You've heard me speak of my neighbor, Ed. Ed and his wife Francois (the French Chick) live on Laurel Creek, backing up against Poor Mountain. Ed's the guy that everyone calls when there's some sort of action on the Mountain.
When Larry shot his first buck last year dressed to the nines on the way out to dinner for his birthday, a call went out to Ed. "Ed", he pleaded, "we have about 5 minutes before we meet the kids and grandmother in town for dinner at Luigi's. And I just shot a ten-pointer. And I'm wearing a coat and tie. " Ed knew just what to do; and we delivered the "goods" on the way down the road.
Ed has taken an interest in my chickens. And Francois being the ever fabulous french chef, in my eggs. So Ed brings over table scraps and we feed them to Alice and company. He brings over fresh beets and corn and delicious tomatoes that we barter for eggs. Our 17 feathered friends are currently laying about 13 eggs daily, and we only consume a half dozen or so. Less as Cameron takes back off for Hawaii in a couple of weeks. So I have a commodity. Ha! This week I traded about 4 dozen fresh farm eggs for some beautiful beets and a bag full of maters.
I found a recipe that we hope to use and abuse. Goat cheese and leeks and roasted beet tart. Wow. Yum.
You can try it too. You just need to find something to trade with Ed.
Beet, Leek and Goat Cheese Tart
1 pie dough/tart shell- (par baked, see below for recipe)
1 ea roasted beet (about 8 oz-see below)
2 oz crumbled goat cheese
2 Tbsp pine nuts, toasted
1 large leek, sliced and cleaned (cooked about 1 cup)
1 Tbsp olive oil
6 eggs
1.5 oz 1/2 & 1/2 (or milk)
salt and pepper
2 Tbsp fresh herbs, chopped (I used parsley, basil and thyme)
To cook the beets:
Pre-heat oven to 375 degrees. Wrap the fresh, cleaned beets in a foil package tightly and
roast in the oven for about an hour. The beets are done when they can be easily pierced
with a fork. Do not cut the beets first or all the juice will run out when they cook. When
done, and cool enough to handle, the beet skin should easily slip off. Hint; wear latex
gloves unless you want your hands to be “beet red.” Cut the beets into 1/2 lengthwise and
then slice into half rounds.
Pre-heat oven to 375 degrees. Make the pie dough and par-bake the shell (see instructions
below). Remove from the oven and allow to cool. Leave the oven at 375 if you are going
to finish making the tart now.
Clean the leeks. Leeks can have a lot of mud and dirt on them (see photo above). Cut off
most of green part of leek and slice in half. Slice thinly, crosswise. Put in a colander and
rinse well with cold water. Make sure to get all the dirt off.
Heat a large saute pan and add the olive oil. Add the leeks and saute until soft.
Heat a small saute pan to medium and add the pine nuts. Keep them moving until they are
toasted (about 2 minutes). Remove from hot pan so they stop cooking.
Spread the cooked leeks over the bottom of the par-cooked tart. Lay out the sliced cooked
beets on top of the leeks. Top with crumbled goat cheese and toasted pine nuts.
Scramble the eggs with the 1/2 & 1/2 and salt and pepper. Pour the egg mixture over the
vegetables and cheese in the tart pan. Sprinkle the chopped herbs on top.
Bake at 375 for 25 min or until eggs are set.
Pie Dough (makes one 10" tart pan)
1 3/4 cups flour (about 8 oz wt.)
1.5 sticks unsalted butter (6 oz wt.) cut into small pieces
pinch salt
5 Tbsp ice water
Tart Pan with removable bottomRecipes from FFF CCChef.com
Copyright formerchef.com 2009
Directions for making in food processor (this is how I did it).
Fit bowl with metal blade. Add flour, butter and salt to bowl. Put on the lid and process in
short bursts, about 10 times to break up the butter into the flour. With the processor on,
quickly pulsing, add the water through the tube in the lid into the bowl until the mixture
looks like oatmeal. Remove and form into a small cake.
If you don’t have a food processor and want to make it by hand, that works too. Just
follow the same steps you would for pie dough; cut the butter into the flour, working it
through by hand until it becomes like coarse meal or breadcrumbs. Mix in the water with
a fork until it’s incorporated and the dough comes together in a soft ball.
Refrigerate the dough for half an hour and then roll it out on a lightly floured surface.
Once it is rolled out, put it in the pan and pressed the dough into the edges, pulling off
any excess.
The shell needs to be partially baked before adding the filling. To keep the center of the
crust from puffing up and cracking during baking, you’ll want to weigh it down. Cut a
piece of parchment paper or foil to fit the bottom of the tart pan. Tip; fold a square in 1/2
and then 1/2 again to make a smaller square. Cut from edge to edge in a semi-circle equal
to 1/2 the diameter of your pan. Unfold and voila! You have a perfect circle to fit. See my
post on Sweet Tart Dough for photos on how to do this.
Pierce the bottom of the dough with a fork and put the paper on top.
Weigh down with pie weights or beans.
Bake for about 12 minutes or until the curst begins to set. Don't let it get too brown
because it's going to keep cooking later. Remove from oven, and carefully remove the
paper and beans. Add the filling (see above) and finish baking.
Notes;
To save some time you can use a pre-made pie dough. Pillsbury makes a decent one.
Trader Joe's sells cooked fresh beets, vacuum sealed in the produce section.
Quite a bit of this dish can be done a day in advance. The pie dough can be made in
advance. The beets and leeks can be cooked the day before. The pine nuts can be toasted
and once cooled, placed in a dry, sealed container or plastic bag.
