La Recette du Jour

Once the HHDD cheesecake competition was over, Peabody posted her own cheesecake recipe with some mouthwatering photos. Once more I needed to cook something for supper after choir rehearsal so I ran out and bought some cream cheese right away.

Peabody's recipe uses American cup measures and she also has a bigger tin than I do, so before I started I converted it to metric and shrank it by a quarter to fit my 8 1/2 inch / 22 cm springform tin. Then I made various other adjustments along the way. Verdict: success -- it even looked almost as gorgeous as Peabody's! I won't repeat the method here, as you can find it at Culinary Concoctions, but here's my heavily annotated ingredient list in metric measurements.

I was reminded of this today by someone mentioning "impossible pies" -- an all in one mixture that produces crust, filling and sauce "by magic". I love lemon-flavoured dishes, and lemon surprise is one of my favourite classic desserts, known since childhood -- mix everything together and get a light sponge floating on top of a lemony sauce when it comes out of the oven. My version is even low-fat!

A typically simple dish from the Roux brothers, one where the ingredients "ont le gout de ce qu'ils sont", as Curnonsky said. You need proper ripe tomatoes for this, and the best olive oil you can lay your hands on (I used the last of our designer Tuscan oil). It requires no last-minute attention and can be served hot or at room temperature, so it's good for entertaining.

Serve with grilled or roast meat, or just on their own, with good bread to mop up the juice. Keep any left-over juice to add to salad dressings or sauces.

Source: the Roux brothers' French Country Cooking.