When we spend time at my parents’ vacation home in the Vosges, a mountain range in northeastern France, one of our favorite excursions is to go to Colmara historic Alsatian town on the other side of the mountain.
We’ve been going since my parents have had the house, just over twenty years, and although Colmar is as wonderful as Alsatian cities (that is, a lot), with paved streets, pretty canals and stunning architecture, the capital 😀 Draw for me is the flame cake let’s go to lunch.
Also known as flambée cakethe flammekueche (pronounced flam-küsh*) can be described as Alsatian pizza: a very thin round of pasta topped with cream, finely sliced onions, strips of bacon and sometimes mushrooms (the forester) and cheese (the gratinated), cooked in a wood-fired oven until the edges are golden and crispy.
Sitting at one of the outdoor tables outside our favorite restaurant in Colmar, we converse as we wait for our tartes flambées to arrive, and our collective joy vibrates in the air as the waiters bring them out, all warm and fragranton wooden planks.
I would never have thought of creating my own if it weren’t for Frédérique, the textile designer and special correspondent who will share his guide to Strasbourg next month, and offered her flammekueche recipe as a bonus. As he explained, it’s a popular dish to make for a casual meal with friends throughout Alsace. In fact, it’s so common for supermarkets to sell ready-made pasta rolls that you can simply top and bake.
I never met them in Paris and I soon discovered that the dough is like that easy to make there’s almost no need for a shortcut: it’s just flour, salt, oil and water, with no yeast to intimidate the cook.
And once you’ve rolled the dough thin, it’s just a matter of spreading it out some condiments above and cook in a very hot oven. In just a few minutes you can have your tarte flambée sizzling on your table.
In fact, I can’t think of a more festive food to share with friends over drinks. But everything happens so quickly. Maxence and I also had fun for a dinner of the week. In fact, I took it for a test drive one evening and liked it so much that we had tarte flambée for dinner. nights. in a row. We called it Alsatian week.
* Alternative spellings are numerous depending on the region and dialect: flammkuche, flammkuchen, flammekuechle, flàmmeküeche…
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Flammekueche (Alsatian pizza) recipe.
Ingredients
- 250 grams (2 cups) multipurpose Flour
- 1/2 teaspoon fine sea salt
- 3 tablespoons organic rapeseed oil
- Approximately 120ml (1/2 cup) waterfall
- 6 tablespoons sliced very thin onionred or yellow
- 75 grams (2 2/3) coarse cut raw Baconcut into 1cm (1/3 inch) strips (called lardons in French)
- 60ml (1/4 cup) thick sour cream (substitute sour cream) (see note)
- 1/4 teaspoon fine sea salt
- Freshly ground black pepper
- Freshly grated nutmeg
- 6 tablespoons freshly grated cheesesuch as Comté or Gruyère (optional)
- Chivescut
- Optional additions: sliced mushrooms or French sliced Munster cheese
For the dough:
For the filling:
Instructions
- First, prepare the dough. In a medium bowl, combine the flour, salt and oil. Slowly mix the water, using a fork or dough whisk, until it comes together. (The exact amount of water needed will vary depending on the quality of the flour, how you measured it, the humidity, etc. Adjust accordingly.)
- Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured work surface and knead lightly until it forms a ball. (If making the dough ahead of time, place the ball on a plate, cover with cling film and refrigerate for up to a day.)
- Preheat the oven to 250°C (480°F) and line a baking tray with baking paper.
- Divide the dough into 2 equal pieces; cover what you won’t use right away.
- On a lightly floured surface with a lightly floured rolling pin, roll out the dough into a thin, rough circle, about 35cm wide.
- In a bowl, combine the crème fraîche with salt, black pepper and nutmeg.
- Distribute half of it on the dough circle. Cover with half the onion and the lard. If you use grated cheese, add it now.
- Bake for 10 minutes, until the crust is golden at the edges and the filling is bubbly.
- Transfer to a cutting board. Sprinkle with chives and cut into slices with kitchen scissors or a pizza wheel. Prepare a second flammekueche with the remaining ingredients.
Notes
- Some Alsatian chefs prepare flammekueche only with crème fraîche, others only with crème fraîche white cheese (a fresh cheese that has the consistency of yogurt), still others with a mix of the two. I used crème fraîche just for simplicity.
- More is not better when it comes to toppings for tarte flambée: don’t pile on everything you have, otherwise it will be soggy and unbalanced.
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https://cnz.to/recipes/antipasti/flammekueche-alsatian-pizza-recipe/
Unless otherwise indicated, all recipes are copyright Clotilde Dusoulier.
