Wednesday 4 January 2012

French Onion Tart

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This French Onion Tart is an adaptation of the French classic Pissaladiere. The recipe comes from Leon's Book 3 - Baking & Puddings, it uses spelt flour in the pastry, but otherwise is not much different to other Pissaladiere recipes I have seen.

I like savoury tarts, especially if the main ingredient is onion, so when I saw the recipe and needed something to take along to the New Year's Eve dinner, I decided to give it a go. I doubled the amount of pastry and topped the second tart with onion and goat's cheese and both went down well. Here is the recipe as it is in the book.

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French Onion Tart (serves 4 for lunch, 8 as a canape)

For the pastry:
125g spelt flour
pinch of salt
pinch of sugar
100g cold, unsalted butter, cut into cubes
4tbsp iced water

For the topping:
3tbsp olive oil
2 onions, thinly sliced
1tsp vinegar
50g black olives
6 anchovies, cut in half lengthwise
small bunch of thyme
1 free-range egg, beaten
salt, to taste
black pepper, to taste

To make the pastry combine the flour, salt and sugar in a large bowl. Cut in the butter with a knife (I use my hands, but if you have very warm hands using a knife is a good idea). Leave larger chunks of butter than you would think (about the size of a garlic clove) to make the pastry more flaky.

Drizzle in the ice water and bring it all together in a ball.

Wrap in clingfilm and let it rest in the fridge for at least 30 minutes.

To make the topping heat the oil in a heavy-based sauce pan and add the sliced onion. Sautee over a medium heat, stirring occassionally. You want them to caramelise, but soft rather than crisp.

Once cooked about 10-15 minutes (it says 7-8 in the book) add the vinegar and 2tsp of water.

Sprinkle with thyme and set aside to cool.

Heat oven to 160C/Gas 3.

Pit and break up the olives a little.

On a floured surface, roll out the pastry to about 3mm thick. (I roll it out straight onto baking paper to make the next step easier.)

Transfer to a baking sheet and spread the cooled onions out, leaving a small boarder all round.

Top with olives and anchovies and season with salt and black pepper.

Brush the edges with the beaten egg and bake in the oven for 25-30 minutes.

Enjoy (hot or cold)!

2 comments:

Maggie said...

I quite like the Leon Books and this would be just my type of food to cook from it too.

Sylvie said...

Maggie, the books look great, don't they. I also really like the flavours, but I do find that they are always a little overenthusiastic on their timings and find that stuff takes somewhat longer to make.