apple, walnut & blue cheese flaugnarde

This breakfast is a perfect treat for weekend brunch. It’s rich yet light. The apples are refreshing, the sage pungent and the walnuts add delicious texture. As I said, it’s perfect.

I can happily sing the praises of this recipe without arrogance since I pinched it from London Foodie in NY.

Our London Foodie (also Anna!) has her recipe listed under clafoutis, which was the name I was calling it too until I discovered that a clafoutis contains only cherries and that using any other fruit makes the dish a flaugnarde. You learn something every day!

So I made the flaugnarde for Jonas one weekend and it reignited my cooking passion.

I’ve been very uninspired lately. It’s almost as if by indulging myself with all the marvellous flavours and ingredients of the world I have become over-stimulated. Flavour-fatigue?

My lack of response to amazing recipes and food is quite interesting and I’m starting to understand how very rich people become blasé about their unlimited stockpiles of money. The excitement wears off after a while.

But this flaugnarde recipe piqued my interest again.

I got back into the kitchen, recently making David Lebovtiz’s chocolate ice cream, Maggie Beer’s vincotto & chocolate pavlova and Nigella Lawson’s broccoli & stilton soup. All excellent and all cleverly making use of leftovers from other recipes.

Now that the joy of cooking and eating is returning, I need to reinvigorate the blogging part. I have more than 100 back-logged recipes to post but zero energy to write them up. Some of you may have noticed my blog stuck on a palm heart recipe for the past 2 weeks? Perhaps my laziness means I don’t have any readers left!

Well, I’m endeavouring to do better again. Can’t promise anything because that’s likely to jinx me, but let’s hope this show is back on the road!

Now back to the flaugnarde, you could make it for brunch or even lunch with a nice glass of pinot gris and a lightly dressed baby spinach or mâche salad.

Apple, Walnut & Blue Cheese Flaugnarde

Recipe by London Foodie in NY. Serves 4.

Ingredients:
Batter
3 eggs
250ml (1 cup) buttermilk or whole milk
75g butter, melted
85g (2/3 cup) plain flour
1 tablespoon sugar
½ teaspoon salt
50g crumbled blue cheese
Butter, for greasing
30g chopped walnuts
Filling
1 large tart apple, cored and thinly sliced
1 tablespoon sugar
Pinch of salt
1 tablespoon chopped sage
1 tablespoon butter

Method:

1. Heat the oven to 200’C/400F/Gas 6. Grease a 9 inch square or round baking tin using extra butter and place in the heated oven with any leftover butter.

2. Mix together the eggs, buttermilk (or milk), melted butter, flour, sugar, salt and blue cheese until well combined.

3. Melt the butter in a frying pan over a medium-high heat until it begins to turn brown.

4. Add the apples, sugar, salt and sage then toss in the pan about 2-3 minutes, until the apples begin to soften slightly.

5. Remove the hot pan from the oven, quickly pour in just less than half the batter, scatter over the apples evenly then top with the remaining batter.

6. Scatter over the walnuts and bake in the oven for 25 minutes or until the edges have pulled away from the side of the pan and it’s golden all over.

7. Serve warm with a salad.

I've already written a post on sage and all it's benefits, so forgive me for not repeating it all again here. If you want to see a whole list of sage recipes, go visit that old post which includes my own rendition of Jamie Oliver's Scallops w Lentils, Pancetta & Sage.

I didn’t realise that Chris from Mele Cotte was our WHB host when I picked this apple recipe (mele cotte is Italian for baked apples).

It’s been a while since I visited Mele Cotte and lots has changed. For instance, Chris has a great job cooking up a storm but I can’t quite tell if it’s a hotel or a school or what! Visiting her blog was like catching up with an old friend and realising so much has changed and you’re totally out of the loop. Better stay in touch more often!

From the M&M archies:
2008 - Vietnamese lemongrass beef noodles
2007 - trahanas (Greek feta & pasta soup)
2006 - tangelo caprioska