Recipe for Alsatian flammekueche (flambé pie)
Food lovers, here's a new must-try recipe from Alsace: Flammekueche (or flammkueche/flammküche, pronounced "Flam'koureu")! Here are my tips for making them at home.
The origins of flammekueche
Flammekueche was originally a festive snack for farmers. When they baked bread, they used the leftover dough, topped with cottage cheese and bacon. It was baked at the same time as the bread, in a hot wood-fired oven. It’s a tart flambéed over a wood fire (flammée would be more accurate).
When the tart came out of the oven, still hot, we cut it into rectangular slices, rolled up the slice and ate it with our fingers. That’s how we always eat it (don’t take out your cutlery 😉 ).
For those of you who aren’t necessarily at ease with our (lovely) dialect, you can just as easily talk about tarte flambée, it’ll be easier, and you’ll be talking about exactly the same thing as your Alsatian friends.
Don’t have time to cook?
You might as well enjoy it right there: here are our top picks in Strasbourg and Colmar.
Flammkueche recipes
The original flammkueche recipe has changed very little: cream is now mixed with fromage blanc, and we’ve come up with some gourmet variations, which can be found on most restaurant menus in the region. Here they are:
- traditional tarte flambée (called “normal”): bacon and onions;
- la gratinée: normal + Gruyère cheese;
- la forestière: onions + mushrooms;
- Forestière au gratin: onions + mushrooms + Gruyère (and sometimes lardons too)
- tarte flambée with munster cheese: normal + munster cheese;
- tarte flambée aux pommes: a sweet dessert made with apple slices and flambéed in Calvados, the possibilities are endless!
Personally, I often stick to a good traditional tarte flambée. For an aperitif, or as a main course, flam’s are very easy to make.
Baking the tarte flambée
Ideally, of course, it should be baked in a tarte flambée or pizza oven. But you can also make it in your traditional oven, by placing it on a baking sheet with parchment paper. And if you’ve got a pizza stone, now’s the time to get it out, as it adds a little extra to the baking process.
Our recipe
Alsatian Flammekueche (flambé tart)
Ingredients
For the dough
- 250 gr flour
- 25 ml rapeseed oil
- 1 pinch of salt
- 150 ml warm water
For the trim
- 150 gr heavy cream
- 150 gr white cheese
- 3 onions
- 200 gr smoked bacon
- Pepper
- Grated nutmeg
- 1 tablespoon rapeseed oil.
Instructions
- Prepare the dough: mix the flour with the salt, oil and lukewarm water and knead well (using a food processor if possible). The dough is ready!
- All that remains is to roll it out into a disk or rectangle shape, depending on the size of your baking sheet.
- Next, prepare the filling: mix the crème fraîche and fromage blanc in a bowl. Add pepper and grated nutmeg. The mixture should be well flavored.
- Turn the oven on to 230°C.
- Thinly slice the onions; you can sauté them, but if not, they’ll cook in the oven.
- Place the dough on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper (or on a pizza peel to place on your hot firebrick).
- Using a spatula, spread the mixture over the dough, leaving a 1 cm border. Sprinkle evenly with bacon and a handful of onions.
- Place in the oven when warm.
- The tart will be ready in 8 to 10 minutes. The pie should start to brown. Serve hot.
Notes
