Onion Tart With Bacon Or Olives Recipes

Steps:

• Preheat the oven to 425 degrees F. Line 2 sheet pans with parchment paper.
• In a medium saute pan, cook the bacon over a medium-low heat until it begins to render, 3 to 5 minutes. Add the onions and cook until they begin to soften, about 3 minutes. Season with pepper. Set aside to let cool. Add the thyme to the cooled bacon-onion mixture.
• In a bowl, combine the farmer's cheese, creme fraiche, egg yolk and salt and pepper to taste. Set aside.
• Flour a flat surface and place the puff pastry on top. Flour the top and gently roll into a 13-by-18-inch rectangle. Cut the pastry in half and transfer each to a lined sheet pan. Using a fork, dock the puff pastry (pierce it slightly with the tines), leaving a 1-inch border untouched.
• Divide the cheese mixture between the two sheets of pastry and spread evenly on the docked area. Top each tart with half of the bacon-onion mixture.
• Place the tarts in the oven on the lower racks and bake, rotating halfway through, until the crusts are dark golden, about 25 minutes. Garnish with the pecorino and chives.

Steps:

• Put the lardons into a large, cold, non-stick frying pan and turn the heat on low. Cook the lardons very gently, stirring occasionally, until the fat has melted into the pan and they are beginning to brown and crisp. Use a slotted spoon to lift the bacon into a mixing bowl and set aside, but keep all the fat in the pan.
• Add the onions, oil and 2 thyme sprigs. Cook over a low heat for 20-25 mins until the onions are softened and beginning to turn golden. Stir in the sugar and cook over a higher heat for 5 mins more until golden brown. Tip into the bowl with the lardons and set aside to cool.
• When the onions are just about cool, tip the bread mix into another mixing bowl with leaves stripped from 1 thyme sprig, and make up following pack instructions, but don't knead or rise. Scatter the semolina, polenta or flour over a 30 x 40cm shallow tin or baking tray, and roll out the dough to fit it. Season the ricotta with 1 tsp salt and some pepper, and spread over the dough, leaving a small border. Mix the egg and Gruyère into the onion mixture with seasoning, then spread over the ricotta. Scatter with remaining thyme. Open-freeze for 2 hrs, then wrap well in cling film and freeze for up to 3 months. Or heat oven to 200C/ 180C fan/gas 6 to bake straight away.
• Cook for 40 mins until base is crisp and golden, then eat warm or cool, sliced into pieces with a green salad. To bake from frozen, heat oven to 160C/140C fan/gas 3 and bake for 30 mins, then increase temp to 200C/180C fan/gas 6 for 15-20 mins.

Steps:

• Cook and stir bacon, onion, dry mustard, and nutmeg in a large skillet over medium-low heat until caramelized, 20 to 30 minutes. Squish the bacon mixture to one side in the pan and set the pan at an angle so the grease drains to the bottom. Discard grease and let bacon mixture cool for 5 to 10 minutes.
• Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C).
• Combine cooled bacon mixture, mozzarella, sour cream, and mayonnaise in a large bowl. Mix together until the consistency is thick like a paste.
• Open 1 can of crescent rolls (keep the others in the fridge until you are ready to open them) and separate each triangle. Use a pizza cutter to cut each triangle into 5 strips by cutting it 3 times across diagonally, and then cutting the 2 longer strips in half.
• Take about 1 teaspoon of the filling and wrap a crescent dough strip around it, stretching it if needed. It doesn't matter if the filling is poking out of the bottom. Line them up on a baking tray and squish the tops flat so they stay upright. Repeat with remaining cans of dough and filling.
• Bake in the preheated oven until golden brown, 15 to 20 minutes.

Steps:

• Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Melt butter with oil in a skillet over medium-high heat. Add onions and thyme, and cook until onions are golden and soft, about 10 minutes.
• On a lightly floured surface, roll out pastry, and trim to an 8 1/2-by-15-inch rectangle. Place on a parchment-lined baking sheet, transfer to oven, and immediately reduce oven to 400. Bake until pastry begins to rise, about 12 minutes.
• Arrange onions in a single layer over pastry, leaving a 1-inch border around edge. Top with olives and anchovies if using. Bake for 15 minutes. Reduce oven to 375 degrees, and bake until puffed and golden brown, about 15 minutes more (tent with foil if crust browns too quickly). Cut into squares.

Steps:

• Blend flour and salt in the bowl of a food processor. Scatter butter over flour, top with lid and pulse 12 pulses to cut butter into flour to a coarse meal consistency.
• Dump butter-flour mixture into a medium stainless bowl. Make a well in the center and pour ice-cold water into the well.
• Using a flexible plastic dough scraper instead of your warm hands, bring the dough together by folding and pressing. Be firm and brisk and get the dough past its shaggy stage into a neat disk, trying to avoid using your hands or too much kneading. Refrigerate the dough for 30 minutes. Heat the oven to 375 degrees.
• Meanwhile, cut the onions in half and peel them. Slice the halves with the ribs (root end to sprout end direction), not against, to create julienne slices rather than half moons.
• In a wide sauté pan over medium-low heat, melt the bacon fat and slowly sweat the onions until they are caramelized. Take all the minutes you need - 25 or so - to let them soften to translucent, then to let the water they release start to evaporate, then to allow the sugars they contain to start to brown in the pan, so that you end up with soft, sweet and evenly browned onions. This is achieved by a slow caramelization. Set onions aside to cool.
• Roll tart dough out to a 1/4-inch-thick round, and drape over a round 10-inch fluted false-bottom tart pan. Lay dough into the pan, gently pressing into the bottom, and roll the pin across the pan to cut off the excess dough. Use your fingers to press the edges into the flutes, accentuating the shape of the dough edge. Dock the bottom of the dough with the tines of a fork, weight the pastry with beans or weight and blind-bake for 25 minutes.
• In a bowl, beat the egg with the cream. Stir in the caramelized onions. Season with pepper, nutmeg and salt to taste. Stir well, and make sure the onions are all evenly coated with the custard.
• Remove tart shell from oven, and slip it onto a baking sheet. Remove weights, fill with the onion-custard mixture and distribute it evenly. Return tart to oven on the sheet, and bake for 25 minutes, or until custard has set, the tops of the onions start to achieve a deeper brown and the dough is dark golden brown at the edges.
• Remove from the ring, and allow to cool just a few minutes on the rack, so that the piping hot tart shell can kind of tighten up enough to be sliced with a sharp chef's knife. (In the first few minutes straight out of the oven, the dough is kind of soft from the heat, possibly giving you the false impression that you have a soggy tart. Let it sit on the rack just to shake off this initial soft stage and to recrisp and refirm, which it will.) Cut into wedges, and serve while hot.