Still Life with Goat Skull and Beets, by Viktoria Kiss.
Recipe below: Beet and Goat Cheese Torta with Olives and Summer Savory
“Great cooking favors the prepared hands” —Jacques Pépin
That is a fairly well-known quotation from M. Pepin about creativity. Its truth has never been more apparent to me than in the last few months, when I’ve tried painting illustrations for my next cookbook. I’d had the idea before but never acted on it. This time I started painting. Oh, boy. When things didn’t turn out instantly impressive, I got demoralized. What was I expecting? Instant greatness? My culinary skills, at this point, are pretty well rooted, allowing me to improvise freely. After decades of cooking in restaurants, creating recipes, and writing cookbooks, I’ve got what M. Pépin calls prepared hands. Painting is another story.
Feeling like a beginner at this point in my life, felt, well, bad. I was a decent painter in high school (as in 40 years ago), and figured it would all come flowing back. I made the situation worse by choosing to paint in gouache, a medium I was completely unfamiliar with. I’m not sure why I went for that, except that possibly my love for Leonetto Cappiello’s posters drew me to his opaque matte finishes and bold shadows. I was hoping to turn out a first painting with a blue-gray sky and a scattering of stars under which a guy in a shiny suit, with Italian bags beneath his eyes, would float away with a handful of zucchini. Perfect cookbook material, no? So far, it hasn’t turned out as planned. But I haven’t given up.
This artistic frustration has led me, as many things do, to the Greenmarket, searching for color and all-around inspiration. High summer is definitely in bloom there. Lots of varieties of beets, a vegetable with a strong pull on me. Are you familiar with the Chioggia beet? It’s bright burgundy outside, which seems normal enough, but when you cut it open you reveal a spiral of fuchsia and white, a candy-stripe swirl. Amazing. But this is not some designer hybrid. It’s the real deal, a Northern Italian heirloom that became popular in the nineteenth century. Chioggia beets are very sweet and tender, and, another big plus, they don’t bleed all over the place. When they’re cooked, their brilliant spiral design is replaced with an ombré effect, with colors moving from dark pink to orange and then to a creamy beige. Quite beautiful in its own right.
So I made this beet and goat cheese torta. It’s a lot more beautiful and delicious than any painting I can turn out at the moment. I offer it to you as a high summer thought. You’ll notice that it has touches of sweetness, in the beets, of course, but also in the sweet pasta frolla, and the honey-vinegar drizzle I add right before baking. But to balance that out, I’ve added olives and a strong herb, making it suitable for an antipasto pass-around. Nice with a glass of rosé.
Beet and Goat Cheese Torta with Olives and Summer Savory
(Serves 8 as an antipasto)
For the pasta frolla:
2½ cups regular flour, plus a little more for rolling
¼ teaspoon salt
¼ teaspoon baking powder
2 tablespoons powdered sugar
½ teaspoon ground allspice
The grated zest from 1 lemon
1½ sticks butter, cut into tiny cubes
2 large eggs, lightly whisked
About 2 tablespoons dry vermouth, maybe a little more
For the filling:
6 small beets, either Chioggia or another variety that doesn’t bleed too much
1 8-ounce log of fresh goat cheese
3 tablespoons heavy cream
1 small summer garlic clove, minced
1 large egg
Salt
Black pepper
About 10 black Niçoise olives, pitted and cut in half
About 6 large sprigs of summer savory or thyme (or a mix), the leaves lightly chopped
1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil
1 tablespoon runny honey
1 tablespoon rice wine vinegar
To make the pasta frolla, put the flour, salt, sugar, allspice, and lemon zest in a food processor. Pulse a few times to mix. Add the butter, and pulse until it’s broken up into pea-size bits. Add the eggs and vermouth, and pulse again, quickly, just until all the ingredients come together into a crumbly, moist mass (pinch a bit of dough; if it doesn’t hold together, add a touch more vermouth and pulse again). Tilt the dough out onto a lightly floured work surface, and knead briefly, maybe 3 or 4 strokes, until it comes together in a ball. Wrap it in plastic, and refrigerate for an hour or so.
Preheat the oven to 425 degrees. Wrap the beets in aluminum foil, stick them on a sheet pan, and roast them until fragrant and tender, about ½ hour (depending on the size of the beets they may need to go a little longer). Now let them cool until you can slip their skins off. Slice them into thin rounds.
Take the dough from the refrigerator, and let it warm up for about 15 minutes (this will make it easier to roll).
In the meantime, place the goat cheese, cream, egg, garlic, and a little salt and black pepper in a food processor. Pulse a few times to blend. Add the olives and the savory or thyme, and stir them in by hand (I don’t like pulsing the olives. It breaks them up too much).
Roll the dough out on a lightly floured surface and drape it into the tart pan, leaving overhang. Pour in the goat cheese cream. Now arrange the beet slices in a circular, slightly overlapping pattern. Trim the edges.
In a small saucepan, heat the honey with the olive oil and the vinegar, just until the honey is melted, about 30 seconds. Pour this over the beets. Season the top with a little salt.
Bake at 425 degrees until the inside is puffed and the crust is lightly browned, about 30 minutes. Let the tart sit about ½ hour before slicing, so it can firm up a bit.