Tarte flambée

Serves: 1

Ingredients

180g puff pastry
75g soft white cheese
30g crème fraîche, single cream or even milk
nutmeg (optional)
70g lardons
60g onion (c. 1 small onion), very finely sliced
flour for dusting

Method

1. Preheat oven to gas mark 8. Lightly dust the puff pastry with flour and roll out as thin as possible, around 1mm. I find it easiest to place the base on some greaseproof paper and then onto a baking tray. Failing that, just butter and flour the baking tray.

2. Mix together the cream and cheese and add a pinch of salt and a few sprinkles of nutmeg if using. Spread over the pastry leaving about an inch gap around the edges.

3. Garnish evenly with the lardons and onions and place in the middle of the oven. Cook for about 15 minutes or until the edges of the pastry are browned and bordering on burning - it wants to be nice and crisp!

4. Serve with a green salad.

Notes

This is a traditional Alsatian "pizza" where it's locally known as flammekueche. To give you some idea of what it should look like, take a look at this nice picture. The base is traditionally made from a pizza-like dough and rolled really fine to make it brittle. If, like me, you can't be bothered with making your own dough then puff pastry works great - just ensure it's rolled as thin as possible. Because I use puff pastry it looks more like this. Trust me, it's just as tasty!