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| When you’re looking through a cookbook, and the book falls open to a dog-eared page with the feel of heavy, weathered vellum, and handwritten notes sprawl alongside the stained recipe, you know you’ve found something worth looking for.
I have many books like that. They start out so new, a world of possibilities in their pages, and they all filter down to a few recipes, visited and revisited to the point that they should be memorized but, in this world of possibilities, are not. So the book remembers. It falls open to the page. It says—This is what you’re looking for. And what I’m always looking for is a home base from which to wander, variations on a theme. So when I first saw the recipe for Southwestern Vegetable Clafouti in Rosalee Murphy’s Pink Adobe Cookbook, I was intrigued, so intrigues that the cookbook now opens of its own accord to the well-stained recipe. It has become a home base and my creations, variations on a theme. I remembered clafouti as a French dessert, usually made with an egg base, filled with dark, sweet cherries and dusted with powdered sugar. |
Good, very sweet, a little on the bland side. Not something I associated with the chiles of the New Mexico landscape. But here was the familiar batter of eggs and milk and flour, and Murphy was suggesting it as a savory side dish. I liked that idea, and, for those of you who own chickens or have friends with the feathery busybodies scratching in their yards, you know that hens are laying with a kind of frenzied abandon right now. In my refrigerator I have cartons of eggs in the palest of spring’s green, eggs the color of Mexico’s sands, the toasty warmth of brown paper bags. Their yolks, a bright gold, turn breakfast into a rich, dense wonder every morning. In warmer or darker seasons, when the hens respond to the heat of the day or the length of the daylight by tightening up on their egg production, I hoard those eggs jealously, using them only when I know their flavor will be maximized, but in the spring, when the world gives so freely, I throw that bright yellow comfort into everything. Clafouti is a wonderful vehicle for eggs. Half custard, half cobbler, half quiche, it adds up to more than the sum of its parts. Here’s the home base: |
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Clafouti Batter 3 Tbsp. melted butter 3 eggs 1 egg yolk 1-½ cups milk ¾ cup flour 1 tsp. sugar ½ tsp. each salt and pepper Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Place all batter ingredients in bowl of food processor or blender. Process until well blended. Butter a medium-sized casserole dish and pour half the batter into it. Cover with filling of your choice and add remaining batter. Bake for 45 minutes until browned and puffed. The filling is where the fun starts. This recipe can take you anywhere—from breakfast to lunch to dinner to dessert. It can be a side dish. It can be the main dish. I have created fillings just for the clafouti, and I have created fillings from the most unusual combination of leftovers. While I’m not saying that you can’t come up with a loser, I never have. Almost anything can go inside a clafouti. My favorite filling consists of sliced mushrooms, sautéed in butter and olive oil and sprinkled with lemon juice, salt, garlic and cayenne pepper. Mix these with sautéed sliced zucchini, onions and garlic. Throw in some diced or shredded smoked chicken. Spread the whole mixture over the first layer of batter and sprinkle with shredded Monterey Jack cheese. Top with remaining batter and bake. This makes a wonderful luncheon or light supper meal. For vegetarian purposes, leave out the chicken. For a savory summer side dish, fill with ratatouille and Gouda cheese. Try a breakfast clafouti, using sausage, chopped ham or bacon and cheddar cheese. Add mushrooms or sautéed spinach. And of course, dark cherries are always good, or peaches, or sautéed apples, although you might want to add a little more sugar to the batter and dust the top with powdered sugar. It’s hard to wrong here. You could probably make a barbecue clafouti and throw in a little brisket, pepper jack and sautéed onions. The variations on that theme are endless. The only problem I’ve had with the dish is trying to explain the name to people as they come through the buffet line. The conversation goes something like this— What’s for dinner tonight? Clafouti. What? Clafouti. What’s that? It’s kind of a crustless quiche. A what? It means quiche in French. Oh. Some things don’t bear explaining in a buffet line. But they always like it. And they come back for more. Enjoy! |
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