What’s a crostata, you ask? It’s Italian for a pie or tart with a rustic-style crust. Invented by some clever baker before the advent of the pie pan, the filling is placed in the center of a circle of dough. The edges of the dough are folded up and over the filling to hold it in.
It’s not as fancy as a pinched pie crust that creates a high “ruffle” around the pie; but today, this casual technique looks charming.
This week’s cooking video shows you how to make a Raspberry Chocolate Almond Crostata. It’s perfect for holiday entertaining: Try it instead of your regular favorite pie.
Want to know the difference between a crostata and a croustade? Check out our Pie and Pastry Glossary.
Registration is now open for the Oregon Truffle Festival, January 28-30, 2011—a fantasy for fans of the fabulous fungus. Activities include:
Truffle and wine dinners
Cooking classes and seminars
Winery luncheons
Truffle hunt
Farm tours
A fresh truffle marketplace to bring home a truffle “souvenir” or two
The sixth anniversary Grand Truffle Dinner will feature Oregon’s native winter white and black truffles in a sumptuous five-course meal paired by some of Oregon‘s top chefs—and of course, paired with acclaimed Oregon wines.
Hunt your own truffles! Photo courtesy
Oregon Truffle Festival.
An inexpensive luxury: truffle butter on
bread. Photo by Melody Lan | THE NIBBLE.
We’ve just written about a pricey truffle food gift. Here’s how you can enjoy the delicious flavor of truffles for just $10.00: truffle butter.
You can enjoy the flavor and aroma of black and white truffles every day of the year with 3-ounce tubs of truffle butter for $7.99 or 8 ounces for a few dollars more.
D’Artagnans truffle butter, a NIBBLE Top Pick Of The Week, is our favorite little indulgence. For the price of a cocktail, you can have a three-ounce tub of precious, sweet butter, chock-full of black or white truffle pieces. It’s almost as satisfying as a fresh truffle dish that costs more than $100.00 at fine restaurants.
Spread truffle butter on French rolls or slices of baguette as a snack, with meals or as an hors d’oeuvre with wine.
Make truffled scrambled eggs. Add an ounce of buttermilk for each egg and scramble in truffle butter. Garnish with finely snipped parsley and serve with a slice of toasted baguette “crouton” spread with more truffle butter.
Toss truffle butter with angel hair pasta.
Butter a baked potato.
Add a spoonful to sauces.You’ll be in truffle heaven for less than $10.
It’s the fresh truffle season. Alas, few of us can afford fresh truffles—$220/ounce for the Italian white Alba truffle (Tuber magnatum pico) and about half that for the French black Périgord truffle (Tuber melanosporum).
One way we enjoy truffles in a more affordable form is through truffle cheese and truffle honey, which incorporate small pieces of truffle that have broken off from the fab fungi. They smell and taste as wonderful as the whole truffle.
Murray’s Cheese has put together a truffle lover’s gift set that includes:
The three luxurious truffle foods are handsomely packaged in a reusable wood crate for $70 at MurraysCheese.com. If truffles and goat cheese aren’t what you had in mind, Murray’s has a build-your-own-gift-crate.
Choose from a wide variety of books, including My Life In France by Julia Child.
Do you have books spilling out of your bookcase? No time to visit the local library whenever you want to borrow a book? Want to make sure you love a cookbook before you commit to actually purchasing it?
BookSwim may be your answer. With a Netflix-like subscription to the online book rental program, you can create a pool of books to read from an extensive catalogue, and then have the books shipped straight to your door. When you’re finished enjoying the books, you just ship them back in a pre-paid envelope.
BookSwim is giving one lucky Nibble reader a three-month subscription to its three-books-at-a-time plan. Choose books from Cooking, Food & Wine and nonfood categories. Read them yourself or share with a friend.
Approximate retail value: $72.00.
To find out more about the online book rental program, visit BookSwim.com.
To Enter This Gourmet Giveaway: Go to the box at the bottom of our Best Books For Healthy Eating Gifts Page and click to enter your email address for the prize drawing. This contest closes on Monday, December 6th at noon, Eastern Time. Good luck!
