Ham and Emmenthal Fluffy Tart, a Trixified Cousin of the Souffle, for a (Sort of) French Friday with Dorie

I know this isn't the exact recipe for this week's French Fridays with Dorie dish - a classic cheese souffle - but it's a close cousin. It's not that I have anything against souffles, mind you; in fact, I am a huge fan. I've made them in the past, as I'm sure many of you have, and I agree with Dorie that their difficulty level is highly overstated.

That said, I have been following recipes to the letter lately as part of the Joy the Baker cook off that I recently participated in, and this has left me itching to experiment a bit. And so I decided to try a fluffy tart.

Muffaletta Tartlets with Olive Salad, Cajun Chips, & Hibiscus Lavender Lemonade for the May 5 Star Picnic Makeover

I am not a fan of the sort of picnic where people have to sit on the  ground getting leg cramps and wishing there was a place to wash their sticky hands, all the while having to swat away nasty stinging bugs and crawling things.  No, thanks! I prefer my nature to be cultivated. I like civilation and cities and sinks and flushing toilets. But that's not to say that I don't love picnic food. Quite the contrary!

So when I found out that the challenge for the May 5-Star Makeover cooking group - led as ever by the lovely and talented  Natasha of 5 Star Foodie and the prolific Lazaro of Lazaro Cooks! - was to come up with a a gourmet version of picnic food, I immediately knew the direction I would take, if not the specific dishes I would make. I would create a lovely picnic that one would want to eat at a comfy table, in a garden, mere steps away from hot and cold running water.  And that's exactly how Poppa Trix and I enjoyed this little feast. (You can have a picnic in your own backyard, right?)

Gooseberry Tartlets with Jasmine Whipped Cream to Celebrate My Blogoversary

I hope you aren't too disappointed or angry with me when I tell you that I don't have anything clever or exciting  to give away for my blogoversary.  My excuses are legion: busy-ness, forgetfulness, sleepiness.  Instead, I offer you these gooseberry tartlets.  I knew as soon as I saw these berries at the farmers market that I had to make something out of them.  How cute are they?

Tunisian Tuna Tart; Plus, I Survived Day Two of Culinary School

 

Welcome to the first of several posts featuring an ingredient I am obsessed with right now: preserved lemon.  I am at a loss to explain to you how mere lemons and salt have the power to transform an ordinary dish into something absolutely thought-provoking, but somehow they do.

Often found in Moroccan and Tunisian dishes, these little flavor bombs are the kind of ingredient that make people scratch their heads and try (in vain)  to figure out what in the world you did.  I swear to you, it's magic! Here I've used preserved lemon to turn a humble tuna tart into something that deserves to be written - and spoken - with capital letters: Tuna. Tart.

I've been using these guys in everything lately, but I thought I'd post the tart first because I've got crust on the brain. Pie crust that is - today in class we made flaky pie dough and pate sucree, or sugar dough. Even though I am bone tired, I am minding this whole being-one-of-the-oldest-people-in-class thing less and less.  There's zero social pressure - I'm not wasting my time worrying about whether or not the scrawny kid to my right thinks I look dorky in my chef's hat, or giggling with a girlfriend over our exploits, past or planned,  while Chef is demonstrating the right rolling technique.

And thankfully, unlike my very young - albeit sweet -  lab partner today, I don't have to fret over the fact that I couldn't get my acrylic nails off in time for class.  You read that right. After watching her sadly struggle with her dough and the sticky, messy, crumbling Frankencrust she was cobbling together, I ended up helping her out and crimping the edges of her pie for her.

"I guess it must be my nails that's making this so hard," she said. Um ... you think?  (Don't get the wrong idea, I'm no saint: It's my fervent and selfish wish that someone's around to take pity on me when it's time to decorate cakes.)

But back to this tart. The crust is simplicity itself: I used the same combo of olive oil, salt, water, and whole wheat, spelt, and AP flours that I used in my tuna tomato tart, a recipe I adapted from Citron et Vanille's gorgeous blog. For seasoning, I just used 1 T of black sesame seeds in the dough. The key to a good crust here is to not overwork the dough or it will get tough.

For the filling, mix together:

1 medium chopped onion

2 cans of oil packed tuna, such as Cento, drained

1-2 T Dijon mustard (to taste)

3-4 springs of thyme

1-2 T chopped preserved lemon, seeds removed (I bought my preserved lemons at Whole Foods, but you can also make your own.)

Pepper & Salt, to taste

*Very Important: Don't add the salt until you've tasted the mixture, as the lemons are very salty, even if you rinse them.

Next beat together 2 eggs, 1/3 cup of cream, and 1/3 cup milk, and mix this with your tuna mixture. Spread evenly over your tart, and top with some oil-cured black olives and a bit more pepper and thyme:

 

I'm not going to lie to you, I didn't think it looked too appetizing at this point, and I was afriad that perhaps I had pushed my magic lemons farther than they were willing, or able,  to go. But I shouldn't have worried.  After 35-40 minutes in a 375 degree oven, yucky miraculously emerged as yummy:

 

To check that your tart has set, make sure that when you tap the center with your finger, the middle is firm, not mushy and jiggly. The preserved lemon subtly scents the entire dish, offering surprising bursts of bright tangy zing that go perfectly with the earthy thyme, olives,  and tuna. Served with a glass of wine and a nice salad, this is the kind of satisfying, flavor-packed meal that makes you forget it's not really that fattening at all. And given what I'll be baking and tasting this semester, that's a very good thing.

Day 2: Tart de Bry, a Medieval Brie Tart

Doesn't a nice cheese tart seem like the perfect thing for a Medieval feast?

What could be simpler? According to the fourteenth-century recipe collection Forme of Cury, all you have to do is, "Take a crust ynche deepe in a trap. Take yolkes of ayren rawe & cheese ruayn & medle it & pe yolkes togyder."

Got it? Luckily for those of us who aspire to actually try these dishes out,  there are many translations of these old texts available in print and online.  According to Gode Cookery, while the recipe title - Tart de Bry - seems to imply that the tart should be made of brie, in fact the "cheese ruayn" referred to in the recipe is actually rowan cheese, also known as autumn cheese, a semi-soft cheese that's not quite as soft as modern brie.  Oh - and as far as I can determine, it doesn't actually exist anymore.

I Heart Savory Tarts!

I must have suffered some sort of carbohydrate-related trauma as a child.  Did an evil babysitter wrap me up in a puff pastry and stick me in the oven? Was I left in the woods with only bread crumbs to guide me home? Or perhaps I was frightened by the premature exploding of a can of Pillsbury breakfast rolls. I can't really say for sure.

But I do know that after years of shying away from working with dough - "I'll mess it up! I'll ruin it!" was my panicked refrain -  I have suddenly - and incurably - become absolutely tart-y for making savory tarts.