Bonn, my second language was French, then English, then five years of Latin and three years of Italian. I am now working on my Dutch - it is fun! But nothing really special around here. And not visiting any of the countries where the lovely languages is spoken, we do tend to loose parts of them...
      Ein schönes Wochenende,
      Andrea

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  2. That technique was one of my choices, too! Who would have thought that flattening puff pastry would be such a delicious surprise? (I think the answer is, not me.)

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    1. Teresa, well, you know what they say "great minds..." and all - it has been a pleasure getting you know you through FFwd and TwD and CCC.
      Looking forward to what the future holds in store for us!
      À la prochaine!
      Andrea

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  3. Yeah, the flattened puff pastry seemed strange but made the perfect biscuity base.

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  4. These little pizźas look really delicious Andrea!
    xo

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    1. Gloria, thank you very much! Glad you like these!

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    2. Yes I love! English is my second languaje and french is my third! Im agree with you languajes are really important.
      xo

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  5. I was also pleasantly surprised with this technique when we made the scallop tartes fines. Your mini pizzas look beautiful, Andrea.

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    1. Adriana, lots of lessons learned while cooking my way through Dorie´s book - this was one of my favorites.

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  6. Oh, thank you for the reminder! I need to make more of these puff pastry gems and adorn them with summer toppings :)

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    1. Liz, a nice recipe but weren´t most of them recipes that we would love to be able to make again at some point?!
      Andrea

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  7. I chose this as one of my favorite recipes because I love the complexity of the flavors, but you are so right. Making appetizer rounds out of pastry is a brilliant technique. So glad you pointed that out.

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    1. Diane, always such an eye opener to revisit the recipes from the book - thanks for stopping by!

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  8. It was an interesting technique. Although I still struggle with the idea of taking the puff out of puff pastry:-)
    Andrea - your English is better than many who are native to it.

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    1. Cher, thank you, dear friend! It was certainly not my intention to make such a big fuss about my languages...now I am sorry that I brought this topic up in the first place, actually I am embarrassed that I did...

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  9. That WAS a great technique - I quite forgot about it!!! And I agree with Cher, your English is perfect!

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  10. I had no idea English was your 3rd language. I am beyond impressed! Your English is excellent....I agree about these rounds. Almost anything tastes good on top of them. One of my lessons has definitely been that everything's better with puff pastry!

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    1. Jora, love that sentence "everything´s better with puff pastry" - no true, my dear friend, so true - especially since I cannot agree with the statement about the bacon...not everything is better with bacon!
      Take good care of yourself,
      Andrea

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  11. OK. To start with. Really? English your third language? I would never have guessed! And learning more! Very impressive. I was pleased to do a project in Mexico City last year so that I could practice my Spanish - luckily reading better than speaking really. At least I had retained enough to impress my team down there! They were surprised that this blond pale-faced girl from the states could generally follow along!! :) You are so right about how easy it is to lose the languages. So Impressive!

    I think that I need to re-visit this technique. I don't know that I actually did it correctly the first time. I can see you serving lots of yummy things, topped with your fresh herbs... Great reminder!!!

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    1. Candy, Spanish is a language that I have not learned but I love my Italian and I can totally relate to the fact how wonderful it is when we can leave a lasting impression on people with respect to our language skills - there are a lot of American that visit Bonn to see Beethoven´s birthplace - a very pretty tiny house - and I often show them the way, the other day one of them asked me where I was from as she could not quite place "that accent"...ah, well...but they certainly did find that tiny pink house.

      Thank you for your comment - herbs in my garden are presently growing out of control - and I still love this technique as it is a great way to use all that puff pastry that I keep stashed in my fridge.
      ¡Buen fin de semana!
      Andrea

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  12. This is an interesting technique and quite a unique pizza! I bet it's really tasty. Also, I can't believe English is your third language - I never would have guesses that!! Your English is perfect.

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    1. Thank you, Amy - it is a really tasty recipe and the puff pastry base is very versatile.

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  13. I had a friend who was a speech language pathologist and she spoke 5 languages. I am impressed by your thirst for knowledge. I have yet to make this recipe but will keep it in mind as I continue to cook the book.

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    1. Diane, I looked up the "speech language pathologist" - that is an expression I did not know but now I do. Languages are so important for all of us to learn and, personally, I believe there are a ton of fun to learn.

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  14. Hi Andrea, its been quite fun going through the Posts and seeing what everyone has prepared with Dorie! Your cooking style and gorgeous photos to go along have been inspiring. I only learned of the Dorie group through the Cottage Cooking Club and so it became a special way in then identifying these bloggers and following along, thanks for that! The cookbook is wonderful! It was also fun to know some of these members in the club when it was spoken of in an interview webinar with Dorie Greenspan on the International Association of Culinary Professionals (IACP.) Enjoy these precious last weeks! and PS, agreed on the above, your English is perfect!

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    1. Peggy, I will certainly need a different theme for my next/third celebratory post. - let´s just move away from that language theme - I feel like such a fool for having started this discussion. Seriously, thank you so much for your kind comment, dear friend - it fills me with joy to know that we met through CCC and it is fun to see that you learned about FFwD through the CCC.
      Enjoying the last weeks of French Fridays but also enjoying new adventures in the blogger sphere.
      Andrea

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  15. Mmmm puff pastry! :) Love that you chose this recipes! I took German in high school but never became great at speaking it. You have me beat in the language department. ;)

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    1. Karen, talk to me in German then...it will be fun and all your German from high school will "come back"...
      This puff pastry base is still one of my favorite techniques from AMFT.

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  16. That sounds like a really bonne idée! I need to learn this technique, for sure! Thanks for sharing - and, by the way, what was your second language? Liebe Grüße, David

    PS - my second was French... I never studied German officially - just learned it from hanging around with German chorus members when I worked that summer in the Heidelberg Schoßfest Spiele...

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    1. Dear David, my first was German, my second was French, my third English, my fourth Latin, my fifth Italian and my sixth is Dutch...I sincerely wish I had never ever started this language issue...I now feel like such a show off...
      Btw this technique is worth taking a look at - keeping puff pastry from puffing is fun and makes for a wonderfully crunchy base for all kinds of appetizers.
      Liebe Grüße,
      Andrea

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  17. I love the idea of using puff pastry as a pizza crust...these look delicious, tuna, cheese, tomatoes and basil...and I absolutely adore the small size...
    Andrea, you are gifted as you can embrace so many languages...awesome!

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    1. Juliana, a wonderful idea with respect to that puff pastry, that´s for sure - I often use it so I can prepare some quick and delicious appetizers with tons of wonderful, decadent toppings like these - they are simply awesome!
      Thank you for your kind comment,
      andrea

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  18. One of the reasons I'm enjoying these celebratory posts so much is to be reminded of some of the "greatest hits" in the book that I'd forgotten about. Of course, each list is personal, but each Dorista's pick is a winner!

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