(My First!) French Fridays With Dorie: Gerard’s Mustard Tart

So this is my first French Fridays With Dorie post (we were away last week). I’m so excited — our recent carb reductions have limited my Tuesdays With Dorie posts this year, which has made me very sad. But now there’s real food! Food I don’t have to feel guilty about! Yay!!!

French Fridays With Dorie is a group of bloggers working their way through Dorie Greenspan’s new book, Around My French Table: More Than 300 Recipes from My Home to Yours.

This book is gorgeous — even more gorgeous than Baking: From My Home to Yours, which I’ve been working my way through with the Tuesdays with Dorie group for more than two years now. This should be fun.

Last week’s gougères look fantastic. I really want to make them, and soon. But I need a party to take them to, so someone out there should invite me to one. And soon.

I was more dubious about this week’s recipe. I don’t like mustard. I don’t particularly like eggs or vegetables. (I am a huge fan of tart crust, though. Cutting carbs has been so hard!)

But it was my first French Fridays With Dorie, and I really want to start writing here more often, so I made it. Unfortunately, I decided to make it while I was at the grocery store on Monday afternoon (at about the same time I decided to make Tuesday’s apple cake, actually).

So we got home around 3 and Ben helpfully put the groceries away while I read the recipe. Um, chill the tart dough for three hours, and then another hour? Not good.

But in the spirit of adventure, I made the dough — easy as, well, pie in the food processor — and put it in the freezer, on the top “quick freeze” shelf. An hour later, it was way too hard to roll out, so I actually had to leave it on the table for about 10 minutes.

And then I rolled it. I hate rolling dough. There must be an easier way. I have tried plastic wrap, and this time I tried waxed paper. But I hate rolling dough.

I got it to a 12-inch circle (which Dorie says is the bare minimum, so it was good enough for me, although it shrank and did not entirely fill the pan after baking) and put it in the tart pan. And then froze it again, in lieu of the hour-long rest in the refrigerator it was supposed to have. And then baked it.

So we’re up to 6:15 p.m. or so by now. Tim was almost home, and I was hungry. Luckily I had cut and steamed the carrots and leeks ahead of time, so at least that was done, but arranging them prettily atop the eggs in the crust took a while.

It went into the oven at 6:45ish. I was so hungry. Came out of the oven a bit after 7; one benefit of having the crust not entirely fill the pan is that some of the filling ran out, so what was left was thinner — and baked faster!

We managed to let it cool for about 10 minutes, and then dug in. Despite the mustard and the eggs and the crème fraîche and the carrots and the leeks, I loved it. It was truly delicious.

I suppose there’s a lesson in there, but I’m not about to learn it.

We did manage to duct tape Ben to his chair and therefore save one piece to try cold. Two days later, it was still delicious.

This tart is great. I have faith that it’s a sign that everything I make from Around My French Table will also be great. Let the cooking begin!