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.

Apple Pancakes--A Quick Feast

When I started this blog I did not consider posting a recipe for such a basic dish as apple pancakes, thinking that no one would ever be interested in it. But the truth is, not chefs, but ordinary people like myself, with passion for cooking, browse through culinary blogs in search of new and appealing recipes that are also easy to make. I discovered that whatever seemed very familiar and almost too obvious to me, despite its simplicity, could be interesting and revealing to people that do not come from my culinary culture.

I was inspired to share this recipe by reading a recent Smitten Kitchen post about apple latkes, which got a huge response. I suppose that latkes have been exported outside Eastern Europe, by Jewish migrants. Latkes, in particular potato latkes, are staple food in Poland. We call them "placki", which can be translated into "latkes" or, more generally, "pancakes". However, Jewish latkes are typically drier inside and crispier than Polish "placki".

Polish pancakes are soft and quite thick. When they are still warm, they are slightly crispy, but as they get cooler they become more chewy. For apple pancakes, which are very popular in the fall and winter, we use pretty much the same batter that is used to make crepes, but add yeast, soda, or baking powder to the batter. In my version, I also add yogurt, kefir, or sour milk.

Apple pancakes are one of the simplest  sweet snacks. If you like sweet meals, you can serve them for breakfast, lunch, dinner, or supper. Whatever you decide to make them for, kids will always love them. The whole preparation takes no more than five minutes. They taste great also when they are cold on the next day and my son likes them to have with a cup of chocolate milk for breakfast.

Apple Pancakes
(Makes about small 16 pancakes)

Ingredients:
1 cup flour,
1 egg,
1 1/2 cup yogurt, kefir, or sour milk,
pinch of salt,
1 medium apple Granny Smith or McIntosh,
vegetable oil for frying,
powdered sugar,
cinnamon, optional.

Preparation:
1. Put flour, baking powder, egg, yogurt, and salt into a bowl and mix well with a whisker until you obtain a smooth batter.
2. Peel off the apple and grate it on a large whole grater or cut into small thin slices. Incorporate them into the batter with a spatula.
3. Heat a large pan and cover the bottom evenly with oil.
4. When oil becomes hot, put dollops of batter and fry them for about 2-3 minute until they become gold.

5. Turn the pancakes over and fry on the other side. Transfer them on a plate covered with a sheet of paper towel to absorb the unnecessary oil.

6. Dust pancakes with powdered sugar, and cinnamon (optional) and serve warm.

Easy Cheddar and Apple Bread--An Excuse to Empty my Pantry

When I visit grocery stores, one reflection often comes to my mind--there are many products that I never buy because I simply do not know how to use them. Especially here in America I have this feeling more often than in Europe. Peaking into someone else's cart, and seeing things that I never buy myself, I wonder what these people do with that (especially in such amounts). Recently, when I was buying ingredients for my Christmas cake, I carefully looked at the packages to make sure that I do not buy accidentally something that I do not know how to use.

It happened a couple of months ago when in a rush I bought a bag of self-rising flour instead of the regular one. Most of my cakes or tarts do not contain baking powder and only some of them require just a teaspoon of it or less. I also hardly use baking soda in my recipes. For that reason I do not know how to use a self-rising flour, especially that I cannot imagine how much baking powder is in it. But because of my mistake I had a bag of it on my pantry shelf. Ever since I made that mistake I had been desperately looking for recipes to use this flour before it became too old for anything. Recently, being in a mood for baking a variety of different breads, I found one such recipe in my old English cookbook. This bread always looked very appetizing to me, but required self-rising flour, which has always put me off. But this time it was a perfect time to try it out.

I come from a yeast-based bread culture and only such breads truly love, but I was willing to make a different one just to try out this self-rising flour.
Breads based on baking powder and soda come from the English or Irish tradition. The one I found also had cheddar cheese, apples, and peanuts, which made it much more than just a bread. I used walnuts as I am not a big fan of peanuts. The bread came out drier than the yeast-based bread, almost as a kind of spicy cake, but its shape and texture were bread-like and the whole result was not bad at all. Since I still have a lot of that flour left, I think that--before I discover some other recipes for its usage--I will make those breads a couple of times more.

Cheddar and Apple Bread
(Adapted from the Good Housekeeping New Step-by-Step Cookbook)

Ingredients:
1 1/2 cup self raising flour,
1 cup aged cheddar cheese coarsely grated,
2 tbsp butter,
1 medium apple, peeled off and grated on a big hole grater,
1/2 cup nuts-- I used walnuts, the original recipe calls for peanuts but any kind would probably work as well,
1 egg,
5 tbsp milk,
1 tbsp vegetable oil,
freshly ground pepper.

Preparation:
1. Put flour in a large bowl and using fingers rub the butter in it.
2. Add grated cheese, apple, pepper and chopped nuts. Mix all the ingredients.
3. Whisk together egg and milk, pour them into the flour mixture, and make a soft dough.
4. Preheat oven to 375 F.
5. Grease lightly the baking sheet with oil and place dough on it formed into a flat disk with diagonal cuts on top.
6. Bake for about 40 minutes, or until golden brown.

Just a couple of slices with butter make a rich and fulfilling lunch and can be served with salads. It tastes best on the same day.