Tarte á l’Oignon (French Savory Onion Tart)

I’m a big fan of the savory tart. Sometimes I think about starting a tart business, maybe a fresh frozen dough company, maybe opening a little tart stand where I serve savory tarts and salad. Anyhow, this is another tart favorite at home.  It makes the house smell amazing and the result is a super tasty dish. This recipe is a French Alsatian delight from my mother in law, Brigitte Helzer. For a perfect flakey dough recipe see below. Timing tip: Have savory dough ready – I like to have it rolled out on my tart pan then I keep it cold in the fridge til I’m ready for it. Vegetarian optional – cut the ham if you’d like.

Music: “Cabin by the Sea” by The Diskettes

Onion Tart Ingredients:

4-5 large onions, roughly chopped
1-2 tbs. unsalted butter
salt, pepper
1/2 tsp. nutmeg
2 slices ham or prociutto, roughly chopped
1 tbs. all-purpose flour
1 egg
1/2 cup milk
1 cup emmentaler, grated (could sub in some gruyere or swiss or other cheeses)

Method:

Preheat oven to 450
Heat butter over low-medium flame
Add onions, stir and cover to sweat
This is a good time to grate cheese, roughly chop ham or prociutto
Add ham or prociutto to sweated onions
Add flour
In a separate bowl, whisk egg and milk together
Turn off flame, add mixture to onions
Pull out your prepped dough, pour in onions
Generously sprinkle grated cheese on top
Bake at 450 for 20 mins, then reduce heat to 350 for another 20 mins, cheese and edges of crust should be golden brown
Let cool for 10 mins on cooling rack before digging in
Enjoy!

Savory Dough Ingredients:

2 cups all-purpose flour
¼ tsp. salt
1½ stick butter
1/3 cup ice water (more if air is dry)

Method:

Combine flour, salt and butter in cuisinart or bowl
Prepare the dough
Add ice water slowly while pulsing in cuisinart until it gets clumpy
Gather the dough together, being careful not to over handle it (if overworked it won’t be light and flaky)
Place the dough in the fridge for at least 15 minutes before rolling it out. (It can be stored in the fridge for a couple of days or can be stored in the freezer for a couple of weeks. Just thaw in the fridge the day before you’ll use it.)

Tarte á la Tomate

Let me introduce to you my mother in law, Mrs. Brigitte Helzer, who is a ninja in the kitchen. In her home, it’s hard not to be aware of what she’s preparing because it always smells incredible. When Mama B gets in the zone, the flavors of France come alive in her kitchen. Brigitte was born in Ribeauville, a small village in Alsace, France. She moved to the US at age 7 but grew up in a culturally French home. She developed a love of French cuisine and in turn, she inspired a love of French food in her two boys, Paul and Johnny. And since I married into Helzer family, I have been introduced to a whole new culinary world too.

Meals at the Helzer’s are notorious among friends for good reason. They are completely and deliciously insane. Brigitte does most of the preparations; and John chooses wine(s) from his cellar to best compliment the meal. Making it to the end of one of these meals without passing out is a feat. It’s like running a marathon except at the end you realize you haven’t exercised at all and you’re a little more rotund. To give you an idea: a meal at the Helzer’s might begin with an appetizer accompanied by an aperitif, perhaps Tarte á la Tomate and a glass of a Burgundy. Shortly thereafter, dinner might be scalloped veal with lemon sauce, rice, braised endives and salad, served with an Italian Barbera d’Asti. Then the infamous cheese course (that is served ‘only when the kids are home’), sometimes 10+ cheeses, including a variety of cow, goat and sheep’s milk cheeses, domestic and imported, served with a Bordeaux, and a roquefort cheese, with which Port wine is optional. All of this followed of course by dessert. John or Brigitte might prepare a seasonal fruit tarte, or why not a variety of individual portioned tartes? Eau de Vie, a genre of French digestifs, emerge from the cupboard. Kirsch, Quetsch and Poire Williams, are among favorites in the Helzer household. At this point, you struggle to roll a slightly rounder version of yourself away from the table to start clean up. We literally ate all of this the day we recorded this recipe.

I admire Brigitte’s facility with cooking. I realize her know-how came over time so there is hope for me yet! What I have gleaned is that Brigitte has learned to listen to her culinary gut feelings. She magically knows when things have been cooked to perfection. When I ask her how she knows, she’s vague and nonchalant. It’s killer! All I can do is remind myself that the moral of the story is keep on studying recipes and cooking by heart and if I’m lucky, then in time my kitchen intuition might develop into something like hers.

Tarte á la Tomate Recipe

Savory Dough Ingredients (this dough can be used for any savory pie or tart):

2 cups flour

¼ tsp salt

1½ stick unsalted butter

1/3 cup ice water (may need a little more if the air is really dry)

Tarte ingredients:

4 tomatoes

3 tbsp Dijon mustard (contrary to what’s shown in the video)

1 cup grated cheese (emmental, gruyere and parmesan)

1 tsp fresh chopped oregano

1 tbsp olive oil

fleur de sel

Method:

Preheat the oven to 450°F.

Prepare the dough. Combine flour, salt and butter in cuisinart or bowl. Add ice water slowly while pulsing in cuisinart until it gets clumpy. Gather the dough together, being careful not to over handle it (if overworked it won’t be light and flaky). Cover in saran wrap and if you have the time, let it rest in the fridge for 20-30min (or longer if you want to prepare the dough ahead of time, allowing it to return to room temp before working with it). Prick a few holes in the dough to prevent it from puffing up. Cook it for about 10 min at 450°F or until it begins to brown.

Spread mustard onto the dough. Brigitte prefers the dish with dijon. She feels the grainy mustard can overwhelm the dish. But I like it both ways. Layer half of the combination of gruyere, emmental and parmesan cheeses. Then layer your sliced tomatoes and top with another layer of cheese. Cook it for about 20 min at 450°F. The crust needs to be “golden to brown” and the cheese should be nice and melted and almost browned and crusty.

Sprinkle the finished tarte with fleur de sel, fresh oregano, and drizzle with olive oil. Serve warm or cold.

Let us know how it goes!

Music: Margie by Billy Banks and His Rhythmakers

*This recipe was featured in the FrenchEntrée.com Gastrozone to celebrate 100 issues of FrenchEntrée magazine

Au Cœur du Jura

Au Cœur du Jura directly translates to “at the heart of Jura,” which is exactly what this cheese shop has become for us. More importantly, we have become fans of owner, Ema, at Au Cœur du Jura. Her shop is a small but well stocked crémerie and fromagerie, located in the covered market in the small city of Dole. While spending the past couple of months here in Jura, in eastern France, we’ve fallen in love with a few fantastic locally celebrated and locally produced fromages.

Comté is the most celebrated and well-known of all Jura cheeses. Jura is, afterall, a part of the Franche-Comté. It’s a firm cheese. As comté ages, it becomes stronger, more salty, sharper. You can buy it as young as 4 months old, up to 2 years old. Ema cut into a well-aged round for us. Together, we tasted small pieces of the fresh round, she smiled “it sings, doesn’t it?”

Morbier is another Jura cheese that we’ve come to relish. From the look of it, you might think it’s a real stinky cheese, but the blue line through it has nothing to do with mold. Back in the day, after they made comté, they’d take the leftover curds and use ash to keep the curds overnight until they’d add more milk. The layer of ash is what gives the cheese it’s distinctive blue line. Ash is still used now, but as an aesthetic choice, based on the old tradition. It’s a creamy semi-soft cheese that is rich and creamy with a touch of sourness or bitterness at the end.

There are many many types of tomme, made with goat milk, sheep milk and of course cow milk. The tomme unique to this area is simply called Tomme du Jura and it is a cow milk cheese. (One thing I learned in buying cheese, is unless otherwise marked, all cheeses are made with cow milk.) After making heavier, creamy cheeses, the leftover skim milk was historically used to make tomme. The result is a light, smooth cheese. It’s flavor is mild and milky, with hints of brine. In terms of texture, it’s not as hard as comté, not as soft as morbier. Tommes are fun to try because they are always different. It seems like everybody makes or sells a version of tomme around here.

So if you make your way to Dole, please pop into the covered market and say hi to Ema. (Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday before noon to see the place really bustling.)

Thank you, Ema, for being so friendly to us from day one and for supplying us with such fantastic fromage. You kept us coming back for more and we hope to see you again.