This weeks challenge was Flammkuchen mit Pilzen or Tarte flambee with mushrooms. We’ve gotten this in restaurants before, but until now, I had no idea how much fat goes into this dish.
First, the crust was made with 150 grams of lard. The crust was easy to make and roll out. I’m not sure if we got the right kind of lard, because this one had little bacon bits in it.
Mmmmmm, melted pork lard
Then the crust is rolled out and covered with crème fraîche, sour cream, onions that have been cooked in butter, raw ham (we used Schwarzwalderschinken/Black Forest ham), eggs and mushrooms.
Flammkuchen before baking
The Flammkuchen was totally delicious, but the lard crust was very rich. It definitely is not any crust we’ve had in a restaurant. I bet that the restaurants are using shortening, and I might do that in the future, just because, while the crust was very good, it was also really heavy. Maybe a better choice for a cold winter day than a warm, early fall day.
This was really an excellent dish though and I’ll be making it again. It was at least as good as what we’ve had in the best Flammkuchen restaurants we’ve been to. Rainer absolutely loved it (lard and all, he completely disagrees with me saying it was a tad too heavy).
Oliver had fun pulling the stems from the mushrooms and spreading everything out on the dough. He was even eating the raw onion as I was chopping it (yes, he’s an odd kid).
Flammkuchen fresh from the oven
But, I made the two Flammkuchen and we ate one Thursday night, leaving the second for Rainer and Oliver to snack on over the weekend while I was gone in Munich. I told Rainer to put it away, then headed to bed early. In the morning, I discovered that not only had Rainer not put it away, he had left the kitchen door open and Charlie had a whole Flammkuchen during the night. I just couldn’t bring myself to feel sorry for Rainer or Charlie and his upset stomach, that was a lot of work!
Other participants:
- Stephanie at A Greenville Life
Next challenge!
- September 14 – Hechtklößchen in Rieslingssauce (Pike dumplings in Riesling sauce)
- September 21 – Fliederbeerensuppe mit “Plauener Spitze” (Elderberry soup with “Plauener lace”) – I noticed that the elderberries are ripe here. The neighbors say it’s WAY early, that they’re supposed to ripen when the kids start school (still two weeks away), so I’ll probably be making this recipe sometime this week to post about on the 21st.
Feel free to join in any time!
{ 11 comments… read them below or add one }
Discovered your blog last week – very nice. The Flammkuchen looks divine. We just make it with our regular homemade pizza dough, which has maybe a TB of oil in it – you might try something like that next time. If you’re looking to experiment, I can also recommend a mix of onions, garlic and leek, sauteed in bit of olive oil. I will have to try it with mushrooms.
Hmm, that flammkuechen looks a bit different than what we eat down here in the Alsace! We also just make it with the flammkuechenm dough that we get here in the grocery store.
.-= Michelle B´s last blog ..The Best Neighbour Ever =-.
looks wonderful – alot like mine turned out! The vegetable shortening that I used did make it very flaky and lighter than you are describing.
We actually liked it better at room temperature than fresh out of the oven! It gave it time for the flavors to come together! I would make it again – and just experiment with the toppings.
.-= Stephanie´s last blog ..Flammkuchen mit Pilzen (Tarte Flambee with mushrooms) =-.
In my gluten/dairy/soy free life, this will not likely make an appearance on my plate any time soon, but it looks very yummy! What’s up with the “flambee” part of it though? Is it just called that because it’s cooked at a high temperature? Just curious.
.-= Kelly´s last blog ..Cherries! =-.
@michele: Thanks! The crust was pretty easy to make, but I think a lower fat crust would be much more to my liking. I’ll have to try with pizza dough sometime.
@Michelle: No Flammkuchen dough in our supermarkets. I would love to live on the French-German border. Whenever we visit my inlaws, we pop over to France for a shopping trip and the supermarkets are awesome. This dough was a bit thicker than what I’ve had before, and I’ve never had it with mushrooms, although I’ve seen that on the menu in Flammkuchen places. I had always just ordered the plain one with onions and cured ham.
@stephanie: There are restaurants here that only serve Flammkuchen and have dozens of types on offer. I bet you can google for recipes and get ideas for lots of different variations.
@kelly: No idea about the “flambee” part, but I thought it might have something to do with the “Flamm.” That was the translation Leo.org gave. Maybe this was originally cooked in brick oven with open flames or something. I know ones I’ve had in the past have sometimes come with the crust being a little burnt on the edges, like pizza from brick ovens sometimes comes. Okay, I just looked on Wikipedia and it seems that’s correct. It’s an interesting article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tarte_flamb%C3%A9e
I’m wondering about using Griebenschmalz for shortening: that’s supposed to be a spread for bread (not in my universe, but that’s what the Germans do with it). I’d say that regular old lard would be better: I use it to make biscuits, along with a little vegetable shortening and some butter, although not a lot of each. And I’m not sure of the dimensions of the Flammekuche, but 150g sounds like an awful lot.
.-= Ed Ward´s last blog ..I Say Tomato… =-.
I always love your German cuisine posts. I have yet to get myself to cook anything truly German, even after living here for 7 years. Such a shame. I’m going to have to try out Flammkuechen one of these days though. Mmmh it’s heavenly!
I noticed your comment about the elderberries. Ours are actually past the point of done here. Apples are being harvested now…which is at least a month early. Peaches are in too. It’s been a crazy summer for fruit trees!
.-= Tiffany @ NOH´s last blog ..There once was a little bison =-.
Looks delicious. I love mushrooms. I think I’ll try it. Thanks for stopping by my blog.
.-= Secret Mom Thoughts´s last blog ..Wordless Wednesday and Wardrobe Wednesday =-.
I know I was just here but I had to come back because you’ve been tagged to play a 7 things about me meme!!
http://www.noordinaryhomestead.com/?p=4002
Looking forward to learning more about you!
.-= Tiffany @ NOH´s last blog ..Some randomness about me =-.
Wow, good on you for making a play for the local cuisine. I’ve been in Chile for 5 years, and if I want traditional Chilean cuisine (not usually, sadly!), I just go out and get it. I have had homemade pastel de choclo once, a sort of minced meat casserole (made with fake meat for us veggies) and hardboiled eggs, raisins and olives with a creamy topping made of grated corn and cream. That might actually be worth making, now that I think about it! Thanks for the inspiration. I might even try your dish, though I’d do some replacing, and like you, would not use lard for the crust. Olive oil could be a tasty substitute!
Neat stuff. I’ll be back!
.-= eileen´s last blog ..On an "intrepid" traveler’s fear of buses =-.
@ed: The Griebenschmalz was the only pork Schmalz at the supermarket (they had Gänseschmalz, but I guess that would be wrong too), so it could be that I used the wrong kind of lard.
@tiffany: It took me almost 7 years here before trying to cook anything German, even Schnitzel. I always had Rainer cook German, but at the end of last year, I just decided this was the best way to continue expanding my knowledge of Germany. I will work of the meme soon, we just got back from 5 days with the inlaws, so lots of catching up to do!
@eileen: Like I told Tiffany, it took me almost 7 years before attempting even the easiest to make recipe. But German homecooking really has made a huge difference in my feelings towards Germany and it’s cuisine, and is teaching me a lot about cooking as well.