The ultimate apple tart is not cooked upside down, but 'à la minute', says Simon Hopkinson. Photographs by William Reavell.
Before la tarte des demoiselles Tatin (to give it its full, unexpurgated title) became all the rage - that's fashionably, not historically - and long before all its little mango nephews and pear nieces were born, la tarte fine aux pommes de Michel Guérard was the apple tart to end all apple tarts. Strictly speaking, it should be called la tarte fine aux pommes àd la minute - in other words, cooked in a minute, which is why this particular tart always tastes so fresh, so fragrant, so good. I enjoyed my first crisp mouthful of tarte fine about 17 years ago, at Christine and Michel Guérard's pretty hotel and spa Les Prîs d'Eugénie in the charming and leafy village of Eugénie-les-Bains, on the edge of Les Landes.
Michel Guérard first became well known when he was cooking at a simple restaurant in the Paris suburb of Asnières in the 1970s. The place was called the Pot au Feu, and le tout Paris flocked to his door. The Michelin inspectors also rated this bistro highly, awarding him two stars.
It was when the great man decided to move 700km south, set up a hotel spa and embark on what everyone had decided was a crackpot scheme to cook dishes for the slimming set, that he really began to be internationally renowned. Eugénie-les-Bains is off the beaten track, but people went there whether they were fat or not. And so he decided to write a book about it.
Cuisine Minceur was published in 1976, followed by the more traditional - with cream, butter and foie gras this time - Cuisine Gourmande two years later. Both editions were swiftly translated into English by Caroline Conran, and soon no self-respecting chef was without his or her copy of the Guérard bibles. But it was really Cuisine Gourmande that knocked everyone sideways, even though Minceur was, and remains, ground-breaking stuff.
I shall never forget reading his recipe for a beef stew. But, oh, what a beef stew! Flavoured with orange peel and cassis, large pieces of muscular joue de boeuf (beef cheek) were simmered in wine and herbs until meltingly tender. In Britain in those days, cheek was thought fit only for the dog's dinner.
Michel Guérard remains one of the most inventive and exciting of the great French chefs. I once approached him to ask for the recipe for his little pithiviers au chocolat, which I had just devoured as a part of a trio of chocolate desserts (the others were an intense sorbet and a petit pot. I think this was the first time I had ever seen this clever idea of presenting a collection of chocolatey things all on one plate.) "Well, you know, it's an almond paste mixed with a bit of chocolate, some cocoa, butter and the puff pastry." And, by the way, that is the correct way to give a recipe to someone - it was up to me to work it out and play around with it. It is also the honest and upfront way to ask for one - he was charming, and pleased that I was interested.
I have not, however, ever managed to make puff pastry like his - I have yet to eat finer leaves of crisp, buttery dough. Well, I am quite sure he does not make it himself these days. But I have made the tarte fine successfully using bought puff pastry.
At Michel Guérard's restaurant, these tarts come in individual sizes, like the ones we have been serving at Bibendum for the past 11 years, day in, day out. Incidentally, that little chocolate pithiviers has been there for just as long, cooked à la minute (well, vingt minutes, to be precise), in our very hot ovens, sometimes alongside its fruitier brother. It's nice when things work out.