Blueberry and White Chocolate tarte
This recipe is inspired by a chef I worked for in Toronto in the late 1990’s, Eugene Shewchuk. At his restaurant Messis on Harbord Street, he had an addictive and popular blueberry and white chocolate strudel. Made with fresh filo pastry, frozen blueberries were rolled with the chocolate, the size of a cannoli, and baked to order in a pizza oven. Two strudels were served crisp and hot, with vanilla ice cream; the devil would knock on the restaurant’s back door each night and ask for his recipe back.
Eugene had the best kitchen story ever. I will tell it after the recipe.
Roll a sweet dough (I have posted a recipe for the tarte dough on my site as well) into a large ten-inch tarte shell (a proper French one, where the bottom can be removed and lost. Not an American pie shell, a useless object in my mind).
Cook the empty tarte shell, or Blind Bake, in a hot oven. Until it is a light golden colour.
This makes a large-large tart. You could easily cut it in half, for a medium-small tart.
Ingredients
1 kg Lac St-Jean blueberries, or small wild ones if possible. Even frozen should work.
120 grams (4 ounces) chopped white chocolate. Small chunks. I use Callebaut.
¼ cup water
2 tablespoons sugar
2 gelatin leaves.
2 tablespoons cornstarch.
Method
Mix in a large bowl, the blueberries, white chocolate, and cornstarch. Do this, and blind the tarte, before going forward.
In an ice bath soften the gelatin leaves (gelatin leaves are usually 2 grams of gelatin).
Boil the water and sugar until the sugar dissolves. Then add the softened gelatin leaves.
Stir in quickly and add to the bowl with the blueberries. Incorporate the sugar-gelatin-water lazily, but quickly. Maybe for ten seconds. Then dump it onto the pie shell. This part has to happen quickly so we avoid having the gelatin ‘set’ or ‘stick’ to the bottom of the bowl.
Move around the chunks of white chocolate if you desire.
Place the tarte on a baking sheet. If the mixture seems too high for the tarte shell, it should be alright. When the tarte begins to bake, the mixture will have collapsed a little.
Lay a piece of parchment paper over the tarte, loosely, floating-like; this traps the heat and steam, and helps to cook the tarte.
Place the tarte in a 375⁰ oven, for about 25 minutes. It is ready when the outer area of the tarte has some liquid and is perhaps slightly boiling.
Once cooked, let the tarte stand until completely cool. Perhaps 4 or 5 hours.
If you cut it too soon it will hemorrhage blue. Even after it is cool, it will still give a little blue.
Do not be upset if your slices are not beautiful, they taste great.
The Story
So, Eugene left Manitoba in the late seventies to study philosophy in Paris, France. While there he decided to leave the academy and enter Paris’ kitchens to apprentice as chef (I was never sure if he finished his degree).
One Chef was a ‘real bastard’, Eugene would say with a smile. “He would have us cleaning late into the night, scrubbing the fridge’s support legs, stuff like that - after a fourteen-hour shift. Just me and this other guy, an apprentice like me. One day the Chef was riding this guy hard, barking at him all day.
“I could hear the guy, standing beside me as we cut vegetables or something, begin to mutter ‘I can’t take it. I can’t take it’.” Eugene’s face lit up a little, and then turned serious “He was losing it. The Chef was pushing him over the edge.”
Eugene than gave a little history lesson on France. How at the time military service was still a requirement back then, and the Chef had been in the Algerian war.
“I had never seen this before. My co-worker grabs his knife and tries to attack the Chef!” Eugene pauses, the way someone does when they have told a story many times and they know what to expect from their audience.
“It was incredible. He goes after the Chef. And all the Chef does is disarm the guy and tells him to get back to work. No police; doesn’t fire him. The guy just goes back to his workstation, trembling, and the Chef goes back to work as if nothing has happened. I couldn’t believe it” Eugene had a great smile and laugh, then a devilish look as he finishes with “Man, what balls. Paris Kitchen were nuts.”
Eugene was a great Chef. He was never a star or Celebrity Chef in Toronto, but he was well known and well respected by other Chefs. When he taught you how to cook, he would explain the why as well. I was lucky to have worked for him. He fired me because I was too slow. Ha!
We kept in touch for many years after.