TARTE AL DJOTE

Makes 4 tarts

The tarte al djote from Nivelles is one of the most important (savoury) cheese tarts of Wallonia. It is made with a boulette cheese (or bètchéye in Walloon) from the region. This cheese is made by mixing raw skimmed milk into fermented curds, leaving it to coagulate. Its texture is dry and crumbly and unlike any other cheese I’ve had the pleasure to taste. It is totally fine to swap the traditional cheese for grated mature cheddar or gouda, or a similar cheese local to you. If you can’t find chard, the leaf of pak choy is very similar, and chervil creates a very delicate flavour.

Ingredients

For the pastry:

500g plain flour

125 g salted butter, softened

11g instant dry yeast

10g salt

2 eggs

125ml full-fat milk

For the filling:

400g cheese (see intro)

75g salted butter, plus extra butter, to serve

1 egg, plus 1 egg yolk

½ tsp ground white pepper

A pinch of salt

35g Swiss chard, leaves only, finely chopped

25g shallots, finely chopped

20g flat-leaf parsley leaves, finely chopped

Equipment:

4 x 20cm top diameter x 18cm base diameter x 2.5 cm depth pie tins, greased and floured.

Method

To make the pastry, combine the flour, butter, yeast and salt in a large bowl or the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with a dough hook and knead until you get a coarse mixture. Add the eggs and milk and knead for 10 mins until the dough is smooth. Cover the bowl and set aside to rest for 30 mins or overnight in the fridge.

For the filling, crumble or grate the cheese and leave it out to get ‘sweaty’. Meanwhile, melt the butter in a saucepan over low heat and brown it (beurre noisette). Set aside to cool so that the butter doesn’t cook the eggs.

Mix the cheese with the cooled melted butter, the egg, egg yolk, pepper and salt. Fold the chard, shallots and parsley through and set aside. Preheat the oven to 210C. Do not use the fan setting.

When the dough has risen, knock out the air, divide in four and roll out the dough as thin as you can. Do the same for all four pieces, then lay them over the greased tins, press into the base and cut away the excess pastry. Pierce the bases all over with a fork.

Spoon in filling to just under 1cm deep in each pie. Place the tarts on a rack on the lowest shelf of the oven and bake for 20 mins until the crust has a blush. Transfer to a wire rack and set aside to rest for 5 mins for the cheese to coagulate so you can safely remove the tart from the tin.

Serve warm, with a knob of extra butter on top to melt. Pair with a fullbodied red wine (Burgundy is traditional) or a dark monastery beer.

The next day you can reheat the tart in a 200C oven for 10 mins. The tarts also freeze well: just thaw in the fridge and reheat.

Recipe from Dark Rye and Honey Cake by Regula Ysewijn (Murdoch Books)