Thanksgiving Cherry Bomb - Truffled Pancetta and Cherry Salad

This salad has become a Thanksgiving staple over the last 8 years, whether I am with my family in Portland or with my friends in San Diego. It's a modified version of a recipe by Michael Chiarello I picked up a many many moons ago. Originally calling for cider vinegar, porcini oil and dried sour cherries soaked in water. I use to make this with dried cranberries, but the only dried cranberries I seem to be able to find the last few years are "sweetened". (YUCK!) So I have returned to using the tart Montmorency cherries.

I have always thought that it was such a waste to soak them in water when it seems like the perfect opportunity to add a little kick, by macerating the cherries/cranberries in SOME sort of alcohol. With unsweetend cranberries I would typically use Orange Muscat, Moscato or Muscat Canelli for soaking, but there is no reason you could not use Gran Marnier to add a hint of orange, Maraschino to lend a bit of almond, or even St. Germaine to add some floral notes to your salad. I would stay out of the heavier liquor though, it may be a bit much for the champagne vinegar and the truffle oil.

Truffled Pancetta and Cherry Salad

1/4 cup dried Sour Cherries (Montmorency)
alcohol for soaking (Be it wine or liqueur, this year I used a wonderful Cranberry wine)
3 tablespoons olive oil
4 oz Pancetta, diced
1 TB minced Garlic
1 TB chopped fresh Thyme leaves
Fresh ground black pepper
1/4 cup Champagne Vinegar
2 TB Italian White Truffle Olive oil
Kosher Salt
6 cups mixed baby greens (roughly 2 of the pre-prepped bags of salad)
6 ounces fresh goat cheese (Chevre) I usually use Silver Goat brand

In a small bowl, macerate dried cherries in your chosen alcohol, then set aside to soften.

Pour 1 TB olive oil into a medium skillet over medium heat.

Add pancetta and sauté until the fat is rendered out, drain pancetta reserving 1 TB of fat from the pan.

Add 2 TB Olive oil to the skillet & increase the heat to medium-high so you can sauté the Pancetta again until it's crispy; then add the garlic and sauté a little longer until the garlic becomes golden.

Turn heat down to medium-low and add the thyme and 10 – 15 grinds of black pepper, then deglaze the pan with Champagne vinegar, be sure to scrape the pan to release the fond.

Reduce vinegar by half.

Remove from heat and whisk in the Truffle oil and a pinch of Kosher Salt.

Place mixed baby greens in a salad bowl.

Drain the Cherries and add to the salad and toss biefly.

Pour Pancetta mixture over greens and toss quickly, just until the greens begin to wilt.

Crumble goat cheese over the greens and toss lightly.

Serve immediately...

It looks a little messy, but I assure you, it is absolute heaven on a salad fork. It works better served individually with chevre sprinkled on top instead of tossed in, never the less, when there are hungry mouths to feed, sometimes speed and convenience are of the essence. LOL

Mangia!!
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George Wouldn't Have Chopped Down That Tree If This Was Dessert - Good ol' Cherry Pie

OK, I have 3 crusts to play with so here is Number one. The Pâte Brisée. This is my "go to" pastry whenever constructing a pie, though I tend to vary the amount of sugar slightly, depending on the filling. It's used by my mother (the Goddess of all that is pie) and by my grandmother (Goddess of all that is Cake) as well. For this crust, I chose the sweeter pie filling. Good Ol' Chery Pie.

I am a great proponent for Amarelle cherries for cherry pie, as opposed to Morello. I believe that they have better flavor, so much so that I will use canned Montmorency cherries (an Amarelle variety) before I will use fresh Morello. And since there are not a lot of Montmorency cherries being grown in Southern California, being none, I end up using canned cherries A LOT. At some point in the near future I would like to experiment with Bing Cherries and Balsamic vinegar, but that future is not tonight. :)

Arrowroot Powder and Cornstarch are interchangeable. I usually go for the Arrowroot for 2 reasons. First, I can taste cornstarch in fruit pies and I find arrowroot has little to no flavor, at least to me. Secondly, Arrowroot makes a shinier filling that cornstarch does. It almost makes the pie look unreal.

Good Ol' Cherry Pie

1 recipe Pâte Brisée
2 Cans (29 oz) (522g) of Montmorency or Morello Cherries in their juices
1/3 cup (80 ml) Honey (Preferably a fruit honey, but fireweed honey lends a “creaminess”)
3 TB Arrowroot powder or Cornstarch
1/4 tsp Cinnamon
1/8 tsp Mace
Pinch or 2 of salt
2 TB Butter, cut into 8 pieces
optional - Egg white wash
optional - Sanding or granulated sugar

Open cans,

Drain the cherries from one can really well reserving 3/4 cup of the juice.

Remove 2 TB of the liquid to a small ramekin and add the arrowroot powder.

Stir to create slurry, and then add back to the saucepan along with the honey, salt, cinnamon and mace.

Stir sauce with a whisk until it begins to bubble and thicken.

This can take awhile, so I usually crack open a corona...

Once the sauce is thick, remove from heat and fold in all the cherries,

Don’t worry if the filling seems a little runny, you still have to bake it, so it will thicken more.

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.
Divide the Pâte Brisée in half and roll out the 1st half to line a 9 inch glass pie dish. (Not the 9 ½ inch deep dish made by Pyrex, but a normal sized shallow 9 inch dish)
Leave any pastry that hangs over the edge, you will need it later.

Pour cherry filling into the shell, dot with the 8 pieces of butter
Roll out your second piece of Pâte Brisée into a disk; using a fluted pastry wheel, or a sharp knife, to slice the pastry into strips about 1/2 inch wide.

Starting off center of the pie and working perpendicular create a lattice top weaving each consecutive strip leaving about 1/2 inch between each of the strips.

Cut the ends of strips so they are flush with the over hanging crust.

Fold the edge over and pinch crimp the pastry between thumb and forefinger.

Bake pie for 30-35 minutes.
Optionally use an egg white wash over the lattice strips and sprinkle with sanding or granulated sugar
If the crimped edge becomes too dark before the lattice has browned, use crust guards of small strips of foil to cover the crimped edge.

Incidentally, I noticed, upon editing the pictures that my weave is off, the last strip on the right hand side of the above picture is wrong... oops.. Maybe the beer wasn't such a good idea.... Nah!

Mangia!!
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Oh! The best part, when I was a kid and mom made lattice top pies, is that there is always pastry left over... It was AWESOME!!!! because.......

She would grab her little 7 inch pie plate (it took me 8 years to track one down in a thrift store - Evidently, Pyrex quit making them eons ago)

Roll out the left over pastry and toss it in the pie plate

Smear it with butter, then sprinkle it with cinnamon and sugar.

Then bake it, after the pie came out of the oven, for 15-20 minutes.

A simple tasty treat indeed.
Enjoy with a cup of coffee while you wait for your pie to cool :)

But I also had an alterior motive for preparing this little confectionery pastry delight. It allows me to show you what Pâte Brisée does when cooked. Granted, when there is a filling sitting on it, it won't puff up quite this much, but the idea is still the same.

I wish I could have gotten closer to show the little pockets, but with a point and shoot camera, I am a little limited. Never the less, proof positive of the flaky nature of Pâte Brisée.

Mangia Again!!
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