Mike van de Elzen: Plum crostata

Spiced plum crostata 

Cook time: 35 minutes 

Prep time: 25 minutes 

Serves: 6

1 1/2 cups flour

3 tablespoons caster sugar

Pinch of salt

150gm unsalted butter, cut into small pieces

1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla paste or essence

1 teaspoon almond extract

1/4 cup water

Filling  

12 plums  

1 cup cranberries  

3 tbsp brandy  

4 tbsp brown sugar  

1 tsp cinnamon powder  

1 tbsp icing sugar 

Place the flour, sugar and salt into a bowl and mix until well combined; slowly add in the butter and rub in your hands until the butter becomes pea-like in size. Slowly add the vanilla and almond extracts and water until the dough becomes moistened and comes together. Set aside.

Make up the spiced plum mix. Soak cranberries in brandy and a touch of warm water for 10 minutes. Cut the plums in half and remove the stone. Mix with brown sugar and cinnamon. Drain the cranberries well, toss into the plums. Preheat the oven 180 degrees. Roll out the crostata dough out to the size a small plate and approx 5mm thick. Lay onto greaseproof paper lined tray.  

Spoon the well-drained plum mixture into the centre, leaving a 5cm border. Fold up the sides of the dough. Brush water around the outside and sprinkle with icing sugar. Place into a oven and cook for 35 minutes, if golden. Remove and allow to cool.  

Serve with soft vanilla cream.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:06):
You're listening to the Sunday Session podcast with Francesca Rudkin
from News Talks, EDB, News.

Speaker 2 (00:13):
Talks, ey Bear and our resident chef is with us now,
Mike vander Ellson. How are you?

Speaker 3 (00:17):
I am back?

Speaker 2 (00:19):
You're back?

Speaker 3 (00:21):
Sure?

Speaker 2 (00:22):
I love it, and you're sounding good. You're sounding relaxed.

Speaker 3 (00:26):
Break I know. Funny funny thing was I was over
the holidays. I was listening to News Dogs Bear My
name popped up and I was like, oh, what was
that about? So I started listening and I actually really
do like chip and veggie night sandwich.

Speaker 2 (00:44):
So you can't say anything in this town, can you.
You know, you'll just you know, someone all here, get
your ears will prick up. I love it. No, No,
it was very funny. We were we were talking about
the complete out of disrespect that was shown to New
Zealand by the the marmite and Chips sandwich. I think
hitting number seventeen on the Worst Foods in the World list.

(01:07):
And one of my lovely texts just texted in is
we were people were texting and up their favorite chip,
marmite and various other things sandwiches. Someone did text in
and go vand Elson would be appalled in this. I do.
I don't mind lot. I have one about one a year.
But on New Year's Day, ironically, I had had the

(01:27):
green onion and marmite chip sandwich and orch. It was
just what I needed.

Speaker 3 (01:33):
It's a great thing. But yes, we went away and
we came back to an absolute jungle. So we've spent
the last week clearing and cutting and kind of trying
to find our farm again underneath all the weeds.

Speaker 2 (01:44):
But we're getting there, and the plums are on fire.

Speaker 3 (01:47):
The plums are amazing. We've got an old orchard and
there's like a whole about five different varieties of old
plum trees. I know. One of them is black doris.
I don't know what the others are, red flesh, yellow,
yellow flesh, and they're all over the place. But there
is nothing better than a juicy plum when they're in season. Yeah,

(02:08):
it's kind of like a peach, you know. When they're there.
We've got to embrace them. It's kind of like strawberries
and cherries and asparagus because we can bring the stuff
in from overseas in the middle of winter and it
looks like a peach. But does it taste like a peach.
It looks like a plum. Does it taste like a plum? No,
So plums are out now, people, so let's go and

(02:28):
embrace the plum. So you know so many things you
can do with plums. You know, you can preserve them, obviously,
you can make chucks out of them. I make it
like a plum case Sunday. You can cut them up,
freeze them, you can dry them, you can stew them down,
or you can make a spiced plum. Crosstata fantastic, take
us through us. So cristata is like an open I

(02:49):
guess you could call it an open flan or an
open an open pie. So the first thing you want
to do is make up the pastry. So I've got
one and a half cups of flour, Chuck it into
a bowl, three tablespoons of cast of sugar, and then
a pinch of salt. Mix it to get into its
well combined. And then take one hundred and fifty graands
of uns butter, cut that up into small pieces and
then just start to rub that through your flower Maxian

(03:11):
store until it starts to become a little bit crumbly,
almost like pea size crumbs, and then I've got half
teaspoon off either vanilla paste or essence either either. Add
that in teaspoon of almond extract mix, add all through,
and then we take half a cup or quarter of
a cup, say, of cold water, and just slowly start
to add that until that dough comes together. Once you've

(03:35):
got a nice furt like not a firm dough, but
once it's actually come together into a nice ball, wrap
it up and clean film, set it aside, and then
we make up our plum mix to go into this.
So I've actually got some cranberries in here, So I've
got a couple of dried cranberries. Pop those into a
bowl along with a decent maybe three or four tablespoons
of brandy and a little bit of warm water. Put

(03:56):
that over the top of the cranberries, and then just
set them aside and they're gonna absorb that delicious brandy
water and just plump up and soft once while those
are soaking your oven on to one hundred and eighty degrees,
and then take your plums. I've got twelve delicious plums,
cut them in half, remove the stones, mix them in
a bowl with three tablespoons of brown sugar, A teaspoon

(04:17):
of cinnamon. Mix that together, and then drain off the
cranberries from the brandy water. Keep that water, don't throw
that out. We're gonna do something with that right at
the end. And then take your crostata dough, roll that
out to the size of maybe a small dinner plate.
Take your plumb mixture, place that into the center, and
then you want to fold up those sides of that dough.

(04:39):
And it's not going to fold all the way over.
You're going to keep a center in the in the
in the or apart from the center, that's going to
be free of dough. So you basically just fold it
up around the side, take a bit of water, maybe
a pastry bush brush around the outside of that border,
and then just sprinkle over a little bit of divice
and sugar. Fire that in the oven. It's going to
take about thirty five minutes on that one eighty and

(05:00):
then once it's golden and you can see the plums
are just starting to break down, pull it out, set
that aside, and then you're reserved brandy.

Speaker 4 (05:07):
Like cranberry brandy water.

Speaker 3 (05:09):
Chuck them into a little saucepan and just reduce it
down until it becomes just syrupy, and then cut your
plumb cross starter, serve it maybe with some soft cream
or some vanilla ice cream, and then take that cranberry
brandy liquor and just pour that over the top and
it's delicious.

Speaker 2 (05:24):
Oh it sounds divine. But look, Mike, what would you
put in a chip sandwich?

Speaker 3 (05:29):
I just go when I was a foundation or a
founding student of don Bucks Primary. This is going back
to nineteen eighty one and Henderson, and my favorite was
Friday because Friday, I.

Speaker 4 (05:40):
Was allowed to buy my lunch and I'd get a
long soft roll and it was already pre pre marmite
or ven You might either either either, and then you
buy a packet crisp and you just shove those and
so it's just.

Speaker 2 (05:51):
Got to be just the ready salts. Okay, a classic.
Love it, Thanks so much, Mike. Talk next week.

Speaker 1 (05:57):
For more from the Sunday session with Francesca Rudkin. Listen
live to News Talks there'd be from nine am Sunday,
or follow the podcast on iHeartRadio.