Tarte à l'Oignon (French onion tart)

I think I was only 12 or 13 years old when my parents took my sister and me on a holiday to Alsace in France. We stayed in the picturesque little town Riquewihr, famous for its old houses from the 16th and 17th centuries. And for the Riesling, a very tasteful white wine which is produced in Alsace. I remember that one morning we were invited by friends of my father and they offered us a large piece of delicious onion tart. Accompanied by a large glass of the best (and first!) Riesling I ever had. At 11 in the morning!
I found the recipe of the genuine Tarte à l'Oignon on the internet: Recettes Alsaciennes at alsace-vins.net. As usual I transformed the original recipe to an Aga-proof one.

This recipe is based on puff pastry. And because I dislike the deep frozen ready to use puff pastry you can buy in the supermarket, I always prepare some myself. Not the difficult way, but so-called rough puff pastry. This is how I do it:

 Ingredients:

- 250 g wheat flour

- 250 g cold salted butter

- 125 g ice cold water

- 4 g salt

Method:

Mix the flour with the salt and mix in the butter, which has been cut in small cubes (let the butter become ice cold for this: put it in the freezer for half an hour or so). I use my KitchenAid for this. What a perfect machine that is! When the mass is transformed to a substance that looks like bread crumb, you can add the water and transform it into a ball of dough. Don't knead it! Wrap it in plastic and put it in the fridge for at least half an hour. If it has not cooled down enough you can put it in the freezer for a while.

Put your dough on a lightly floured working surface and roll it out to a 10 x 30 cm rectangle. Fold the end which is closest to you over the dough for one third and fold the other end over it. Now you end up with a perfect(!) square. Turn the dough 90 degrees and repeat this process. Don't expect that this is an easy job! The dough will become better to handle later on...

Wrap your dough in plastic again and put it back in the fridge for at least half an hour.

Once the pastry has rested follow the rolling and folding process again; after half an hour in the fridge the pastry is ready for use. Now the moment has come to make your tart.

Ingredients:
- 600 g sliced onions
- 250 g bacon lardons
- 60 g salted butter
- 60 g flour
- 400 g cold milk
- 2 egg yolks
- salt, pepper, ground nutmeg

Method:
Bake the bacon lardons on the simmering plate for about 10 minutes and take the lardons out of the baking pan. Use the grease for baking the onions, slowly: they must not color, for also about 10 minutes. Mix the bacon and the onions and keep them warm on the warming plate. Now prepare a bechamel sauce: melt the butter on the simmering plate and when the butter is boiling add the flour. Stir well and let the mixture simmer for 5 or 10 minutes. Now add all the milk in one time and stir, stir, stir, until the sauce is cooking. Let it cook for some time until a thick and lumb free sauce forms. Keep stirring all the time. bring to taste with salt, pepper and nutmeg and transfer the sauce to your working surface. Now first incorporate the egg yolks and after that the baked onions and the bacon.
Now put the puff pastry in a 24 cm spring form pan (greased and floured) and line bottom and sides. Fill the pastry with the bechamel/onion/bacon mixture and let it bake in the baking oven for at least an hour.
Bon appetit!

Klik hier om dit recept in het Nederlands te lezen. 

Pain de Campagne

Last year I posted about baking a Pain Rustique (a rustic bread from France): a delicious farmer style bread that I bake very often. But last week I found a recipe on the net (the blog owned by Levine: Uit de keuken van Levine), which is called Pain de Campagne, which recipe is only slightly different. In the poolish there is also rye flour used and some honey is added to the final dough. In this recipe a little less water is used (60% hydration instead of 65%) and the poolish makes only 30% of the final dough, compared to almost 50% in Pain Rustique.
The result: the 'Campagne' has a softer crust and the the crumb is finer than the 'Rustiqe'. But they both taste great!

Poolish:
- 130 g flour
- 15 g full wheat flour
- 15 g rye flour
- 160 g water
- a teaspoon sourdough

The evening before baking the bread the poolish is made: mix the ingredients well and let it develop during the night in a mixing bowl, covered with plastic, at room temperature.
The next morning the final dough can be made.

Dough:
- the poolish 
- 325 g flour
- 130 g water
- 9 g salt
- 2 g dry yeast
- a teaspoon honey

Dissolve the honey in the hand warm water and mix the flour with the salt and the dry yeast. Add the water and the poolish to the flour and mix until the flour has absorbed all the fluid. Now take the 'dough to be' out the mixing bowl and put in on the working place for kneading. I use the Bertinet-method, only using my fingertips. I explained this technique in one of my previous posts: Sourdough Bread with Spelt. When the dough is ready (the kneading takes about 15 minutes), form a ball and transfer it to the mixing bowl for the first proofing. I use a plastic pedal bin liner for covering. Let it proof for about half an hour in a warm place (e.g. on a rack on the warming plate of the Aga). Take the dough out and do a full stretch-and-fold: check this instruction video on YouTube for this technique. Put the dough back in the mixing bowl for further proofing. After half an hour the dough should be doubled in size. If not, leave it to develop some more. Take the dough out, put in your working surface and flatten it to get the air out. Form a nice boule or batard, depending on the form of your proofing basket. I use a wicker proofing basket for this, as you can see on the photo. Put the dough upside down in the basket, with the 'ugly' side up.

Cover and let it proof for another hour, until doubled in size.

 Bake the bread (after scoring it with a razor blade) on a baking stone on the floor of the roasting oven, with a tin filled with hot water to create steam. After 2 or 3 minutes open the oven and spray water over the bread. Close the oven again quickly.
After about 25 minutes transfer the bread to the baking oven for about 15 minutes. Take it out and let it cool on a rack.
A detailled despcription about baking bread in an Aga, including the forming of a boule or a batard and scoring the dough you can find on my post about making Spelt Bread.