Asparagus & Chèvre Folk Tart

I call this a folk tart because it’s rustic and bumpy and imperfect, yet beautiful in its way. Like folk art, where cats have two eyes on one side of their head.

I’ve been investigating vegetarian and even vegan recipes lately. We do Meatless Mondays pretty often, but the rest of the week we’re very meat-based. As I perused a veggie cookbook, I thought an asparagus tart with chèvre sounded yummy for dinner this week. But if I wait for tart dough to refrigerate, if I have to find a tart pan, if I have to roll out the dough, if I need to use pie weights… it’s never going to happen. So I invented the folk tart. It’s a combo of a lazy-normal crust recipe and the Williams-Sonoma asparagus-goat cheese tart.

Here are my folk tart steps...

Preheat oven to 350F.

Blend 1 1/3 cups flour and 6 ounces butter in food processor. Then add about 3 T ice water and continue to blend until it’s just starting to clump up and stick. Dump into tart pan and quickly squish together into a ball to gather stray bits. (I used a spring-form pan, not a tart pan, because of the folk thing.)

Then, smoosh the dough towards the edges of the pan, and up the edge a little bit to form a tart shape.

 

Poke the dough with a knife or fork in a few places and bake for 20 minutes. It will puff up in a non-tart way--no problem! This is a folk tart.

Meanwhile, snap the woody ends off the asparagus (I know you can peel it to preserve more stem, but… folk tart). Toss with some oil and salt and roast in the oven at the same time as the crust. You can move the spears around midway.

Meanwhile meanwhile, whisk together wet ingredients (egg, milk, cream, parmesan, etc.)

After 20 minutes in the oven remove the crust and let it cool slightly. Turn the oven up to 375F. Remove the asparagus soon, too.

Sprinkle about 2/3 goat cheese around the bottom of the coolish crust. Top with the asparagus.

Pour egg mixture over everything. Top with rest of goat cheese.

Bake! Leave in oven about 25 min, or longer if necessary until it doesn't slosh in the middle when jiggled. Remove and cool slightly (about 5 minutes). Serve if you're ready! This also keeps pretty well for breakfast/lunch/brunch fare later on.

 

Notes: This was just what I wanted. Tasty, significant chewy crust, savory. I might go for a bit of Swiss flavor next time, maybe a sprinkling of Gruyère. Also, asparagus spears are really hard to cut across the grain. It occurred to me that you could cut the spears into 1-2 inch pieces before sprinkling them over the crust. The result would be less “stringy” and easier to cut up.

 

Is asparagus a sign of spring to you? I think it is for me, but modern groceries confuse me because everything is always available. Previously on this blog I've dug Asparagus as part of a Penne Bake and also a delicious Risotto.