From: TABLE MANNERS
Recipe courtesy: Chef Thierry Rautureau and Cynthia Nims, Rover’s: Recipes from Seattle’s Chef In The Hat!!! (Ten Speed Press), rovers-seattle.com
Serves: 8
Ingredients:
- 4 small beets (about 1 pound), scrubbed
- 8 ounces goat cheese caillé or other fresh goat cheese
- ½ recipe pâte brisée or ¾ pound savory pastry dough
- 1 tablespoon minced shallots
- 1 teaspoon minced chives, with extra for garnish
- ½ teaspoon minced garlic
- ¼ cup heavy cream
- salt and freshly ground white pepper
- olive oil, for garnish
- Walla Walla Sweet Onion Purée (see recipe below)
Directions:
- Put the beets in a large saucepan of cold salted water and bring to a boil over high heat. Reduce the heat to medium and simmer until the beets are fully tender, about 1¼ hours. The beets should be fully covered with water as they cook; if needed, add more hot water to the saucepan.
- When cooked, drain the beets well and let cool until easy to handle. Peel away the skin and trim the beets to a cylinder about 1½ inches in diameter, then cut across the cylinder into slices about ¼-inch thick.
- Crumble the goat cheese into a small bowl and set aside to soften at room temperature.
- Preheat the oven to 350° F.
- Roll out the pâte brisée or savory pastry dough to a thickness of about 1/16 inch. Cut 8 circles about 4 inches across.
- Line 8 3-inch tartlet pans with the dough, pressing it down well into the edges of the pans. Prick the bottom of the tart shells well with the tines of a fork. Blind bake the empty tartlet shells until edges are set and the entire shell opaque, approximately 12-18 minutes.
- Take the pans from the oven and set on a wire rack to cool completely. Reduce the oven temperature to 300° F.
- Add the shallot, chives, and garlic to the softened goat cheese and stir to evenly blend. Add the cream and stir until smooth. Season to taste with salt and pepper.
- When cooled, carefully remove the pastry shells from the pans. Spoon the goat cheese mixture into the pastry shells, pressing gently with the back of a spoon to form an even layer. Arrange the beet slices on top, slightly overlapping the circles.
- Set the tartlets on a baking sheet and lay a piece of parchment paper over the tartlets to avoid drying out. Warm in the oven just until the cheese begins to soften, about 8 to 10 minutes.
- Reheat the sweet onion purée over medium-low heat.
- Spoon the sweet onion purée into the center of warmed plates, forming a circle about 1 inch larger than the tartlets. Set the warm tartlets on top of the sauce. Drizzle olive oil over the beet slices, top with a pinch of chives, and sprinkle lightly with salt and pepper. Serve immediately.
Walla Walla Sweet Onion Purée
Ingredients:
- 6 tablespoons unsalted butter
- 1 small Walla Walla sweet onion, cut into ¼-inch slices
- salt and freshly ground white pepper
- ¾ cup vegetable stock
- ¼ teaspoon minced thyme
Directions:
- For the Walla Walla sweet onion purée, heat the butter in a medium skillet over medium-low heat until melted and foamy white.
- Add the onion with a good pinch of salt and pepper and cook, stirring occasionally, until very tender and just lightly caramelized, about 30 minutes.
- Add the vegetable stock and thyme and bring just to a boil over high heat, then reduce the heat to medium-low and simmer until the liquid is reduced by one-third, 8 to 10 minutes.
- Transfer to a blender or food processor and purée until very smooth. Taste the purée for seasoning, adding more salt or pepper to taste; set aside in a small saucepan.