Chef Hack

Where Michelin technique gets simple enough to cook at home

Every recipe from the series, in full. No sign-up, no scrolling past a life story to find the ingredients.

Mattia Stanchieri Michelin-trained chef · Lisbon @mattiastanchieri_chef

01

Shallot & Truffle Tarte Tatin

Shallots cost almost nothing. Cooked cut-side down in a honey caramel until they collapse into something glossy and deep, they come out of the pan looking like a dish you'd pay for. The truffle paste in mine was a leftover — that's the whole point of it being there.

  • One pan
  • Serves 4
  • 24 cm / 9.5 in
  • 200 °C · 400 °F
  • 45 min

Ingredients

  • 700 gshallots, peeled and halved lengthwaysWeighed after peeling.
  • 150 gwhite onion, halvedOptional, for bulk and a rounder sweetness.
  • 60 gbutter
  • 80 gchestnut honeyAny honey works. Chestnut is darker and slightly bitter, which is why it suits this.
  • 30 gJerez vinegarAny vinegar, as long as it's sharp enough. This is not optional — without acid the tart is cloying after two forkfuls.
  • 25 gblack truffle pasteOptional. Mine was a leftover. Nothing precious should go to waste.
  • 250 gpuff pastry, all butterOne standard sheet, cut into a 26 cm round.
  • 5 gthyme leaves
  • 6 gsalt
  • 1 gblack pepper

To finish

  • 50 gaged cheddar, or any hard aged cheese from your country
  • 100 gsour cream, loosened with 15 g water until it pours slowly
  • 15 golive oil
  • 3 gfresh thyme

Method

  1. Heat the oven to 200 °C / 400 °F, with a rack in the middle. Let it come fully up to temperature before anything goes in.
  2. Prepare the shallots. Peel them and cut each one in half lengthways — from the tip straight down through the root. Leave the root attached. That little hard bit at the base is what holds the layers together; cut it off and the shallot falls apart into rings in the pan.
  3. Choose the right pan. It has to go from the hob into the oven, so cast iron or steel, 24 cm, and no plastic handle. If you're not sure yours is ovenproof, it isn't.
  4. Melt the butter in the pan over medium heat until it foams and the foam settles.
  5. Make the caramel. Add the honey and the vinegar. Let it bubble for one to two minutes until it thickens slightly and turns glossy — it should smell sweet and sharp at the same time. Don't leave the pan. The gap between ready and burnt here is about thirty seconds.
  6. Add the shallots, cut side down. Turn the heat to medium-low first. Pack them tight against each other with no gaps — they shrink as they cook, so tight now means neat later. Season with the salt, pepper and thyme leaves.
  7. Cook 8 minutes and don't touch them. Every time you move them you interrupt the browning. You're looking for the cut faces to go deep gold where they meet the pan. Lift one with a fork to check, then put it straight back.
  8. Add the truffle paste, if you're using it. Small spoonfuls dropped into the gaps between the shallots, not spread over the top.
  9. Put the pastry on. Cut it into a round slightly wider than the pan — about 26 cm. Lay it over the shallots and tuck the edge down inside the rim, between the shallots and the pan wall. You're building a lid that seals, not a blanket draped on top. Prick it three or four times with a knife so steam can escape.
  10. Bake 25–30 minutes. It's ready when the pastry has puffed up and gone properly golden brown — not pale, not blond. Pale pastry is raw pastry underneath, and it will be soggy when you turn it out.
  11. Rest 5 minutes. Out of the oven, on the counter, untouched. This lets the caramel thicken just enough to hold everything together. Turn it out immediately and it slides apart; leave it much longer and the caramel sets hard and glues it to the pan.
  12. The flip. Run a knife around the edge. Put a plate upside down over the pan, hold the plate firmly against it with one hand — oven gloves, the pan is hot — and turn the whole thing over in one confident movement. Hesitating is what makes it fall. Lift the pan off. If a shallot stayed behind, lift it out with a spoon and put it back in its place; nobody will know.
  13. Finish while it's hot. Grate the cheese over so it melts slightly. Spoon the sour cream on in loose pools rather than spreading it. Scatter the fresh thyme and pour a thin thread of olive oil over the top.
Swap freely. Any aged cheese from where you live. Soft goat cheese, or a lump of cream cheese, works differently but works. Rocket on top if you want something green and bitter. The structure is what matters — the toppings are yours.
Other pan sizes. Every weight on this page is for a 24 cm pan. Scale by area, not by diameter: for 20 cm multiply everything by 0.7, for 28 cm by 1.35, for 30 cm by 1.55. Keep the baking time and temperature the same — a tatin is always one layer deep, so a wider pan doesn't need longer.
02

Drunken Pears Tarte Tatin

The dessert version. Unripe pears poached in port and Madeira until they take the colour of the wine, then caramelised in the pan and buried under pastry. The spices do the work here — orange, cinnamon, cardamom, star anise — and none of them should announce themselves.

  • One pan
  • Serves 6
  • 24 cm / 9.5 in
  • 200 °C · 400 °F
  • 1 hr

The pears

  • 900 gunripe pears, whole — about 5 mediumHalved and cored this gives roughly 800 g, which fills a 24 cm pan in one layer. Unripe, not just firm — see the note below. This is the single most important choice in the recipe.
  • 200 gport
  • 100 gMadeira
  • 5 gorange zest, in wide strips
  • 3 gcinnamon stickOne stick.
  • 2 gcardamom pods, crackedAbout four.
  • 2 gstar aniseTwo whole.

The tatin

  • 80 gbutter
  • 100 gsugar
  • 250 gpuff pastry, all butterOne standard sheet, cut into a 26 cm round.

To finish

  • 250 gcream, cold
  • 10 gsugar
  • 2 gvanilla paste, or half a pod
  • 1 gsaltThe salt is the point. It stops the whole thing being one flat note of sweet.
  • 20 gdark chocolate, grated over at the end

Method

  1. Start the poaching liquid. Put the port, Madeira, orange zest, cinnamon, cardamom and star anise in a saucepan — one just wide enough to hold the pears in a single layer. Bring it to a gentle simmer, meaning small bubbles at the edge, not a rolling boil.
  2. Prepare the pears. Peel them, cut them in half from stem to base, and scoop out the core with a teaspoon. A melon baller is neater if you have one. Work quickly — cut pears brown fast.
  3. Poach them 15–20 minutes, cut side down. If the liquid doesn't cover them, turn them over halfway. They're ready when a knife slides in with a little resistance still there, like a firm peach. Do not cook them until soft: they go into the oven afterwards and will finish there. Soft now means mush later. Properly unripe pears can take closer to 25 minutes — go by the knife, not the clock.
  4. Lift the pears out with a slotted spoon and set them on a plate to drain. Keep the liquid.
  5. Reduce the liquid. Turn the heat to high and let it boil down until about a third is left and it coats the back of a spoon like a thin syrup — six to eight minutes. This is where all the flavour concentrates. Set it aside.
  6. Heat the oven to 200 °C / 400 °F, rack in the middle.
  7. Make the caramel. In an ovenproof 24 cm pan — cast iron or steel, no plastic handle — melt the butter with the sugar over medium heat. Swirl the pan rather than stirring it. Stop as soon as it turns the colour of honey. Darker than that and it turns bitter against the wine.
  8. Loosen it with the syrup. Add three or four spoonfuls of the reduced poaching liquid to the caramel. It will spit, so stand back and add it slowly. Swirl until it comes together into a smooth sauce.
  9. Arrange the pears, cut side down, in a circle with the narrow ends pointing to the centre, like the petals of a flower. Pack them close. This is the face of the tart, so take a minute over it.
  10. Put the pastry on. Cut a round about 26 cm wide, lay it over the pears, and tuck the edge down inside the rim of the pan. Prick it three or four times with a knife.
  11. Bake 25–30 minutes, until the pastry is puffed and deep golden brown all over.
  12. Rest 5 minutes, then flip. Knife around the edge, plate upside down over the pan, hold it tight with oven gloves, and turn it over in one movement without stopping halfway.
  13. Whip the cream while the tart rests. Cold cream, sugar, vanilla and the salt, whipped only until it holds a soft peak that flops over — stop before it's stiff. Overwhipped cream is grainy and won't sit properly on the plate.
  14. Serve warm. Brush the pears with the syrup you have left, grate the dark chocolate over, and put the cream alongside rather than on top so it doesn't melt straight away.
Use unripe pears. Not ripe, not almost ripe — unripe. The hard ones nobody wants to eat raw. This recipe cooks them twice, first in wine and then in the oven, and a pear that is already soft has nowhere left to go: it turns to purée in the poaching liquid and you lose the shape completely. An unripe pear stays whole, drinks the wine, and ends up tender exactly when you serve it. If your pears give at all under your thumb, leave them a few more days in the fridge and make something else today.
On the wine. Port and Madeira both work alone if you only have one — use 300 g of whichever you've got. What you can't skip is reducing the liquid afterwards. That syrup is where all the flavour ends up, and pouring it away is the most common way this recipe gets wasted.
03

Tomatatin

The one that started the whole series. Tomatoes at the end of summer, balsamic and honey cooked down to a syrup, and a sheet of puff pastry. Minimum effort, big reward — that's the whole point.

  • One pan
  • Serves 4
  • 24 cm / 9.5 in
  • 200 °C · 400 °F
  • 40 min

Ingredients

  • 800 gseasonal tomatoes, cut into 2 cm slicesRipe but firm. Overripe tomatoes collapse and flood the pan, and water is the only real enemy of this recipe.
  • 40 gshallot, sliced 2 cmOne shallot.
  • 8 ggarlic, sliced thinTwo cloves.
  • 25 golive oil
  • 60 gbalsamic vinegar
  • 60 ghoney
  • 250 gpuff pastry, all butterOne standard sheet, cut into a 26 cm round.
  • 2 gdried oregano
  • 6 gsalt
  • 1 gblack pepper

To finish

  • 125 gmozzarella, torn by handDrain it well first and tear it rather than slicing it — torn edges hold the oil.
  • 40 gSão Jorge, shavedAny hard, sharp, slightly piquant cheese does the same job. Pecorino, aged Manchego, a mature Cheddar.
  • 5 gfresh basil
  • 3 gfresh oregano
  • 15 golive oil

Method

  1. Heat the oven to 200 °C / 400 °F, rack in the middle.
  2. Cut the tomatoes into thick slices, 2 cm. Thick matters. Thin slices disintegrate into sauce and you lose both the shape and the bite.
  3. Start them in the pan. Olive oil in an ovenproof 24 cm pan — cast iron or steel, no plastic handle — over medium heat. Add the sliced shallot and lay the tomato slices flat in a single layer, packed close. Cook 5 minutes without turning them. They soften and start to release liquid, and the undersides begin to catch colour.
  4. Season and add the garlic. Scatter the sliced garlic over the top, then the salt, dried oregano and pepper. Garlic goes on top rather than in the oil at the start because it burns in seconds at this heat.
  5. Deglaze with the balsamic. Pour it around the edge of the pan, not over the tomatoes. It will hiss and steam hard. As it bubbles, everything stuck to the bottom of the pan lifts off and goes back into the sauce — that's the whole purpose of the step, and it's where most of the savoury flavour lives.
  6. Add the honey and reduce. Let it bubble until the liquid around the tomatoes goes from watery to syrupy — four to six minutes. Tilt the pan: when what runs to the side moves slowly and coats the base rather than splashing, it's there. Don't stop early. Liquid left in the pan now means a soggy tart later.
  7. Turn the heat off. Cut the pastry into a round about 26 cm wide, lay it over the tomatoes, and tuck the edge down inside the rim of the pan, between the tomatoes and the pan wall. Brush the top with a little olive oil and prick it three or four times with a knife so steam can escape.
  8. Bake 20–25 minutes, until the pastry is puffed and deep golden brown. Pale pastry is raw underneath.
  9. Flip immediately. This one does not rest — and that's the opposite of the two recipes above. Balsamic and honey are almost pure sugar, so as this syrup cools it sets like toffee and welds the tart to the pan. Knife around the edge, plate upside down over the pan, oven gloves on, and turn it over in one movement. The syrup is very hot, so keep your face back.
  10. Finish while it's hot. Tear the mozzarella over so it softens in the heat, shave the São Jorge on top, add the basil and fresh oregano, and finish with olive oil.
Why this one gets flipped straight away. The shallot and pear tatins rest for five minutes because their caramel has butter and fruit pectin in it, and needs that time to firm up enough to hold together. This one is a sugar syrup with almost nothing else in it. It goes from liquid to solid glass very fast, and every second you wait makes the tart harder to release. Read the caramel, not the clock.
04

Upside-Down Bittersweet Lemon Cake

Not a tatin, but built like one: caramel in the bottom of the pan, lemons laid over it in a fan, batter poured on top, and the whole thing turned out so the bottom becomes the face of the cake. No icing, no piping, no decorating — the pan does that for you. The bitterness is deliberate. A sweet lemon cake is a child's cake; a bittersweet one is a chef's cake that a child can make. Mine did. He's two.

  • One pan
  • Serves 8
  • 24 cm / 9.5 in
  • 170 °C fan · 340 °F
  • 1 hour

The lemons

  • 300 glemons, unwaxed — 2 to 3 of themUnwaxed matters here. The peel stays in the cake and you eat it.

The caramel

  • 150 gsugar
  • 40 gwater
  • 30 gbutterAdded off the heat. It's what makes the caramel shine rather than just set.
  • 30 glemon juiceThe acid. Without it the caramel is only sweet, and the cake closes the palate down after two forkfuls.

The batter

  • 3large eggs
  • 200 gsugar
  • 150 gextra virgin olive oilA good one. You will taste it, which is the point.
  • 150 gplain yogurtNatural, not Greek. If you only have Greek, loosen it with a spoon of milk.
  • 2lemons, zested
  • 300 gself-raising flourIn Portugal, Branca de Neve. If you only have plain flour, add 12 g baking powder.
  • 2 gsalt

To serve

  • —plain milk ice creamFior di latte, or just milk, cream and sugar. Not vanilla — vanilla argues with the lemon.

Method

  1. Heat the oven to 170 °C fan / 180 °C static, rack in the middle.
  2. Slice the lemons 2 mm thick, then cut each slice in half so you have half moons. Thinner than this and they fall apart in the blanching; thicker and the peel stays chewy after the bake.
  3. Blanch them twice. Two minutes in boiling water, lift them out. Then two minutes again in a second pot of fresh boiling water. Drain on a cloth. Two separate pots, not the same water twice — the first water now has the bitterness in it, so reusing it does nothing.
  4. Make the caramel straight in the pan. Sugar and water into a cold ovenproof 24 cm pan, medium heat. Swirl the pan, never stir it — a spoon drags sugar crystals up the side and the whole thing seizes. Cook until it's amber. Don't walk away; the gap between amber and burnt is about twenty seconds.
  5. Off the heat, add the butter and the lemon juice. It will hiss hard and seize for a moment. Keep stirring and it comes back smooth and glossy. Let it settle flat in the pan.
  6. Lay the lemons on the caramel in a fan, overlapping each slice over the one before, working round the pan. Remember you are building this upside down — the face you are making now is the one people will see. Take the extra minute.
  7. Whisk the eggs and sugar for 3 full minutes, until pale, thick, and holding a trail. This is the only step that needs effort, and it's where the lift comes from. Short-change it and the cake is dense.
  8. Stream in the olive oil while whisking, slowly, the way you'd build a mayonnaise. Then the yogurt and the lemon zest.
  9. Fold in the flour and salt and stop the moment it comes together. Overworked batter develops gluten and bakes tough. A few streaks of flour are better than a smooth mixture.
  10. Pour it over the lemons from low down and in one place, letting it spread by itself. Pouring from height pushes the slices out of position.
  11. Bake 35–40 minutes, until a skewer in the centre comes out clean and the top is deep gold.
  12. Rest 10 minutes — not longer. The caramel needs to thicken enough to hold, but if it cools fully it sets hard and welds the cake to the pan.
  13. The flip. Knife around the edge. Plate upside down over the pan, one hand holding it firmly, oven gloves on, and turn it over in one confident movement. Hesitating is what makes it fall. If a lemon slice stays behind in the pan, lift it out and put it back in its place — I've done it a hundred times and nobody has ever known.
  14. Serve it warm, with the ice cream going on at the table so it starts to melt in front of whoever is eating it.
Why blanch at all. Lemon peel has two kinds of bitterness in it — the aggressive, metallic one that sits at the back of your throat, and the perfumed one you actually want. Boiling water pulls the first out and leaves the second. It also softens the slices so they turn translucent instead of staying tough. You can skip it entirely and the cake still works. It will just look like a cake, rather than looking like this.
No butter in the batter, and that's deliberate. Olive oil is liquid at room temperature, so the crumb stays soft for three days instead of going firm overnight the way a butter cake does. It also carries the lemon further — fat is what flavour travels on, and olive oil has a flavour of its own to travel with.
Other pan sizes. Everything here is for a 24 cm pan. Scale by area, not diameter: for 20 cm multiply by 0.7, for 28 cm by 1.35, for 30 cm by 1.55. Keep the temperature the same and add 5 minutes for the larger pans, since this one is deeper than a tatin.
05

Loaded Pumpkin Tarte Tatin

The last one, and the one that breaks the rule that a tatin is a sweet thing. Hokkaido pumpkin caramelised in honey and vinegar, then loaded after the flip with blue cheese, lardo, toasted macadamia and sharp pickles — all of it added to the hot surface, none of it anywhere near the oven. You don't have to pick between sweet and salty. Sometimes they make perfect sense together.

  • One pan
  • Serves 4
  • 24 cm / 9.5 in
  • 180 °C fan · 400 °F
  • 55 min

In the pan

  • 850 gHokkaido pumpkin, unpeeled, deseeded, cut into 2 cm crescentsDo not peel it. The skin is edible, it softens completely, and it holds every wedge together through the flip. One pumpkin of about a kilo.
  • 45 gbutter
  • 45 gchestnut honeyChestnut for the faint bitterness. It's the classic partner for blue cheese and it stops the tart going cloying.
  • 25 gJerez vinegarAny sharp vinegar. Not balsamic — too sweet, too dark, and it muddies the orange.
  • 30 gwaterOnly if it goes dry under the lid. Hokkaido has little moisture of its own, so keep it to hand rather than adding it automatically.
  • 5 grosemary, whole sprigsInfused into the butter for one minute, then taken out.
  • 5 gthyme, whole sprigsSame — in with the rosemary, out after a minute.
  • 3 grosemary, choppedThis goes into the caramel and stays there.
  • 15 ggarlic, sliced thinThree cloves. It goes on top of the pumpkin, under the pastry.
  • —fresh thymeA few sprigs, scattered over the pumpkin with the garlic.
  • 6 gsalt
  • 2 gblack pepper
  • 250 gpuff pastry, all butterCut into a 26 cm round.

Loaded on top

  • 80 gblue cheeseGorgonzola piccante rather than dolce — dolce melts away and you lose it. Serra da Estrela, properly ripe, is the Portuguese answer and it's at least as good.
  • 40 glardo, sliced paper-thinKept cold until the last second. It never goes in the oven.
  • 30 gmacadamia nuts, toasted and roughly chopped
  • 40 gpickled cucumbers, fine julienneSavoury, not sweet. Mine are made with garlic, nasturtium and thyme.
  • 2 grosemary leaves, fried 10 seconds in olive oil

Method

  1. Get the oven hot first. 180 °C fan with the bottom element on, or 200 °C in a static oven, shelf in the lower-middle position either way. It needs to be at temperature before the pan goes in, so turn it on now.
  2. Wash the pumpkin and cut it. Halve it, scoop out the seeds, then slice across into 2 cm crescents. No peeling. The skin is good to eat, it keeps each piece intact, and it gives every wedge a dark red outline when you turn it out.
  3. Infuse the butter. Melt the butter in a 24 cm ovenproof pan over medium heat with the whole rosemary and thyme sprigs. One minute, then take the sprigs out and throw them away. Left in for the whole cook, rosemary turns medicinal and bitter and it becomes the only thing anyone tastes.
  4. Honey, then vinegar. Honey in first — swirl the pan well rather than stirring it. Then the vinegar, and let it bubble away until it has evaporated and the whole thing has come together glossy. If it splits, with the fat pooling away from the sugar, take it off the heat, add a splash of water and keep swirling until it comes back. It will.
  5. Chopped rosemary into the caramel. This one stays in. Chopped and brief is a different thing from a whole sprig sitting in hot sugar for forty minutes — you get perfume rather than medicine, and the green flecks read beautifully against the orange once it's turned out.
  6. Taste it. A drop on the back of your hand. It should make you flinch very slightly. If it's only sweet, add another 5 g of vinegar. Acid always reads weaker after the oven than it does in the pan, so slightly too sharp now is correct.
  7. Heat off, then the pumpkin. Turn the stove off before the crescents go in — hot caramel and cold pumpkin in a screaming pan will catch. Lay them flat, radiating from the centre and overlapping, skin edge following skin edge. Pack them tight; they shrink. Salt and pepper.
  8. Heat back on, medium-low, lid on, 10 minutes. This is the step nobody does and it's the one that cooks the middle. Squash is denser than onion or fruit, and without trapped steam you get caramelised edges and a raw centre. If it looks dry under there, add a splash of the water. Then turn the heat off.
  9. Garlic and fresh thyme over the pumpkin. Not into the caramel — garlic would burn against the pan, and since the pan bottom becomes the top face, those burnt slices would end up on display. Up here, under the pastry, it confits in the steam instead.
  10. Pastry on. Lay the 26 cm round over the top and tuck the edge down inside the rim, between the pumpkin and the pan wall. Prick it three times.
  11. Bake 25–30 minutes, until the pastry is deep golden brown. Keep looking at it from 20 minutes — fan ovens brown fast. Pale pastry is raw pastry underneath, and there's no fixing that after the flip.
  12. Flip it immediately. No resting. This caramel is honey and sugar with no fruit pectin in it, so it sets like glass as it cools and welds the tart to the pan — the same reason the Tomatatin goes straight over. Knife around the edge, plate upside down over the pan, oven gloves on, and turn it in one confident movement. If a piece sticks, scrape it gently free with a spatula and put it back in its place.
  13. Load it while it's hot, in this order: blue cheese in the valleys between the crescents, then the lardo draped over so it goes translucent, then the macadamia, the fried rosemary and the pickles. A few drops of the pickle brine flicked over the top. Black pepper. Serve immediately.
Nothing on top goes in the oven, and that's the whole idea. Blue cheese baked for half an hour tastes of nothing but salt. Lardo renders away to a greasy film. Nuts go soft. Every one of those ingredients is at its best for about ninety seconds, and that window is after the flip, not before it. The oven does the pumpkin. You do the rest.
Herbs three times, and never a whole sprig left in. Whole rosemary and thyme infused into the butter for one minute and taken out. Chopped rosemary into the caramel, where it stays. Fresh thyme scattered over the pumpkin at the end, under the pastry, where it steams rather than fries. Three different jobs from two herbs — and the rule underneath is the same one every time: a whole woody sprig left sitting in hot sugar turns medicinal, chopped and brief does not. It works the same way for sage and bay.
Other pan sizes. Everything here is for a 24 cm pan. Scale by area, not diameter: for 20 cm multiply by 0.7, for 28 cm by 1.35, for 30 cm by 1.55. Keep the time and temperature the same — a tatin is one layer deep, so a wider pan doesn't need longer.
06

Untraditional Apple Tarte Tatin

The original, done my way. Two sisters in Lamotte-Beuvron made this with apples, sugar, butter and pastry and never wrote it down — which means there is no version anybody can tell you is wrong. Mine has gin in the caramel. Apple and gin were made for each other, and the four rules underneath are the same four rules as every other tart in this archive.

  • One pan
  • Serves 6
  • 24 cm / 9.5 in
  • 180 °C fan · 400 °F
  • 50 min

In the pan

  • 1 kgapples, firmWeighed whole, before peeling — about 800 g once peeled and cored. Golden Delicious is the classic French choice and holds its shape as long as you don't overcook it. Reineta in Portugal. Granny Smith if you want it sharper. Avoid Bramley — it collapses into sauce and there is nothing left to turn out.

    Trust the pan over the scale: pack the halves upright until there is no room left. If you have apples over, your pan is smaller than mine; if there are gaps, buy two more. A gappy tart falls apart in the flip.
  • 100 gsugarPlain white. Melted dry in the pan, not dissolved in water.
  • 80 gbutter, cold, cubedGoes in off the heat, after the sugar is already amber.
  • 5 gthyme, whole sprigsInto the caramel for two minutes, then taken out.
  • 2bay leaves, freshIn with the thyme, out at the same time. Two minutes is perfume; left in, it turns medicinal.
  • 30 gginThis is the whole idea, and it gets flamed off. I use an aromatic gin, but any gin works — the botanicals do the work, so there is no need to add juniper berries on top of it.
  • 10 glemon juiceTossed through the cut apples. Stops them browning while you work and sharpens the caramel.
  • 2 gsalt
  • 250 gpuff pastry, all butterCut into a 26 cm round.

To serve

  • —crème fraîche, coldOptional, and faintly scandalous — the Confrérie des Lichonneux specifically forbids cream with a tatin. Nobody can tell you you're wrong.

Method

  1. Oven on first. 180 °C fan with the bottom element, or 200 °C static, shelf lower-middle. It has to be at temperature before the pan goes in.
  2. Peel, halve and core the apples. Halves, not slices — slices disappear. Toss them with the lemon juice as you go.
  3. Melt the sugar dry. Sugar straight into the cold 24 cm pan, spread flat, medium heat. Leave it alone. When it starts to liquefy at the edges, swirl the pan — never stir, a spoon makes it crystallise. Take it to amber, the colour of strong tea. One shade past where you feel comfortable is the right shade; a pale caramel tastes of nothing but sweet.
  4. Heat off, butter in. Cold butter into the hot sugar, swirling until it comes together glossy. If it splits and the fat pools away, a splash of water and keep swirling. It comes back.
  5. Thyme and bay, two minutes. Whole thyme sprigs and the bay leaves into the caramel on low heat, then take them out. Two minutes gives you perfume. Left in for the whole cook, woody herbs in hot sugar turn medicinal and become the only thing anyone tastes — the same rule as the rosemary in the pumpkin tart.
  6. Then the gin, and light it. Off the heat, pour it in and stand back — it spits. Tilt the pan to the flame or touch a lit match to it, and let it burn itself out. This is not theatre: flaming it burns off the alcohol, which would otherwise stay harsh and raw against the caramel. What's left is the botanicals. Salt.
  7. Pack the apples standing up. Cut side down, round side up, tight against each other in a spiral from the outside in, and fill the middle with whatever is left. Pack them tighter than feels sensible: they lose about a third of their volume and a gappy tart falls apart when you turn it over.
  8. Medium heat, 10–12 minutes, uncovered. Spoon the caramel up over the apples two or three times. You are looking for them to soften at the edges and start giving up their juice into the caramel. No lid here — unlike the pumpkin, apples carry plenty of water of their own and a lid would stew them.
  9. Pastry on. The 26 cm round over the top, edge tucked down inside the rim between the apples and the pan wall. Prick it three times.
  10. Bake 30–35 minutes until deep golden brown. Watch it from 25. Pale pastry is raw pastry, and after the flip it is too late.
  11. Rest 10 minutes, then flip. This one rests, and the pumpkin and the Tomatatin do not — see below. Knife around the edge, plate over the pan, gloves on, one confident movement. Anything that sticks, lift out with a spatula and put back where it belongs.
Why this one rests and the others don't. This caramel has butter in it and the apples give up a lot of pectin, so it stays fluid as it cools and ten minutes lets the tart settle and stop sliding. The Tomatatin and the pumpkin are mostly sugar with no fruit pectin to speak of — they set like glass and weld themselves to the pan, so they go over immediately. The rule is: butter and pectin, rest; mostly sugar, flip now.
On being untraditional. Stéphanie and Caroline Tatin never published a recipe. Everything we call authentic was written down by other people decades later, and the famous story about the tart being an accident was invented long after both sisters were dead — inverted tarts were in print in France by 1841. There is a brotherhood in Lamotte-Beuvron that will tell you the quantities, forbid the cinnamon and refuse the cream. They are welcome to. The dish survived a hundred and forty years precisely because everyone who made it changed something.
Other pan sizes. Everything here is for a 24 cm pan. Scale by area, not diameter: for 20 cm multiply by 0.7, for 28 cm by 1.35, for 30 cm by 1.55. Keep the time and temperature the same — a tatin is one layer deep, so a wider pan doesn't need longer.
07

How a tarte tatin actually works

Most people think a tatin is pastry on top of something. It isn't. There are four things it needs, and if one is missing you get a different dish wearing a tatin's clothes.

i

Sugar, melted first

Sugar or honey, dissolved into the butter before the main ingredient goes in. Caramel made after the fact sits on the surface. Caramel made first gets into everything.

ii

Acid

Vinegar, or citrus. This is the element everyone skips and the reason most homemade tatins get abandoned half-eaten. Sweet and fat with nothing cutting through them close the palate down fast.

iii

An ingredient with its own sugar

This is the real rule. If the ingredient brings no sugar of its own, the caramel and the ingredient stay two separate things in the mouth. If it does, they marry during the bake and become one.

iv

Something that holds its shape

Halved shallots make a rosette. Wedges of squash make rays. Whole tomatoes stay round. If the ingredient collapses, you lose the reveal — and the reveal is the dish.

08

What to put in it

Use rule three as the filter: does it bring sugar of its own?

✓ Works
  • Apple, pear, quince, fig, pineapple
  • Tomato The one everybody underestimates.
  • Onion, shallot, leek
  • Squash and pumpkin The best colour of any of them.
  • Carrot, beetroot, parsnip
  • Fennel
  • Belgian endive Sugar and bitterness together. The most interesting one.
× Doesn't
  • Potato Starch, no sugar. The caramel never joins it.
  • Courgette and aubergine Too much water. The caramel splits.
  • Cauliflower Not sweet enough to bind.
  • Mushroom Half true. It has glutamate, not sugar — it makes a good tart, but it isn't really a tatin.
09

Where this comes from

Twenty years in kitchens, and the thing I keep coming back to is how little of it was ever about complexity.

I trained in Italy and worked my way through fine dining — Geranium in Copenhagen, ranked first in the world the year I was there. I've had a restaurant of my own in the Bahamas. Then I opened Vibe in Chiado, Lisbon: my first solo project, globally inspired, locally sourced, listed in the Michelin Guide. It closed this year, and I'm not going to pretend that was the plan. But I'd do it again.

What I took out of all of it is narrower than you'd expect. Buy one ingredient worth cooking. Get the heat right. Add acid. Don't do four things when one will carry the plate. Almost everything I cooked for guests at a tasting-menu price can be reduced to a decision a home cook can make in a single pan.

That's what this page is. The recipes are exactly what I cook at home now, most days, for my family — not a restaurant version scaled down for you.

10

The series

Recipes join this page a few days after each episode. The fastest way to get a new one is to comment the word under the reel — it arrives in your messages within seconds.