Eggplant and Tomato Confit Mille-feuilles with Parmesan Tuiles

Translated from the French and adapted by Jonell Galloway

Any respectable pastry chef has to know how to make mille-feuilles. The name literally means “thousand sheets”, and consists of thin layers of flaky pastry, stacked one on top of the other, with layers of cream or some other filling in between.

This recipe is in fact a variation of the classic mille-feuilles, but it sure to impress your guests. If you’ve never made tuiles before, you might want to give it a test run before actually serving it at a dinner party.

The recipe comes from the excellent Larousse Cuisine website, and is taken from a book entitled Millefeuille, by Julia Schwob (in French).

This is a summer dish, so whether it is seasonal depends on what hemisphere you live in. The summer eggplant/tomato combination could be replaced with winter vegetable combinations, any vegetable that can be sliced thinly, for example steamed carrots and/or cauliflower and cumin seeds, or asparagus tips.

Click here for a Imperial-metric converter for recipes.

RECIPE

Makes 4 mille-feuilles

Cooking time: 30 minutes

Difficulty: Average

Ingredients

24 cherry tomatoes
4 small eggplants
5 tablespoons olive oil
2 tablespoons granulated sugar
150 grams Parmesan cheese, grated
20 g flour
4 branches of fresh thyme
Salt and freshly ground pepper to taste

Instructions

Prepare vegetables:

1. Preheat over to 120° C or thermostat mark 3.
2. Wash tomatoes. Cut in half.
3. Wash eggplants. Cut in half lengthwise. Use a knife to make incisions in the flesh, cutting it into squares.
4. Oil a baking dish. Place tomato halves in baking dish, with round part upwards.
5. Salt tomatoes and eggplants.
6. Generously drizzle olive oil over eggplants, then lightly over tomatoes.
7. Bake for 1 hour, drizzling a little olive oil over the eggplants from time to time if they look dry.

Make tuiles:

1. In a mixing bowl, mix grated Parmesan and flour.
2. Heat a frying pan over low heat. Put one tablespoon of Parmesan and flour mixture into the frying pan, spreading it out evenly.
3. Leave this to melt and “toast”. When grilled, use a spatula to remove Parmesan tuile. Place it on paper towels or absorbant kitchen paper.
4. Repeat the previous step until dough is used up. It should make about 12 tuiles.

Finishing off vegetables:

1. Remove vegetables from oven. Place on paper towels to absorb oil.
2. With a large spoon, scrape flesh out of eggplants.
3. Remove leaves from thyme.
4. Place eggplant in food processor, along with thyme leaves.
5. Taste. Add seasoning if necessary.

Assembly:

1. Just before serving, assemble the mille-feuilles.
2. Evenly distribute some eggplant purée in a Parmesan tuile.
3. Place another tuile on it, then add a layer of tomato confit.
4. Top with another tuile.
5. Repeat steps 2 through 4 for the rest of the ingredients.
6. Serve immediately (otherwise the tuiles will get soggy).

Published with permission of LarousseCuisine.fr.

Never miss a post Name:  Your email address:* Please enter all required fields Correct invalid entries Please choose a color: