Professor Butter Beard’s “Ragueneau”
“Over the coppers of my kitchen flows the frosted-silver dawn. Silence awhile the god who sings within thee, Ragueneau! Lay down the lute – the oven calls for thee.”
Spoken by Pastry Chef Ragueneau as the opening of Act II in “Cyrano de Bergerac,” a play written in 1897 by Edmond Rostand, first performed on December 27th, 1897, at the Théâtre de la Porte Saint-Martin.
Pastry Chef Ragueneau is one of Cyrano de Bergerac’s few dear friends. He is a true Renaissance man – a jack of all trades – patron of the arts, poet and accomplished pastry chef commanding his own well attended, but financially questionable, Parisian patisserie. Each morning, he rises before the sun with pen in hand, creating verse as his kitchen awaken the city with the aroma of fresh croissants, macarons and tartlets. His pastries are generously shared in return for poems, and therefore, innumerable poets visit him frequently, much to the chagrin of his worried wife Lise (who wraps the pastries in the pages of Ragueneau’s poetry to save money on paper packaging).
When the morning crowd of hungry poets demand a poem from the master himself, Ragueneau offer up one of the most quoted recipes in verse:
“Beat your eggs, the yolk and white, very light;
Mingle with their creamy fluff milk of almonds, just enough.
Dainty pattie-pans embraced in puff paste.
Have these ready in reach to fill each.
So into these, a score or more, slowly pour your custard so.
And there you go!
Almond tartlets Ragauneau!”
In September of 2019, I was honored and thrilled to portray Chef Ragueneau in the Stone Church Player’s staged reading of Edmond Rostand’s “Cyrano de Bergerac” as adapted by the talented playwright and actress Anne Connolly. Two dear friends, CJ Nolan and Christine Jay, captured the essence of Cyrano and Roxanne onstage and I swear that the audience left craving buttery pasty and rambunctious sword fights and passionate love letters.
Ragueneau’s Almond Tartlets inspired this morning’s bake. Although I took a liberty in substituting a gingered lemon curd filling, the enthusiasm and fervor remains the same. Use your best olive oil when baking this confection. It is a proven scientific fact that using olive oil instead of butter within the curd allows your brain to fully embrace both the tart and sweet of the citrus custard. And once you try this pat-in-the-pan tart shell, your rolling pin may just evolve into a stage prop for your next kitchen swordfight.
Gingered Lemon Olive Oil Tart
(inspired by many including America’s Test Kitchen)
Press-In-Pan Olive Oil Crust:
1 ½ cups all-purpose flour
5 Tbsp granulated sugar
1 tsp crystallized ginger
½ tsp gingered kosher salt (I make my own – and you can too!)
½ cup of your best olive oil
2 Tbsp water
Filling:
1 cup white sugar
2 Tbsp all-purpose flour
½ tsp kosher salt
3 whole eggs and 3 egg yolks
1 tsp freshly grated ginger
1 Tbsp lemon zest
½ cup freshly squeezed lemon juice
¼ cup of your best olive oil
1) Preheat the oven to 350 degrees
2) In a spice grinder, grind the 5 Tbsp white sugar with the teaspoon of crystallized ginger. Pour into a medium bowl and whisk together with the flour and the salt. Add the olive oil and water and fold with a spatula until all the dry is moistened. Pat ¾ of the mix into the bottom of a tart pan. Use the remaining ¼ to build the sides to the top of the pan. Pat to make sure all the shell is even and bake for 30 minutes (rotating the shell halfway through the baking)
3) While the shell is baking, whisk together the sugar, the flour and the salt in a heavy saucepan. In another bowl, whisk together the whole eggs, the yolks, the fresh ginger, the zest and the lemon juice. Add this mix to the dry and heat gently, stirring constantly, until the mixture reaches 160 degrees. Take off the heat strain into a clean bowl. Whisk in the ¼ cup olive oil.
4) Remove the baked shell from the oven, and while the shell is still hot, pour the filling into the shell and return to the oven for 8-10 minutes (until the filling just has a mild jiggle in the center of the tart). Let the tart cool on a wire rack. When cool, garnish the tart with fresh berries (or grilled lemon slices).
