Bacon And Onion Tarts Recipes

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:

• Prepare dough by pulsing flour, 1 egg, 1 egg yolk and salt in a food processor. Add butter, piece by piece, pulsing until all is incorporated. Add water and pulse only until dough forms a ball. Remove; cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate at least 2 hours. Remove dough from refrigerator 30 minutes before assembling tarts.
• Meanwhile, prepare filling by cooking onions in butter in 2 large skillets until tender and translucent. Cool in a medium bowl. Beat 4 eggs, 2 egg yolks and cream together. Stir into onions; add cheese, bacon, chives and salt and pepper to taste.
• Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Divide dough in half. Roll each portion to fit in 10-inch tart pan with removable rim. Trim dough to fit rim height and prick bottom of dough with fork. Bake crust 7 minutes or just until it begins to turn golden brown. Remove from oven, add filling and bake 15 to 20 minutes more until egg mixture is set. Let cool 5 minutes before removing rim from tart pans. Cut into wedges.
• Note: The chef serves this tart with salad of baby spinach, red and yellow teardrop tomatoes, sliced Hass avocado, toasted pecans and apple cider vinaigrette.
• Recipe by Chefs Frank Randazzo and Andrea Curto-Randazzo

Steps:

• Place bacon in a skillet and cook over medium-high heat until cooked but not crisp and fat has rendered out, about 8 minutes. Drain in a strainer; reserve the fat.
• Place skillet back over medium heat. Add sliced onions. Cook briefly just until they lose their raw edge and soften up slightly, 3 to 5 minutes. Add a teaspoon or 2 of bacon fat if pan seems too dry. Remove skillet from heat and allow to cool to room temperature.
• Mix fromage blanc, creme fraiche, nutmeg, salt, black pepper, and cayenne pepper together in a mixing bowl.
• Place 1 ball of pizza dough on a well-floured surface. Flatten and roll out to a 10- or 12-inch thin circle. Transfer to a cold cast iron pan. Heat over medium-high heat to pre-cook the bottom of the crust. As dough heats and bubbles appear, deflate them with the tines of a fork so crust ends up thin and crisp (not chewy). When bottom is nicely browned and just about to start getting charred, 5 to 7 minutes, remove from heat. Repeat with remaining dough.
• Spread a generous amount of cheese mixture over the crust. Top evenly with some onions and then the bacon. Broil 5 or 6 minutes until edges are browned and starting to lift. Repeat for remaining tartes.

Steps:

• Preheat oven to 375°F. Sauté bacon in heavy large skillet over medium-high heat until slightly crisp. Drain all but 1 tablespoon bacon drippings from skillet. Add onions to bacon and sauté over medium heat until onions are very tender but not brown, about 20 minutes. Cool.
• Whisk egg, sour cream, salt, pepper, and nutmeg in large bowl to blend. Stir in cooled onion mixture.
• Roll pizza dough out on lightly floured surface to 13x10-inch rectangle. Transfer to baking sheet. Spread onion mixture over dough, leaving 1/2-inch plain border around edges. Sprinkle with caraway seeds.
• Bake tart until onion custard is set and crust is golden brown around edges and brown on bottom, about 25 minutes.

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:

• Crust: Preheat the oven to 375º. Put the flour, sugar and salt in the bowl and pulse a few times to mix. Dump in all the butter and pulse about 15 times total. You want to cut the butter up smaller than you would for a flaky pie crust. Add in 2 tablespoons of the ice cold water and turn the machine on for 5-6 seconds. You'll know that you have the right amount of moisture in the dough by removing the lid, reaching in and grabbing a handful, squeeze it together and if it clumps...it's perfect. If it is still crumbly and does not stick together, then put the lid back on, add another ½ to 1 teaspoon of ice water and turn on again for another 5-6 seconds.
• Press dough in tart pan. Try and make it an even layer across the bottom of the pan.
• To avoid shrinkage place it on a plate and put it in the freezer to firm up and rest for at least 30 minutes.
• Cook bacon until crispy. Less 2 tablespoons of drippings in pan and cook onions on low/med heat with thyme & salt, covered 20mins. So not brown, sweat the onions. Pull crust out of the freezer, place it on a cookie sheet, add a sheet of foil on top and press it in gently and then fill with your favorite pie weight (dry beans, rice, actual pie weights, marbles, ball bearings). Place in the oven for 30 minutes while the onions are cooking.
• Beat the eggs and add in the half and half, a grind or two of black pepper and a touch of salt, mix well and set aside. The onions, they should be translucent, soft and very fragrant. Remove them from the heat and cool long enough that they won't cook the eggs. When the crust comes out, remove the pie weights and foil. Remove the thyme sprigs from the onions and mix them into the custard. Pour it all into the tart crust, sprinkle with bacon pieces and put it back in the 375º oven for 25-30 minutes on the middle rack.

Steps:

• For the dough: In a mixing bowl, dissolve the yeast in 1/2 cup lukewarm water. Stir in 1/4 cup flour and let the mixture get bubbly, about 10 to 15 minutes. Add the kosher salt, butter or oil and remaining flour and mix to form a rough ball. Knead the dough (with hands or stand mixer) for about 5 minutes. Let rise, covered with a damp towel or plastic wrap, until doubled in size, about 1 hour. (Or refrigerate in a zippered plastic bag and let rise several hours or overnight.)
• For the topping: Heat 2 tablespoons butter or olive oil in large skillet over medium-high burner. Add the onions and cook, stirring occasionally, until wilted and lightly browned, about 5 minutes. Season generously with salt and pepper. Stir in the caraway seeds (for the bacon version) or the garlic and thyme (for the olive version). Let cool to room temperature. Put the bacon, if using, in a small pan and cover with 1 inch water. Simmer for 2 minutes, then drain and cool.
• Set oven to 375 degrees. Punch down the dough and knead into a smooth ball, then let it relax for a few minutes. Roll to a circle about 12 inches in diameter. Transfer to a 12- by 17-inch baking sheet lined with parchment. Stretch the dough to an elongated oval shape about 11 inches by 15 inches.
• Mix the ricotta (or goat cheese) with half the creme fraiche and dab spoonfuls of the mixture evenly over the dough. Spread the cooked onions over the dough, leaving a half-inch border. Top with the reserved bacon (or olives), scattered evenly. Drizzle the tart with the remaining creme fraiche.
• Bake for 30 to 35 minutes, turning the baking sheet if necessary, until well browned. Cool on a rack for a few minutes. Serve warm or at room temperature.

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.

Steps:

• Make pastry:
• Blend together flour, butter, shortening, and salt in a bowl with your fingertips or a pastry blender (or pulse in a food processor) just until most of mixture resembles coarse meal with some small (roughly pea-size) butter lumps. Drizzle evenly with 4 tablespoons ice water and gently stir with a fork (or pulse in processor) until incorporated.
• Squeeze a small handful: If it doesn't hold together, add more ice water, 1/2 tablespoon at a time, stirring (or pulsing) until just incorporated, then test again. (Do not overwork mixture, or pastry will be tough.)
• Turn out mixture onto a lightly floured surface and divide into 6 equal portions. With heel of your hand, smear each portion once or twice in a forward motion. Gather dough together with pastry scraper and press into a ball, then flatten into a disk. Chill dough, wrapped in plastic wrap, until firm, at least 1 hour.
• Roll out dough on a floured surface with a floured rolling pin into a 14-inch round and fit into tart pan. Trim excess dough, leaving a 1/2-inch overhang, then fold overhang over pastry and press against side to reinforce edge. Lightly prick bottom with a fork and chill until firm, about 30 minutes.
• Put oven rack in middle position and preheat oven to 400°F.
• Line chilled shell with foil and fill with pie weights. Bake until pastry is set and pale golden along rim, 15 to 20 minutes. Carefully remove foil and weights and bake shell until golden all over, 10 to 15 minutes more. Transfer shell to a rack. (Leave oven on.)
• Prepare filling while shell bakes:
• Cook bacon in a 12-inch nonstick skillet over moderate heat, stirring occasionally, until crisp, 6 to 8 minutes. Transfer bacon with a slotted spatula to paper towels to drain and pour off bacon fat. Add butter to skillet and cook onions with 3/4 teaspoon salt and 1/2 teaspoon pepper over moderate heat, stirring, until just wilted, about 2 minutes. Cover surface of onions with a round of parchment or wax paper (or cover skillet with a tight-fitting lid) and continue to cook, lifting parchment to stir frequently, until onions are very soft and pale golden, about 20 minutes. Stir in bacon, then remove from heat and cool 10 minutes.
• Whisk together crème fraîche, eggs, nutmeg, remaining 1/2 teaspoon salt, and remaining 1/2 teaspoon pepper in a large bowl, then stir in onions.
• Fill and bake tart:
• Pour filling into tart shell, spreading onions evenly, and bake until filling is set and top is golden, 25 to 35 minutes. Serve warm or at room temperature.