Blue Cheese Tarts

Blue Cheese Tartlets

Ingredients:

8 oz. tart pastry dough or commercial puff pastry 

3 oz. spinach or Swiss chard, trimmed

1 egg

2/3 cup heavy cream 

3/4 cup Emmenthaler cheese, freshly grated

1/4 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg

salt and freshly ground pepper

3 oz. Roquefort Cheese, crumbled

2 tablespoons pine nuts

Directions:

If using tart pastry, prepare the dough and refrigerate for at least 3 hours.  Remove from the refrigerator 30 minutes before you are ready to roll out.  If using commercial puff pastry, defrost it in the refrigerator or at room temperature.

Preheat an oven at 425F*.  Bring a large saucepan filled with water to a boil.  Plunge the spinach or S Swiss chard into the boiling water and cook for 30 seconds.  Immediately drain in a colander and rinse with cold water to halt the cooking.  Drain again, pressing against the greens to force as much water  as possible; set aside.

Break the egg into a bowl.  Add the cream Emmenthaler cheese, nutmeg, and salt and pepper to taste and beat with a fork until completely blended.  Coarsely chop the spinach or chard and add it to the bowl; stir well.

On a lightly floured board, roll the dough as thinly as possible.  Sprinkle the Roquefort evenly over the dough.  With a fluted pastry cutter about 1 1/4" in diameter, cut out 18 dough rounds.  Use the rounds to line individual tartlet pans or the wells in tartlet trays or miniature muffin pans.  Arrange the the lined pans on a large baking sheet.  Fill each lined pan with some of the egg mixture and scatter a few pine nuts on top.  Place the tartlets in the oven and bake until the filling is set and crusts are golden, about 15 minutes.  Serve warm.  Makes 18 tartlets, serves 6.

Lemon Tartlettes

This is a recipe I received in France.  It was written in French and I translated it with a computer program.

Lemon Tartlets 

Ingredients:

100 g or 1 cup of powdered sugar

125 g or 3/4 cup of farina and a little flour to the dough down

100 g or 1 cup almonds, ground

30 g or 1/4 cup of cocoa powder

30 g or 1/4 cup dark chocolate 70%

150 g 1/2 cup plus 2 Tablespoons cold butter and a little butter for molds

1 egg yolk

Filling:

3 lemons

6 egg yolks

250 g or 2 cups of sugar

180 g or 3/4 cup creme fraiche

In a large bowl, mix the powdered sugar, use pinch of salt, flour, almonds and cocoa. Grate and add the dark chocolate. Cut the butter into mixture. Add the butter and egg yolk. Knead everything by hand. Form a ball of dough, Place in plastic wrap and refrigerate 60 minutes to chill dough.

Meanwhile rinse with warm water and dry lemons. Grate the zest and squeeze the juice. Place the egg yolks, sugar and creme fraich in a double boiler. Mix and heat in a water bath stirring constantly until the mixture thickens. Remove the mixture from the water bath, pour into bowl and let cool completely cool. Stir from time to time.  Place a film of plastic wrap to prevent a skin from forming.

Preheat the oven to 350 F. (not convection).  Flour a working surface, roll the dough to 1/4 inch thick. Using a tart dish and a small knife, cut out circles in the dough . Butter tart dish and fit with circles of dough.  Refrigerate for 15 minutes to chill dough.  Place a piece of aluminum foil or parchment on dough and add pie weights or with dry beans. Bake the tart shells on the lower oven rack for 20 minutes. Remove the crusts from oven and remove the foil or parchment paper.  Pour the cream with lemon in baked shells and bake for 5 minutes more. Remove from oven and let tarts cool a few minutes. Delicately delicately unmold and sprinkle with powdered sugar before serving.