This pear and almond tart or amandine aux poires is also known as Tarte Bourdaloue and was created around 1850 by a Parisian patissier on Rue Bourdaloue – hence the name!  It can be made with fresh pears (ideally poached first) or you can use tinned pears which work perfectly.

Ingredients :

• 1 shortbread pastry
• 100g softened butter
• 100g sugar
• 100g ground almonds
• 2 eggs
• A few drops of almond essence
• Sliced almonds (optional)
• Apricot jelly to glaze*

Method :

1. Pre-heat oven to 200°C
2. Roll out chilled dough and line tin, place in freezer for 15 minutes
3. Bake the pastry for 10 minutes a 200°C, once removed from the oven lower the temperature to 180°C
4. Cream the butter and sugar
5. Add eggs and almond essence and mix well
6. Mix in the ground almonds
7. Spread the mixture evenly over the pastry base
8. Slice the pear halves in thin slices, place them on the almond mixture
9. Sprinkle the tart with almond slices
10. Bake in oven for 30 minutes

*Glaze : You can heat a few spoons of apricot jelly and brush the top of your tart once it has cooled down to give it a nice shiny look!

This speciality is made with minced meat and hard-boiled eggs. It is known as as a Pâté Berrichon or as a Pâté de Paques (Easter pie) because it is often eaten as Easter. It gets it’s name from the Berry region, which ceased to exist after the French revolution.. Today the departments of L’Indre et le Cher make up most of what was formally the Berry province.

It can be eaten hot or cold but it really is delicious served cold with a green salad.

Ingredients :

• 2 sheets of puff pastry
• 300g sausage meat
• 200g minced veal
• 6 eggs (4 hard-boiled eggs, 1 egg for the pâté, 1 egg yolk for the pastry)
• 50g breadcrumbs
• Parsley
• Salt and pepper
• 1 shallot
• Nutmeg
• Optional : A tablespoon of cognac or of a sweet wine

Method :

1. Pre-heat oven to 180°C
2. Hard boil 4 of the eggs, remove shells
3. Finely chop the shallot and the parsely
4. Mix the meat with the shallot, parsely, one egg (beaten), the breadcrumbs and the alcohol (if using)
5. Season with salt, pepper and nutmeg
6. Pace one sheet of puff pastry and a baking tray covered with parchement paper
7. PLace half of the meat filling down the middle of the pastry
8. Slice the hard boiled eggs in half and place them on the meat face down
9. Cover the eggs with the remaining meat filling
10. Using the remaining puff pastry cover the meat and press down to seal the pastry
11. Brush the pastry with the yolk of the remaining egg
12. Make 2 large incisions in the pastry to allow the steam to escape while cooking
13. Cook in oven at 180°C for 20 minutes and then lower the temp to 150°C and cook for a further 30 minutes