Francophile Travels: Tartiflette à la Kate Hill

After a few days of seeing quite a lot of duck, we decided to do something a little different for dinner tonight: Kate's Gascon version of Tartiflette, with a pear tart for dessert.

Welcome everyone, to The French Kitchen with Kate Hill.

And we're off!

We started out with the pastry shell. Sandra said if she could go home knowing
how to make a perfect pastry she would be happy...

Mixing a 1:2 ration of butter and flour together and keeping the hands facing up, always up, Sandra is well on her way to perfection. This nifty measuring cup gives the grams based on what it is you are measuring- from flour, to sugar, to rice, and liquid.

For the pie makers out there, we know that rolling out the dough and getting it safely into the pan in one piece is never easy. Rolling it up onto the rolling pin this way helps immensely.

Mmmm, and there is nothing better than juicy pears, fresh from the
local market we went to earlier today.

Participating in the cooking and note-taking are both
essential parts of getting the process down.

Someone is happy with her pie shell. And the tart was superb.

Now, on to the tartiflette we march.

...but first, a little knife-handling session.

The tartiflette originated in the Savoie region, which encompasses southeastern France but is no longer a technical region of France. It is reminiscent of potatoes au gratin, and is usually made with potatoes, cream, ham and a whole round of Reblochon cheese cut and melted on the top.

Kate's Gascon version is much more lively and
colorful thanks to the wonderful sweet potatoes.

And who knew that making homemade crackers could be so easy? Not I. We used extra pizza dough, rolled it out, put an egg wash and some seeds on top and voila!