Gateau Basque Tart

A Gateau Basque is a cake filled with pastry cream or cherry preserves.
It's a pretty big deal in the Basque Country, they even have a Gateau Basque Museum
For the OG classic recipe I direct you to the Gateau Basque Museum recipe here.
I like to make this tart version which is just a gateau Basque in a tart shell. This goes great with tea and accordion music.

Gateau Basque Tart

For the cake mixture
1 cup almond meal
1 cup all purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 cup Sugar
½ pound butter
3 eggs yolks
3 whole eggs
1 teaspoon almond extract
zest of one lemon
zest of one orange

Cream the butter and sugar together with the zest. Add the eggs and mix until combined. Mix in the dry ingredients. Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate for 30 minutes.

For the pastry cream
4 cups milk
2 vanilla beans
¾ cup flour
1 cup sugar
6 egg yolks
1 teaspoon salt
1 Tablespoon Rum
¼ pound butter

Scrape the vanilla bean and combine the seeds and bean with the milk in a stainless steel saucepan. Bring to a scald and turn off heat. Let steep for one hour. Combine all the remaining ingredients, except the butter in a mixing bowl and whisk together. Temper in the milk and return to the sauce pan. Cook over medium heat, whisky constantly until the cream thickens. About 8 minutes. Spread out on a pan and cover with plastic, making sure that the plastic touches the surface of the pastry cream. Chill for 30 minutes.

For the tart dough
¾ pound butter, room temperature
1 teaspoon sugar
1 teaspoon salt
1 egg yolk
½ cup yogurt
4 cups all purpose flour

Combine all of the ingredients in a food processor and process until the mix is smooth and creamy. Add the flour and pulse until the dough forms a ball. Form the dough into a flat disk. Wrap in plastic and chill for a few hours. Roll the dough out to 1/8” thick and line a tart pan with the dough. Chill for 30 minutes.

Fill the tart shell with the pastry cream and then top with the cake mixture.

bake at 385 degrees F until golden and baked through. Allow to cool before removing from tart pan.

Tune: Give Dub the Praises by Basque Dub Foundation from the BDF Meets Loud and Lone album (2002)

Tune: Slaving by Basque Dub Foundation also from BDF Meets Loud and Lone

Tune: Dub Contra MTV [Mad Professor Mix] also by BDF from the 1997 album Sustraidun Roots Dub

BDF and The Mad Prof are against MTV. Well, Frank Zappa was against TV period, in this song.

Tune: I'm The Slime by Frank Zappa from Overnight Sensation Sorry folks, no Accordion here, but I am sure Zappa has recorded the accordion on one of his 50+? albums?
Tune: Caprice Basque performed by an unknown artist and composed by Pablo Sarasate, who was born in the historical capital of the Basque country, Pamplona in the Spanish state of Navarra. He is famous for writing music that is impossible to play. But Pablo himself could play anything.

The basque country was the only place in Spain not to be conquered my the Moors or the Visigoths

Tune: Te Quiero Bilbaina by Triki-Triki from the Basque Country. About a girl from Bilbao. From the CD On the Secret Museum of Mankind which I guess was named after the mysterious book

Not sure where the group got it's name from? But I think there could be a mistake in the liner notes and the group may have been called Trikitixa and not Triki Triki. Trikitixa is the name for a type of basque musical ensamble and also the name of the accordian used in these ensambles. Although both words are suggested to be onomatopoeic terms. trikitixa for the sound of the tamborine. Triki triki is a slang word for condom and maybe it stems from the word trikitixa. Maybe triki triki was a slang word for trikitixa at the time of the recording and hence the name of the group.

There is a safe sex campaign in Argentina that uses a cumbia song and video to encourage the youth to use protection. "Sin Triki Triki, No Hay Bang Bang!"

Download the song and watch the video on there site.

Looks like Trikitixa is still alive and well, even among the Basque youth. Here's some trikitixa that's raw as punk and fly as hip hip. Could Trikitixa go as hipster globalista as Cumbia has? You heard it here first. Seriously.

Now that's a real Soul Cocina.

Just another story of how the squeeze box has traveled from Germany and beyond to become the foundation of musical styles around the globe from forró to vallenato, polka to perico ripiao.














Tunes: Fogo De Amor and Voce Ta Mais Bonita by Trio Nordestino














Tune: Que Importa by Lucha Reyes
In Peru this style of music is called vals which is the Peruvian version of waltz.














Tune: Caña Brava by Luis Kalaff y sus Alegres Dominicanos
Luis Kalaff was just honored with a lifetime achievement award in New York this month.



Tune: Guallando (12" extended version) by Fulanito
















Tune: la cumparsita by unknown artist from japanese comp of the 30 best songs from Argentina.
Tango














Accordion kid in Turkey

Accordion kid in Greece

Galaktaboureko is a glorious Greek dessert that is easy to make.

Simply make a custard by steeping citrus zest or vanilla bean in 4 cups of milk for one hour.

In mixing bowl combine 3/4 cup of sugar with 4 eggs, 3/4 cup of semolina flour, and a pinch of salt.

Whisk the semolina egg mixture into the milk and simmer for 5 minutes over medium low heat. Continue to whisk as it cooks.

In a pie pan lay a sheet of filo down and brush with melted butter, leaving part of the sheet hanging over the edge of the pan. Layer 3 or 4 more sheets with a brush of butter between sheets. The filo should cover the sides of the pan and hang over one side.

Add the semolina custard to the pan and wrap the filo over the custard. Cut a few more sheets of filo to fit over the top of the custard. Cover with 2 - 3 sheets with butter between each sheet.

Bake at 350 degrees F until golden.

Galaktoboureko is very similar to Bougatsa. there's a recipe that works well for bogatsa at the Whipped site.

Beyond Greece (that's relative to from where you may be reading this, but from my calicentric view... beyond), the accordion is also popular in Asia

Musica Clip: Damak by Senang Beru Ginting Suka and Syaiful Amri Nasution from the Smithsonion Folkways CD Music of Indonesia, Vol. 11: Melayu Music of Sumatra and the Riau Islands (musical clip via UMBC)

The accordion (along with just about every other musical instrument and style on earth) is featured in a bunch of Hindi film songs.

Tune: Mere Huzoor is a nice little ditty by Enoch Daniels from the Delightful Dozen - Hindi Film Hits on Accordion LP














Tune: Hum Matwale Naujawan by Kishore Kumar from the film Shararat














Tune: Al Mere Bete also sung by Kishore Kumar from the film Aa Gale Lag Ja, not only features the accordion, but also something that sounds like a Güiro With R.D. Burman as composer.. anything goes.














Tune: Rain Dogs by Tom Waits featurs an eerie Transilvania sounding accordion to open up the wonderful album from 1985 called Rain Dogs. The opening tune goes on to feature marimba, trombone, and some great lyrics.


...And now on to the harmonium
Tune: Bride of Raindog finds Tom Waits on the Harmonium. Not to be confused with Ben Franklin's glass armonica


In India the harmonium is a common instrument.
The harmonium is similar to the accordian, although not exactly related. Movement of the bellows causes air pressure to be pushed through the reeds of a harmonium, unlike the classic reed organ, that sucks air through the reeds to produce sound. With accordions the bellows move air back and forth creating pressure and vacuum, moving air across the internal reeds and producing sound by their vibration.
When I was in Vengurla, Sindhudurg, in southern coastal Maharashtra I stayed with a family in village called Mutt. The kids played the harmonium a lot. Here is a video, first of a harmonium that they pump with the hand. The second video shows a harmonium that is pumped with the foot.







The harmonium has replaced the Sarangi in Qawwali music.
Tune: Ae Khuda Iltejh Hai Meri by Gulam Farid Maqbool Sabri Qawwal & party














Tune: Kahe Dasi Ko Khwaja Bhulai Deeno by Shankar Shambhu Qawwal














...and to finish the trio of qawwali songs, it is my pleasure to present the sounds of the late great Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan.
Tune: Kehna Ghalat To Chhupana Sahi Sahi by Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan & Qawwal Party