i have a list of things to cook for m, but am always somewhat overwhelmed by the sheer length of the list and the complexity of the recipes. tonight, i faced those fears head on and made a leek shiitake gorgonzola tart. a leek tart has been on her list for years. in building up to tonight’s culinary adventure, i looked for all sorts of recipes in all sorts of places. one recipe called for “your favorite savory pastry crust recipe” – i don’t have a favorite savory pastry crust recipe. i finally decided on the cook’s illustrated recipe because i wanted to stop thinking about whether i had the proper sized pie tin or what kind of pastry crust to use and if i could even find a crust that would taste good.
this leek tart was no small feat. it is currently in the oven and it took me over 4 hours to prepare (mind you, 1.5 hours of that was dough sitting in the refrigerator). the hardest part was the dough. i am a chickens**t when it comes to dough. i now bake bread but only found confidence after the 25th loaf when i started producing consistent results. i look in the oven constantly to check whether something is done. souffles – ha! a baker i probably won’t be. i rely on m’s expertise when we make gnocchi and pierogies. i don’t know proper rolling technique. but most of my stuff comes out tasting pretty good, so i guess i can get away with my rudimentary skill set. for now.
i am particularly proud of myself and this tart because all of my steps and results looked like the steps and results in the cook’s video. i produced pea-sized pieces of butter in my dough mixture. i achieved a loose, shaggy mass of dough as required in step 2. i rolled and folded my (very) buttery dough in the same way as shown in step 3. i didn’t roll my dough out into a proper 14-inch circle, but i was able to fold the dough and pinch the edges over the filling in a shape reminiscent of a circle. it looked more like an oval, but i think that’s what you get when you roll dough into a rectangle and then bring the sides in.
as i type this, i smell buttery, warm dough. my labor of love for my one and only is almost done cooking. i can’t believe i made a proper dough. and i don’t know how the french do it. in every brasserie, there must be a grandmother slaving away over a table of flour with a rolling pin that sees no rest. making a crust from scratch is quite involved. this tart is not a quick evening, post-work meal. it is a significant endeavor. i protest and say that i’ll never make this tart again, but making that dough was deeply satisfying and i may have to try it again just so i can be certain that i actually made it.
