Pissaladière - Bacon Onion Anchovy Olive Tart

This pissaladière or, to give it a much more descriptive name in English, Bacon Onion Anchovy Olive Tart is baked with a non-traditional sourdough crust. The bacon, anchovies and olives are beautifully salty, perfect atop the sweet onions. A square or two of pissaladière makes a great appetizer or anytime snack. If you don’t have time for all the rising and resting time necessary, feel free to substitute your favorite pizza dough instead.

Pissaladière is originally a traditional Liguria dish that made its way over to southeastern France and found a new home. Such a firm home that I was convinced that it was all French when we lived in Paris. Pissaladière was initially made with a spiced anchovy paste called pissalat but recipes commonly found on the web these days use whole anchovies instead and occasionally introduce another non-original topping, lardons, which are small pieces of smoked bacon.

The base can be made either a yeast dough or with a nod to the French influence, sometimes a pastry crust or even puff pastry. In the past, I’ve made round pissaladières for family dinners but in bakeries all across France it is sold as a popular snack cut into squares, so this time I decided to go rectangular.

I will tell you that it is excellent with a glass of something bright and sparkling or even a cold beer.

Pissaladière - Bacon Onion Anchovy Olive Tart

This recipe was adapted from one on Journal Des Femmes, for the toppings that is. The crust for the bottom was adapted from the recipe for focaccia integrale from James Morton’s new cookbook, Super Sourdough, which is AH-MAZING. < affiliate link. Take your sourdough starter out of the fridge at least 8–14 hours before you want to bake. If it hasn’t been fed recently, give it a feed when you take it out. As I mentioned above though, you can also substitute your favorite pizza dough if you aren’t into sourdough but it won’t be the same!

Ingredients
For the base:
5 1/3 oz (by weight, not fl oz) or 150g rye or wholemeal (wholewheat) sourdough starter
3 1/3 cups or 425g strong white (bread) flour
1 1/2 scant teaspoons or 8g table salt
1 1/2 cups or 350g tepid-warm water (about 77°F or 25°C)
1/2 cup or 100g good-quality extra virgin olive oil, plus extra for oiling and drizzling

For the toppings:
1/4 teaspoon salt
2.2 lbs or 1 kg onions
6 tablespoons olive oil
several sprigs fresh thyme
1 can (2 oz or 56g) anchovy fillets, salt cured, in olive oil
20 black oil cured olives (about 60g whole)
1/2 cup or 60g bacon crumbles

Method
James Morton’s sourdough focaccia requires a lot of rising time so you’ll either want to start super early in the day or take his recommendation to leave it overnight in the refrigerator for the second rise. That way you can bake whenever you are ready the next day, simply taking the dough out with enough time for it to come to room temperature again and finish rising before topping and baking.

Let’s get started. In a large bowl, weigh your flour and salt, mixing them both together well. Pour in your sourdough starter along with the tepid water. Mix everything until you have a very wet dough.

You can use a wooden spoon or stiff spatula but a friend recently gave me a Danish whisk and it is a great tool for this! (Am I the only one who had never heard of this fabulous tool?)

Cover the bowl with a damp cloth and let the dough rest for about 20–30 minutes.

Scrape the dough out onto a clean surface with NO FLOUR. We don’t want to add more flour to this very soft dough. A scraper comes in very handy here.

Knead your dough with the slap and fold method. This is a different focaccia recipe (and mine never got that firm) but you can watch James knead it here with the slap and fold method.

Slap and fold for about 5 minutes and as soon as it feels smooth, add your oil. Mix this until completely combined and you’ve got a very soft, shiny dough. Again the Danish whisk came in very handy here. I simply scooped the dough and oil and let it drop from the whisk repeatedly until the oil was mixed in.

Cover your bowl again with the damp cloth and leave in a relatively warm place for about 4 hours.

Peel the onions and cut them in half. Remove the hard core at the end and cut them into 1/4 in or 1/2 cm thick slices. Place them in a casserole dish with 5 tablespoons of olive oil, 3 tablespoons of water and the salt.

Cover and cook for 40 minutes over a low fire, stirring occasionally.

At the end of cooking, remove the cover and continue to cook until almost all of the liquid has evaporated, but without allowing the onions to brown. You will be amazed at how much they will cook down and how sweet the onions become, almost jammy.

Meanwhile, pit your olives by hitting them with the flat side of a large knife and pulling the pits out. Cut them into halves.

Drain the can of anchovy fillets and pop them on a saucer. This will make it easier to separate them. I like to use the point of a toothpick to ease them away from each other till they are single file on the plate. I also like to cut the thicker ones in half lengthwise to spread the saltiness more evenly around the pissaladière.

After the 4-hour rise, oil a 12 x 16in or 30 x 40cm baking pan and then add a little oil on top of your proven dough.

Scrape the dough with your well-oiled hands into the well-oiled pan, easing the dough out to the edges, trying very hard not to pop its lovely air bubbles.

Now fold your dough in half, and then fold your new, longer dough in half again. My dough was so soft that it just oozed back larger before I could take a photo of it looking a quarter of its original size.

Add more oil if it’s sticking, and gently push your dough out into the corners of the baking pan.

Stick your pan inside a plastic bag and leave to prove for 2–3 more hours at room temperature.

Alternatively, you can retard this prove overnight by putting the bag covered dough in the refrigerator overnight or for up to 24 hours until your bread is ready to bake. If you do prove overnight, like I do, make sure to take the dough out a good hour before you want to bake so it can come to room temperature again and reach its full rise.

Before topping!

Preheat your oven to 480ºF or 250ºC at least 30–40 minutes before you expect to bake your bread.  James is a big advocate of baking stones so if you have one, put it on the middle rack of your oven to heat up, along with an iron skillet on the bottom to which you’ll add water for steam.

Just before it’s ready to bake, remove the dough pan from the plastic bag and add the toppings gently so as not to deflate all of the bubbles, starting with the onions, then adding the bacon crumbles and finally the anchovies and olives.

Put your baking pan on the stone, if using, or middle shelf and add one cup or 240ml of water to the skillet on the bottom. Close the oven quickly and turn the temperature down to 430°F or 220°C. Bake for 20 minutes then open the oven door briefly to allow any steam to escape and continue baking for a further 15-20 minutes or until the edges are a lovely golden brown color.

Remove your pissaladière from the oven and leave to cool for about 15 minutes before adding the sprigs of thyme and another drizzle of olive oil, if desired.

Cut into squares to serve.

Enjoy!

This month my Baking Blogger friends are all sharing French recipes at the instigation of our fabulous host and organizer, Sue of Palatable Pastime. Check out all the great bakes below:

• Alsatian Bacon and Onion Tart (Tarte Flambée) from Making Miracles
• Blueberry & Cream Cheese Croque Cake from Sneha's Recipe ---
• Broyé du Poitou (Shortbread from Poitiers) from Tara's Multicultural Table
• Chocolate-Covered Cherry Bon Bon Cookies from Faith, Hope, Love, & Luck Survive Despite a Whiskered Accomplice
• Crème Brûlée from Karen's Kitchen Stories
• Easy Cauliflower Gratin from Cook with Renu
• Fraisier - French Strawberry Cake from Veg'n'Bake
• French Breakfast Puffs from A Day in the Life on the Farm
• Gratin aux Courgette from Sid's Sea Palm Cooking
• Pain de Campagne (French Country Bread) from Caroline's Cooking
• Pissaladière - Bacon Onion Anchovy Olive Tart from Food Lust People Love
• Poulet à la Normande from Culinary Adventures with Camilla

Baking Bloggers is a friendly group of food bloggers who vote on a shared theme and then post recipes to fit that theme one the second Monday of each month. If you are a food blogger interested in joining in, inquire at our Baking Bloggers Facebook group. We'd be honored if you would join us in our baking adventures.

Pin this Pissaladière!

 .

Île Flottante Floating Island Bundt #BundtBakers

A fun and easy twist on the original French dessert called îles flottantes, this floating island Bundt features meringue baked in a Bundt pan, served with fresh fruit and crème anglais, a pourable vanilla custard.

This month our host for Bundt Bakers is Lara from Tartacadabra and she posed an interesting challenge: Recreate a French dessert or pastry using a Bundt pan. Make sure you scroll down past my recipe to see what everyone else made.

Île Flottante Floating Island Bundt

The original Îles Flottantes are made by poaching meringue in water or milk, then serving them in custard. In this adaptation, we bake the meringue in a Bundt pan. So much easier and, if you ask me, more impressive as a holiday or dinner party dessert.  Possibly my favorite part though, is that you don’t have leftover yolks, which so often happens when making meringue. The crème anglais, aka pouring custard, takes care of that!

Ingredients - to serve 6
For the île flottante:
4 large egg whites, room temperature
1/2 teaspoon cream of tartar
pinch salt
1/2 cup plus 1 tablespoon or 125g superfine (caster) sugar
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

For the crème anglaise:
1/3 cup or 75g extra fine (caster) sugar
2 tablespoons flour
1 teaspoon vanilla paste
pinch salt
2 cups or 480ml whole milk
4 egg yolks
1 1/2 teaspoons butter

To grease a 6-cup Bundt pan:
2 teaspoons canola oil

Optional for serving: your choice of berries or fresh fruit. I used a mix of blueberries, raspberries and golden berries. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Physalis_peruviana

Method
Preheat oven to 375°F or 190°C. Brush your Bundt pan with oil, and invert onto a paper towel so any excess oil can drain off.

To make the meringue, first put your kettle on to boil.

Sift the cream of tartar into the egg whites with the pinch of salt. Beat them at a medium speed until soft peaks form.

Add in the sugar one tablespoon at a time, gradually turning the beaters up to high as you add the sugar. Beat on high until stiff glossy peaks form then mix in the vanilla extract.

Put your Bundt pan into a larger baking pan. Spoon the meringue into the oiled Bundt pan, making sure to fill all the corners and crevices.

Put the pans into your preheated oven and pour boiling water into the outer pan till it reaches about 2 inches or 5cm up the side of the Bundt pan.

Bake for 20-25 minutes or until the meringue is puffed and golden brown. Set on a wire rack to cool for about 30 minutes. It will be very tall when you first take it out and then it will shrink. This is normal.

Turn the meringue out onto a serving plate and chill until ready to serve. I turned mine out onto a cling film lined wire rack then transferred it. Save yourself an unnecessary step and go straight to the serving dish.

The Crème Anglais aka Pouring Custard
I make this the same way I make homemade vanilla custard for banana cream pie, except I stop cooking it when it’s still pourable. You can see those instructions and step-by-step photos in this post, so I won't add them all in again here.

In a 2-quart saucepan (don’t turn the heat on yet!) mix sugar, flour and salt. Stir in milk and vanilla paste and whisk until smooth. Make sure you get ALL the lumps out before turning on the heat.

Over medium heat, cook the mixture, stirring constantly, until it starts to thicken and begins to boil gently (about 10 minutes). Boil one minute. Remove immediately from heat and set aside.

In a small mixing bowl, beat the egg yolks with a whisk, while drizzling in about half of the hot milk mixture. Quick beating and slow drizzling are essential so that you don’t end up with cooked eggs.

Slowly pour the egg mixture into the saucepan, stirring rapidly to prevent lumping. Occasionally, scrape the saucepan with a rubber spatula.

Over low heat, cook, stirring constantly, until the custard just coats the back of a spoon. It should still be pourable. Add in the butter and stir till it melts completely. If there are any little lumps, you might want to put the custard through a sieve before putting it in a heatproof vessel and covering the surface with cling film. Put it in the refrigerator to cool.

Pour some custard around the outside of the floating island before bringing it to the table.

Serve a wedge of île flottante – floating island Bundt with crème anglais and fruit.

Enjoy!

Many thanks to Lara for hosting Bundt Bakers this month. I loved this creative theme! Check out the other très magnifique French desserts we’ve made into Bundts:

• Almond-Brown Butter Bundt Cake by Katin špajz
• Baba Rum Bundt Cake by Merce's Cake
• Brioche Bundt Cake by I love Bundt Cakes
• Bundt Cake Quatre-Quarts Breton by Patyco Candybar
• Chez Panisse Almond Bundt by Sweet Sensations
• French Opera Bundt Cake by Tartacadabra
• Île Flottante (Floating Island) Bundt by Food Lust People Love
• Quatre-Quart Bundt Cake by Sneha's Recipe
• Tarte Tatin in a Bundt Pan by A Day in the Life on the Farm
• Tropézienne Bundt Cake by Patty's Cake

#BundtBakers is a group of Bundt loving bakers who get together once a month to bake Bundts with a common ingredient or theme. We take turns hosting each month and choosing the theme or ingredient.

You can see all our of lovely Bundts by following our Pinterest board. Updated links for all of our past events and more information about #BundtBakers, can be found on our home page.

Pin it!

 .

Bacon Leek Flamiche #BreadBakers

This bacon leek flamiche is my version of the traditional French recipe, made with a springy yeast dough crust, topped with smoked bacon, leeks, green onions, cream and cheese.

When our Bread Bakers host for this month announced the theme a few months back – flatbreads with yeast – I duly made a note in my calendar but I didn’t really give it that much thought. After all, almost every country or culture in the world has a flatbread they call their own. I knew my options were going to be many and various, and the hardest thing was going to be to choose just one.

Then I picked up last month’s issue (March 2018) of one of my favorite recipe inspiration sources, delicious.magazine from the UK. (The Australian version is also fabulous and I always bought it when we lived in Malaysia since our imported seasonal produce often came from down under.) On page 121, there was a recipe for a leek flamiche, a French flatbread I’d never heard of.

Clearly a little research was necessary. Turns out that flamiche means different things to different people. For some, it’s made with puff pastry. Others prefer shortcrust as the base. Still more bakers use a brioche-like dough for the crust. Sometimes the crust is complete flat like pizza, and sometimes it has a raised edge.

They all seem to agree on a semi-soft cheese in the topping though, and many include leeks and crispy fried smoked bacon bits.

Bacon Leek Flamiche

This recipe is adapted from several I found on the internet, but I am grateful to delicious. magazine for introducing me to this wonderful dish. The dough for the crust is quite sticky so I recommend using a stand mixer with a dough hook for kneading, if you have one. Otherwise, get ready for a workout!

Ingredients
For the base:
1/2 cup or 120ml warm milk
1 teaspoon dry yeast
2 1/4 - 2 1/2 cups or 280-315g strong white bread flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup or 57g butter, melted and cooled
1 egg, at room temperature

For the topping:
5 slices thick cut smoked bacon, chopped (about 175g)
13 1/4 oz or 375g trimmed leeks
1 3/4 oz or 50g green onions, green and white part
salt and ground pepper
2 large eggs
1/2 cup or 120ml whipping cream
7 3/4 oz or 220g semi-soft ripe cheese, like Pavé d'Auge. (The orange rind is gorgeous!)

Tip: Semi-soft cheese is easier to slice if it is well chilled. I pop mine into the freezer about 20-30 minutes before slicing and recommend you do the same.

Method
Dissolve the yeast in warm milk and set aside for a few minutes to make sure your yeast is active. It should start to foam and bubble.

In the mixing bowl of your stand mixer, sprinkle the salt on to 2 1/4 cups or 280g flour, then pour in the milk/yeast mixture, the egg, and melted butter.

Mix thoroughly and then switch to the bread hook and knead until the dough loses its stickiness and is smooth and elastic, about 5-7 minutes. You can add a little more flour if you need to while kneading.

Shape the dough into a ball and put it back in the mixing bowl. Cover the bowl with a damp cloth or cling film and put it in a warm place till the dough has doubled in size, about 1 hour.

Meanwhile, rinse the leeks and onions and remove the roots. Cut them all into slices, discarding any hard pieces. Set aside a small handful of the tender green onion tops for garnish.

Brown the chopped bacon in a large skillet. Scoop the pieces from the pan with a slotted spoon and drain them on paper towels.

Remove all but 2 tablespoons of bacon fat from the pan and tip in the bigger pile of the sliced leeks and onions. Fry them gently over a low heat for 15 minutes or until softened, stirring regularly. Season with salt and pepper and set aside to cool.

Once your dough is sufficiently risen, preheat your oven to 400°F or 200°C).

Line a tart pan (11 in or 28cm) with baking parchment and press out the dough evenly on the bottom and up the sides. Prick extravagantly with a fork.

Set aside a tiny handful of the bacon for garnish then spoon the leeks, onions and the bigger pile of bacon into the crust.

Beat the eggs and cream in a small bowl, using a whisk.  Season with a pinch of salt and some freshly ground black pepper. Pour about 3/4 of the egg mixture over the filling.

Cut your chilled cheese into about 12 slices. Lay them on top of the bacon and leeks, as you see fit. I put 8 radiating out from the middle, then cut the last four in half lengthwise and placed them between the other slices and in the middle of the circle.

Top with the rest of the egg mixture, then sprinkle on your reserved bacon bits and green onions.

Bake in the preheated oven for about 25 to 30 minutes or until the filling is puffy and the cheese is melted and the crust is golden brown.

Remove from the oven and allow to cool for about 10 minutes before slicing to serve.

Enjoy!

Many thanks to Sonia from Sonlicious for choosing such a great theme and for hosting Bread Bakers this month.

• Amritsari Paneer Kulcha - Indian Flat Bread from Sonlicious
• Bacon Leek Flamiche from Food Lust People Love
• Chole Kulche Delhi Style from The Mad Scientist's Kitchen
• Creamy Garlic Flatbread Pizza from A Day in the Life on the Farm
• Detroit-Style Pepperoni Pizza from Karen's Kitchen Stories
• Foccacia Bread from Cook with Renu
• Garlic Naan Bread from Palatable Pastime
• Manakish Za’atar from Herbivore Cucina
• Methi Naan from Mayuri's Jikoni
• Naan from Ambrosia
• Nángbĭng from A Shaggy Dough Story
• Quick Beer Crust Pizza from Cook’s Hideout
• Sourdough Flatbread from Sneha's Recipe
• Yemeni Malooga Bread from Gayathri's Cook Spot

#BreadBakers is a group of bread loving bakers who get together once a month to bake bread with a common ingredient or theme. Follow our Pinterest board right here. Links are also updated each month on this home page.

We take turns hosting each month and choosing the theme/ingredient.

Pin it! 

 .