Celebrating Julia Child, India and Myself

Today is a special day in so many ways, today is 100th birth anniversary of an extraordinary woman, a home cook who is a legend, an inspiration of all of us home chefs, someone whom I look upto with great respect and admiration yes I am talking about Julia Child the wonder who found her passion in those days, pursued it with zest and became a phenomenon beyond excellence. Happy Birthday Julia, you with your recipes and life continue and will always continue to inspire women and continue to live in our hearts, you will live on in your fabulous recipes forever making millions happy

Picture Courtesy – Google baba

Today also is a day which makes every Indian proud, today is a day when we forget all our problems with the country and celebrate the true essence of being an Indian, today is the Indian Independence day… a day when my dear country turns 66 🙂 I grew up listening to stories from my grandparents about the independence war, the partition and the struggle they all went through that time and whenever I think of those it hits me how easily we take the things we have for granted and it helps me appreciate this day, the Indian independence day a little more. This day all I hope is that of us realise the value, of what it means 🙂 Happy Birthday dear India

And another person I celebrate today is myself 🙂 what a day to be born isn’t it? the day India got its independence and to share the birthday wit the legend Julia Child herself…  Yes my dear friends today is my birthday which me and my son are celebrating together since hubby is traveling we went to Lalabagh flower show early in the morning, had a home cooked pad thai prawn for lunch with a glass of wine for myself and a orange juice for him… loads of chit chat and bonding has happened and whats more he even bought me a gift. The 4.5 year old came up to me yesterday with his piggybank and said “mumma I want to buy a gift for you, lets go shopping” My heart just melted away I tell ya and whats more he actually selected a pretty looking neck piece for me… Its a different story all together that he then insisted that I buy him a return gift which was 3 times as costly as my own gift 😉 but all in all I am having a blessed day celebrating 3 important things today…

And yesterday just when I was thinking what should I cook or bake dedicated to Julia Child for PBS’s Cook for Julia week, I saw Nandita’s post on how some of them are baking a recipe of Julia and posting today. I couldn’t help myself ask her if its ok if I join them and she kindly agreed and invited me to a group called “The Sisterhood of Travelling Cake Tins” the name of which BTW I LOVE… where Arundati, Arundathi, Arundhati, Nandita and Aparna bake together monthly , this times recipe being “Julia’s Baked Yoghurt Tart” Compared to some of the Julia’s recipes I have cooked this was a simpler one but I assure you when it came to taste it was still fab… the crunch of oats in the pressed down pie crust as opposed to the normal rolled one was fantastic and the filling not to criminal with yoghurt, eggs and fruits… you can actually call this a healthy recipe 🙂

I made some minor changes to the recipe, basically to adapt what using what I have at home, instead of all berries I used fresh figs and fresh blueberries in the filling. For the yoghurt I had some fresh and home made  made vanilla flavored yoghurt which I used and because I was using sweetened yoghurt I reduced the quantity of sugar I added to the filling. The vanilla flavour from bean was beyond excellence and the whole thing is clearly one of the best desserts I have baked in sometime.

Recipe – Baked Yogurt Tart with Fresh Figs and Blueberries

Adapted from Julia Child

What I used

For the Crust

• 1/2 cup (packed) light brown sugar
• 1 cup old-fashioned oats (powdered)
• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 100gm butter, melted and cooled
• 1 egg, beaten for basting

For the yoghurt filling

• 1/4 cup powdered sugar
• 3 eggs
• 2 cups home made vanilla yogurt (you can use normal yoghurt, increase sugar to 3/4 cup and add additional vanilla extract)
• Zest of one lemon
• 3/4 cup all purpose flour
• 1 cup chopped fresh figs
• 1/2 cup fresh blueberries
• 1/2 tsp nutmeg powder

How I made it
For the crust

• Grease a 9″ pie tin with a detachable base nicely with butter, be like Julia unafraid of butter 🙂
• In a large bowl, mix together all the dry ingredients together and add the cooled melted butter.
• Mix well till it comes together slightly, it will not be a firm dough. Press down in the pan and keep it in the fridge for chilling for about 20-30 minutes
• In the meanwhile pre heat the oven to 170C
• Blind bake the crust for about 15 mins (I added beans to it at this stage), remove the crust from the oven and seal it with one egg and put it back in the oven for about 7 mins till it looks set and all shiny
• Let it cool completely at room temperature
• When the tart is ready and cool prepare the filling

For the filling

• In a large bowl, beat the eggs and sugar for 3-4 minutes till pale and thick.
• Gently fold the yogurt mixed with zest and nutmeg powder into this until mixed, if you are using vanilla extract this is the time to mix that too
• Sieve the flour into this gently in three batches, folding it while you go along
• Pour this mixture into the baked tart, arrange the fruits in the center and put it back to bake at 170C for about 30-35 mins till the edges start to turn golden brown and the mixture looks set
• Let it cool completely before you take it out of the pan

and in the end I leave you with something that Julia said often and a picture of my son biting into the tart 🙂

“If you are scared of butter, use cream” -Julia Child