Tart Alsace with Caramelized Onion

There is a wonderful Alsatian Tart at Trader Joe's, one of the very few ready-made dishes I buy. Although it is called a tart it looks rather like a flat bread, but it is neither. It is not really a tart, because is not made on a short crust, and it is not a flat bread, because flat breads are usually made using a pizza type, yeast dough, which this tart is not. It is very flat, crispy, and aromatic thanks to a rich topping, which contrasts nicely with its ascetic base.

Because this tart is imported from France I am afraid that it may disappear from the shelves one day as many other good items did. And since it is my whole family's favorite tart I decided to try to make it at home in case it will be discontinued one day.

I started to look for the right recipe on the internet but unfortunately none of them was exactly the same as the one which is used for that particular tart. The list of ingredients on the box is really short. For the base they include just flour, oil, and water. I decided to give it a try and make the dough from those ingredients. After a couple of adjustments, and modifying their proportions, my tart base was ready. I finished with the topping and after just ten minutes of baking the whole kitchen was filled with a smell of onion and melted cheese. A perfect Tart Alsace with caramelized onion was ready for dinner.

Tart Alsace with Caramelized Onion
(Serves four)

Ingredients:

For the crust:
2 cups all purpose flour,
3-4 tbsp olive oil,
1 cup water,
1 tsp salt.

For the topping:
2 medium onions peeled and sliced,
1/2 cup sour cream,
1 cup shredded Gruyère cheese,
4 oz pancetta or bacon,
2 tbsp olive oil,
1 tbsp fresh thyme,
salt and pepper to taste.

Preparation:
1. To make the dough, place flour and salt in a bowl of a standing mixer with a hook attachment. Mix water with oil and add to the flour. Run engine and mix all the ingredients until a smooth ball of dough forms. It will take between 3-5 minutes. Place the dough in the bowl, cover with plastic foil, and let it rest for 30 minutes.
2. To prepare the topping, heat the frying pan and fry chopped pancetta or bacon until it releases all the grease. Drain the bacon and set aside on the plate. Discard the grease.
3. On the same frying pan heat the oil and fry the onion until gold. Season with salt and pepper. Add fried bacon and mix with caramelized onion.

4. Grease a large baking sheet with oil.
5. Preheat the oven to 450 F.
6. Sprinkle a working surface with flour and roll up the dough as thinly as possible (to obtain a circle of about 12 inches in diameter). Using a rolling pin transfer the dough on the baking sheet.
7. Spread the sour cream on the top of the dough. Sprinkle with onion and fried bacon. Finish with Gruyère cheese, salt, pepper, and chopped thyme.
8. Pinch the end around the of the dough with fingers making a slightly thicker edge.

9. Put in the oven and bake 10-15 minutes until tart becomes gold.

Serve with green salad and beer.

French Onion Soup--to Warm up

I think we all got deceived by the warm days and colorful summer dresses displayed in store windows. Unfortunately, winter is back, with a vengeance. And although it is very sunny in DC, it is also freezing and windy.

So what would be a better idea to warm up than a bowl of soup? And, when I think about comfort, a bowl of French onion soup that I was often served in Alpine ski resorts comes to my mind.

It is very easy dish but, believe it or not, although I ate onion soup many times, I made it only twice myself many years ago.

So far, each time I made onion soup I used my old, French, absolutely plain and simple recipe based on onion and a beef consommé or broth. Today I used the other version I had in my notebook which also calls for a little bit of sugar, balsamic vinegar and thyme. When after about half an hour the soup was ready, there would be nothing I could enjoy more. Aromatic, rich, and hot it was the most comforting lunch on a freezing day like today.

French Onion Soup
(Serves 4-6)

Ingredients:
4 large onions, peeled and finely sliced,
32 oz (2 lb) good quality beef broth,
3 tbsp butter,
1 tbsp olive oil,
1 garlic clove,
1 tbsp sugar,
1 tbsp balsamic vinegar,
1 tbsp flour,
baguette (about 8 slices),
1/3 cup grated Gruyère or Parmesan cheese,
2 branches of thyme,
one bay leaf,
extra tbsp of butter,
salt and pepper to taste.

Preparation:
1. Heat the butter and olive oil in a saucepan and add onion. Fry first at high heat for a few minutes, than turn the heat down and fry it for about 20 minutes, until it turns dark-gold/brown. The onion needs to be well brown (caramelized) as this gives the whole taste to the soup.

2. Add sugar and vinegar to the already brown onion and cook for two minutes.
3. Sprinkle with flour, mix and add beef broth, thyme and bay leaf.Season with salt and freshly ground pepper. Bring to boil and simmer for about 20 minutes.
4. Spread each slice of baguette with butter and grill them in the oven until they are gold. Place the cheese on top of each slice and let it melt and bubble.
5. Remove bay leave and thyme from the soup. Divide the soup among serving bowl and top with grilled baguette slices. Serve hot.

Celery Root Gratin--Not Exotic but Still Unknown

On my recent visit to the Asian food market, while looking for the exotic jicama for the red cabbage and beets salad, I spotted many vegetables that I not only have never tried, but did not even know they existed. I took out a pen and wrote down all the unusual names later to find recipes for them. The list is surprisingly long--eddo, malanga, nagaimo, jokote, battata--just to name some. As those vegetables became available in an exotic food store, I will try to find good recipes for them and popularize those that I will like best.

But, in the meantime, I decided to write again about the celery root, a vegetable that can be found in all popular supermarkets, but in the United States is still considered as exotic as all the vegetables I have just named. And although I see every day people buying celery sticks, I have never spotted anyone reaching for the celery root.

Celery root is a necessary ingredient in almost all Polish soups and many salads. We share this love with the French who make many interesting dishes from that aromatic tuber, and even marinate it in vinegar.

The other day when I had a French friend over, she reminded me of celery gratin--a dish that I have heard a lot about, but never tried. I love everything that is gratinéed in a creamy and cheesy sauce, and served with a glass of red wine, the French way, so I right away assumed that it could be one of my favorite dishes. This essentially vegetarian dish is quite hearty, which makes it perfect for this cold season. It is quite similar to although a little sweeter than potato gratin. At first, I served it with baby potatoes, but later I tried it with a baguette and liked it more that way.

A green salad--especially a peppery arugula salad--will be a nice complement to it as its sharp taste will contrast with the sweetness of the celery root.

Celery Root Gratin

Ingredients:
1 large celery root about 2 lbs,
1 1/3 cup milk,
1 egg yolk,
1/2 cup creme fresh, or heavy whipping cream,
1 cup Gruyère, Fontina, or Cheddar cheese, grated,
3 tbsp butter,
salt and white pepper.

Preparation:
1. Peel off the celery root, cut in quarters and slice into 1/4 inch slices.
2. Put them in a pot, add milk and butter, and cook slowly for about 20 minutes (be careful as milk has a tendency to spill if it is boiling too rapidly).
3. Preheat oven to 425 F.
4. Butter an oven-proof dish and arrange gently the slices of the cooked celery root at the bottom of it.
5. In a bowl mix together cream, egg yolk, 2/3 cup of cheese, and milk from cooking the celery root.
6. Pour the mixture over the celery root slices and cover on top with the remaining cheese.
7. Bake for about 20-30 minutes, until the cheese melts and forms a gold crust.

This is an excellent stand-alone vegetarian dish, or can be served as accompaniment to white meats.

Onion Tart with Gruyère--A Guilty Pleasure

Among all the ingredients that one can imagine to make tarts with, onions or mushrooms seem most appropriate for this season. I often bake tarts using seasonal vegetables, but when the weather is cold like this, an onion tart often comes first to my mind. And I really mean a tart not a quiche.

Wherein does the difference lie? First of fall, the crust. A quiche is most often made on a puff pastry crust, while a tart is made on a short pastry crust. Second, how many eggs are used to make the filling. A typical quiche uses a lot of them and, in a quiche, eggs often dominate the taste of other ingredients. But when you make a tart, you can almost do without the eggs. Once I clarified that distinction for myself, I realized that I belonged among the tart, not quiche, lovers. I ate many quiches when I lived in Switzerland, but ever since I tried tarts that are made of pâte sablée or shortcrust, I fell for them deeply.

Recently, I have been experimenting with different tart crusts, and some of them turned out to be very interesting. I will eventually share some of these results. The crust I used today, however, is the most classical and pure, and all the character of the tart is in its rich onion topping.

I got the basic recipe for this tart from my French friend. She made her tart using pâte sablée and did not put any eggs in the onion mixture, which got me very intrigued. The richness of the filling was coming from the heavy whipping cream and cheese. That tart was delicious, although the presentation suffered a bit from the absence of eggs, which would help to lift and tie all the ingredients together. For that reason in my version of that tart I use one egg, which is barely detectable, but makes the topping look smooth and creamy.

Another secret which makes it exceptionally good is the cheese. Nothing can replace Gruyère with its sharp taste and strong flavor. The combination of the sweet onion and Gruyère makes this tart whole. I like to add a little bit of fresh thyme to the topping, but I did not have it handy this time. I suggest to use fresh thyme as it has a milder taste than when it is dry. There is not really any way to make this tart to be a diet meal, but since I already used an egg I decided to replace the heavy whipping cream with the regular table cream to cut down on a few calories, but even with that little replacement, this is not a light dish. But, after all, what is wrong with offering yourself a piece of comfort food with a glass of wine and a bowl of salad on a cold December day?

Onion Tart with Gruyère

The crust (for a 10" baking pan)

Ingredients:
2 cups of flour,
1 stick butter,
3 tbsp shortening,
1 tsp salt,
3-4 tbsp ice cold water.

Preparation:
1. Put all the ingredients in a large bowl and working with your fingers create a mixture that resembles breadcrumbs.
2. Add cold water at the end and stir the mixture until it starts to stick together.
3. Collect the dough until it forms a smooth ball.
4. Wrap the dough in a plastic foil and chill in a refrigerator for a minimum of 30 minutes.
5. Take the dough out and put it on a work surface dusted slightly with flour.
6. Sprinkle a rolling pin with flour and use it to roll the dough to the size of the pan, plus the height of the edges.
7. Preheat the oven to 375F and bake the crust for about 15 minutes, or until the bottom is slightly gold.

Onion topping:

Ingredients:
3-4 medium, regular (not sweet) onions,
1 large egg or 2 smaller eggs,
1 cup grated Gruyère cheese,
1/2 cup table cream (if you are not scared of calories you can use heavy whipping cream),
1 tsp salt,
freshly ground pepper,
1 tsp fresh thyme,
3 tbsp olive oil.

Preparation:
1. Peel the onion and cut it in half and into thin slices (half-moons).
2. Heat the oil and fry onion for about 5 minutes, until it becomes transparent. Cool it down.
3. Mix together egg, salt, and cream and pour the mix over the onion.
4. Add Gruyère and thyme. Mix gently and pour over the pre-baked crust.
5. Bake for another 40-45 minutes until the top becomes gold.
Serve with green salads.