We seem to have come into rather a lot of bacon lately – I always pick up at least a couple of packs of my favorite thick-cut apple-wood smoked uncured bacon from Trader Joe’s to stash in the freezer for a bacon emergency (hey, they can happen!), and Rich picked up a couple of half-pound packs of uncured organic ‘Sunday Bacon’ that he was interested in trying.
All this bacon got me to thinking about a tart. Not a bacon quiche, a tart; so I went to da Google to see what I could see…
and I found a couple of interesting options, one, which I haven’t tried yet with ricotta and crème fraîche, seems quiche-like than I was thinking of (and, I already have a perfectly delicious bacon quiche recipe, thankyouverymuch), but the second (from the nice folk at Saveur), which I have now made twice, had me at the initial description of being kinda like a Yorkshire Pudding with bacon added.
(!)
So, I followed the instructions (mostly) and cooked bacon and sautéed onion and shallots and put it all in the oven and it came out, well, I can only say that it came out beautifully, and we had it for dinner with balsamic roasted asparagus.
The thing is, it was lovely to look at, and the pastry was light and airy and everything I’d hoped it would be; but the onion and shallots were just a bit too, too much.
And I thought it could use just bit of cheese.
So I went back to work (good thing we had all that bacon laying around).
I cut out the onion and shallots, and, while I kept the thin-cut Sunday bacon; this time, I roasted it with maple syrup and garlic powder and a bit of other seasoning the night before; saving the bacon fat from the bottom of the roasting pan for the tart.
The result?
Much more better, and, if you make the bacon ahead of time, you can be serving this fine tart with little muss and fuss, in a bit under an hour, so think of it for brunch, or even dinner with a salad – this dinner was kindofa bacon fest with a new BLT pasta salad recipe I’m working on.
INGREDIENTS
Batter:
•1-1/2 cup flour
•2 tsp dry mustard
•Small pinch of sea salt
•1/8 tsp black pepper
•1/8 tsp Aleppo pepper
•1-1/4 cup milk
•3 eggs
Toppings:
•4 oz bacon
•Shredded Cheddar cheese (about 1/4 cup)
As I noted above, I roasted my bacon the night before with maple syrup and seasonings, then saved the drippings and stashed them and the well drained bacon in the fridge until needed. If you’d rather just make your bacon fresh, cook in a large skillet over medium high heat until the bacon is cooked and crispy, about twelve minutes. Transfer the bacon to a paper towel lined plate and drain well.
Save the drippings.
Heat your oven to 425º and whisk the flour together with the dry mustard, salt, and peppers in a mixing bowl.
Lightly beat the eggs and stir into the flour mixture with the milk until you have a smooth batter.
Set aside to rest for ten minutes.
Add the bacon fat to a 9×11 inch baking dish (I added just a bit of good butter to mine because roasting the bacon did not yield as much fat as frying) and pop into the hot oven for ten minutes.
While your batter is resting and pan and bacon fat getting nice and hot; now would be a good time to cut your bacon into tiny chunks and shred your cheese, if you haven’t already.
Remove the baking pan from the oven, tilt to try to spread the melted bacon fat evenly, then pour the batter into the pan.
Sprinkle the chopped bacon and shredded cheese more or less evenly over the top of the batter, then return to the oven for 25 to 30 minutes, until the tart is golden brown and puffed up.
Remove from the pan and serve warm.
As an aside, a pizza cutter works a treat for cutting this.
No onion or shallots, sweet and zippy roasted bacon, and just a little bit of cheese make all the difference; and, while I am writing this post, I can most certainly confirm that any leftovers are quite tasty at breakfast the next morning.