French Fridays with Dorie: Gerard's Mustard Tart

This week I had an open evening that I don't normally have, so after hubby walked in the door from work, I quickly ditched him & the kiddies and headed over to my mom's house so we could try Gerard's Mustard Tart recipe together.

My mom purchased these mustards earlier in the week:

I am a mustard girl.  I can't eat a sandwich without mustard, I dip my fries in mustard, and when I was a young school girl, my mom often packed my lunch with my favorite sandwich ... "Mustard Sandwich" ... just a slice of bread with mustard on it.  BUT I enjoy my mustard in the plain, ol' regular variety.  I strongly despise "deli" mustard that's made with horseradish ... that stuff isn't meant for humans!  I also had a somewhat gross/funny experience with Grey Poupon in high school, so I've steered clear of the stuff since my sophomore year. Despite my love affair with mustard, I was really worried about not liking the results of this recipe because the recipe called for mustards that were not within my comfort zone. 

My mom & I cautiously opened the jars of mustard, took a few quick sniffs from afar, and we both slowly moved-in on the mustards realizing that they didn't smell that bad after all.  Now that we were feeling a little bit better about the mustards, we started chopping our leeks & carrots into matchsticks.  We steamed our veggies with a sprig of rosemary.  Rosemary ... another item I was somewhat worried about ... the smell and flavor it added was very subtle though.  Just perfect.  The aroma was actually quite comforting.  The leeks made the kitchen smell like a pot roast in the oven on a Sunday afternoon.

My mom had actually made & chilled the crust dough ahead of time, so all I had to do was roll it out & get it into the tart pan that I had chosen.  The dough rolled out very nicely and I had no problems getting it into my tart pan.  I trimmed the dough where I had excess so that the edges hung down and just barely touched the countertop.  I then took the excess dough and folded it back inside the tart shell & pressed it to the sides which made the sides of my shell twice as thick.  I would definitely use this technique again because it made the crust look very nice and I was thankful for that little bit of extra reinforcement.

I stuck with the original recipe and just used leeks and carrots with heavy cream in my tart.  Before going into the oven:

My baked mustard tart:

My mom's baked tart with leeks, carrots, Chinese eggplant, & tomatoes:

We were anxious to see how our tarts turned out.  Both tarts slipped right out of the tart pans and the crusts looked beautiful:

Then came the moment of truth.  My mom and I each got ourselves a slice of both tarts.  I sat down with a large glass of water ... I was still worried about how these tarts were going to taste.  I stared at my plate for a minute and then took a small bite.  For the second week in a row, I was very pleasantly surprised.  It was delicious!  The mustards were perfect, there were no hard pieces of mustard grains, and the crust ... THE CRUST!! .... the crust was A-mazing!!!  Flaky & perfect.  I'll tell you what ... this cookbook was worth buying just for the crust recipe!  My mom & I had even talked (while our tarts were in the oven) about using a pre-made crust next time since this wasn't a "special dessert", but after tasting the crust, we both quickly changed our minds and agreed that making the crust was well worth-it! (It wasn't hard or time consuming ... it just requires some planning.) A mustard tart with mushrooms and tomatoes would make a wonderful breakfast or brunch. I thought it would be nice to make the tart in a square or rectangular shaped tart pan and then cut it into 2x2" pieces for an appetizer or finger-food.



As I write, I have more chilled dough & veggies in my fridge.  My plan is to make two more mustard tarts for dinner tonight.  I'm going to try one with tomatoes & basil.  I will keep you posted on my results.