Mushroom Tart

Smitten Kitchen, which is arguably the most incredible cooking blog ever, just came out with its cookbook. For my birthday, my lovely sister sent me a brand-spankin' new copy of it. As always, when I receive a new cookbook, I leaf through and mark the recipes I have an interest in.

About 75% of the recipes...

My favorite cookbook, which is The Golden Book of Chocolate looks like this...

 Usually I'll mark any recipes that feature chocolate, so marking that book required a LOT of self-restraint, believe it or not.
Anyways, I recieved this amazing new cookbook. While I always love her recipes, I decided to make a few variations on her Wild Mushroom Tart. I loved the unique shapes of Shiitake mushrooms so I featured them in my tart pretty heavily. 
I also made a double batch of pie dough because today I made TWO recipes from ONE pie dough! Woooooah! This is, of course, a savory recipe, but the other is sweet. That's right, a universal pie dough. 

Oven Temp: 350
Prep Time: 30 minutes
Bake Time: 40 minutes
Total Time: 2 hours
You're probably noticing that 30 and 40 minutes should add up to and hour and 10 minutes, but you need to cool the pie crust for 30 minutes additionally, plus cooling time rounds to around 2 hours.

Pie Crust
1 1/4 cup flour
1/2 cup butter, chilled and cubed
3 tbls cup ice water (or cold water)
1 tbls apple cider vinegar
1/3 cup grated hard cheese (cheddar, parmesan or asiago recommended)
1 tbls ground pepper

The heavenly smell of melting butter

Filling
1 tbls veggie oil
1 tbls butter
1 tbls thyme
1 tbls chopped chives
2 shallots, chopped up
2 garlic cloves, minced
1lb wild mushroom variety (I used shiitakes), pulled into pieces or slived
1/2 lb sliced mushrooms (the regular white or brown guys)
1/4 heavy cream
1/4 cup sour cream
1/2 cup ricotta
2 eggs
1/2 cup hard cheese (I used a mix of romano, provolone, mozzarella and parmesan)

Begin by preheating the oven to 375 (I know the bake temperature is 350, but you  need to bake the pie crust prior to filling it, so viola!). I pop 1/3 a cup of water in the freeze at this point to cool it off. Cut the butter into the flour (you can also use a food processor) until it makes a crumbly mixture. Pour in to the vinegar and continue cutting. Add in the water. Mix in cheese and pepper and need.
Roll out into a patty shape. Wrap up and place in fridge for 30 minutes.
In the mean time, begin chopping up the mushrooms. I had to take a moment to admire the shape and funk of the shiitakes.


Melt the butter in a pan. Add in the oil. Over medium-low heat, sizzle the shallots for about two minutes. Add garlic, let sit for another minute or two before mixing in chives, thyme and mushrooms.

 It's a huge quantity of mushrooms, so you need to flip them a lot until they shrink enough to fit in the pan. They need to simmer until there is little water left in them. It will smell amazing.
As the mushroom mix is simmering, mix together the heavy cream, sour cream and ricotta until smooth. Add in the eggs and hard cheese.
When mushroom mix is done, stir into cheese mix.

When the pie dough is done, take out of fridge and roll out.
Often there will be too much dough. In situations like this, I always resort to making "Sammy snacks" by chopping up the dough and baking.



Place in a tart pan  and bake at 375 for 15 minutes. Take out. Pour in mushroom mixture and bake at 350 for about 40 minutes.

 Pre-bake

    

                                       Post-bake

It's so good that the ghost that lives in my oven ate a slice before it was even finished baking!