The strips are thick and more like salt pork, less smoky and served in a little chopped heap on every bowl of dressed frisee. You do not see lardons at breakfast – so to get more bacon, you must eat more greens. Genius!

Me and bacon go back a long ways, and like many people, I’d prefer if my alarm clock stopped ringing and started emitting the smell of frying bacon. After a lifelong love affair I’ve finally cut it down, but not out. Here, I did it up right on Bastille Day with Tarte Flambee, also known as Flammkueche – the traditional Alsatian savory tart.

Flammkueche – which is lots of fun to say out loud – literally means “burnt edges,” and after you wash down bacon, onions and cream with a hearty Kronenbourg, you may feel a little rough around the edges yourself. But you’ll sleep with a great big strip of a smile.


Bacon and onions. Smells so heavenly it’s like sizzling Prozac.

So…I didn’t use 3 ounces of bacon, as listed in the recipe. I used something like one strip of regular bacon and two slabs of pepper bacon. Is that so wrong?

Let’s just move on.

Roll out your dough, mix the caramelized onions with the creme fraiche and spread. A word of warning: the onion-cream mixture will taste suspiciously like high-end Lipton’s Onion Dip. Resist the urge to reach for the Ruffles.

Then “dot” with bacon.

How you “dot” with bacon is up to you. I think dot is French for “cover.”

Bake to lightly brown. Voila!

If quiche lorraine married pizza, you’d have Tarte Flambee.

And I’d have a fantastically French-American double bacon fix.
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TARTE FLAMBEE

Crust

1 recipe of your favorite pizza dough, risen and ready
time-saver: try using good-quality frozen bread dough, thawed and ready to roll

Topping

2 tablespoons oil
1 medium onion (3 ounces), finely chopped
1 cup crème fraîche, commercial or homemade*
½ teaspoon salt
¼ teaspoon pepper
4 pinches nutmeg
3 ounces bacon, cut into matchsticks

If you’re using fresh pizza dough, mix dough and allow to rest. (if you’re using thawed pre-made bread dough, just have it ready to roll)

Heat 1 tablespoon of the oil in a nonstick skillet. Add the onion and cook over low heat, stirring to golden brown, about 5 minutes. Let cool.

Combine the crème fraîche, salt, pepper, and nutmeg. Add the cooled onion.

Heat the remaining oil in the skillet and fry the bacon to lightly browned, stirring constantly. Remove and drain.

Preheat oven to 450 F.

Lightly oil a baking sheet of approximately 14 x 16″. Roll the dough to slightly smaller than the sheet, then place it on the sheet. Spread the onion mixture over the dough, leaving a very small raised rim all the way around, then dot with the bacon.

Bake for 20 minutes, or until the tart is lightly browned.

*to make your own crème fraîche: combine 1 cup heavy cream with 2 tablespoons buttermilk, stir, cover with plastic wrap, and leave at room temperature for 12 to 24 hours, or until it has become very thick. Refrigerate, and it will become even thicker.

adapted from traditional recipes

For a delightful dinner, serve Tarte Flambee with green salad, vinaigrette and a little red wine. Or, a lot. Enjoy!

It has been my pal in the kitchen and on the plate for a long time. One of my earliest efforts was a bizarre “St. Patrick’s Day” quiche for my grandfather – Romanian Jewish, but whatever – who gamely ate it, even slightly runny and curiously green food coloring-enhanced.

When I was newly pregnant and baking at a Chicago cafe in 1995, I developed a desperate need for smoked turkey, broccoli and cheddar quiche – and instructed the staff to make it for me every single day. That’s a lot of quiche.

Out of vogue and definitely out of shape, quiche should have disappeared by now – but it stubbornly hangs on, bless its cheesy self. It is so richly beckoning and seductively good. Give it to yourself once a year – the other 364 days are mine.

Josie demonstrates her knife safety skills. Look at that young pro – both thumbs intact!

Make your favorite pie dough or use a store-bought version. Extra fat = extra flaky.

Switching hats, Josie doubles as an action food photographer. Nice one!

I am not thinking about quiche. I am thinking “my hands are starting to look like Grandma’s.”

A blurry mise-en-place: crimped and ready crust, egg-and-cream mixture, cooked bacon.

O cheese; light of my life, dream of my palate, scourge of my stomach.

Place the unfilled quiche on a sheet pan, then assemble the cheese and bacon in a pleasing modern design of your choosing. Start to pour the egg mixture over the top…

…then slap your head and say, “god, Marilyn, how long have you been doing this?” The best way to do this is to put the pan in the oven first and then pour the egg mixture over the top, as seen above.

This prevents having to move a very full, spill-prone unbaked quiche to the oven. Trust me.

It goes fast. Somehow, quiche is even more decadent the next day, eaten cold, straight from the pan and standing up in the kitchen. Don’t tell my doctor. Or my daughter.

Here’s a nice fuzzy shot of quiche with its soul mate, French Onion Soup. Fuzzy is how you feel after eating this. As in you will feel fuzzy, and delicious, and then unconscious.

QUICHE LORRAINE

This classic recipe is from Jane and Michael Stern’s wonderful 1991 book American Gourmet. One of my all-time, most dog-eared favorites, it celebrates the luxe “gourmet-ing” of America in the 50′s and 60′s, especially “swank company food” like the then-exotic Quiche Lorraine.

With no bending to skim milk or plasticky low-cal Swiss, here is the real thing. Pop a Lipitor and hope for the best.

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Dough for one 9″ one-crust pie
6 thick slices bacon, cooked
5 oz. swiss cheese – gruyere or jarlsberg, cut into slices approx. same size as the bacon
4 eggs
1 tbsp flour
generous dash of nutmeg
1/2 tsp salt
pinch of cayenne
2 cups heavy cream
1 1/2 tbsp butter, melted

Line a 9-inch pie plate with dough. Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

Fry the bacon (or use pre-cooked) until it is cooked but not crisp. Drain on paper towels.

Layer the bacon and cheese in a crosshatch pattern on the pie dough.

Beat together the eggs, flour, nutmeg, salt and cayenne. Gradually beat in the cream and, finally, the melted butter. Beat well and strain the mixture over the bacon and cheese in the pie crust.

Bake 45-50 minutes, or until the custard is set and the top nicely browned. Serve slightly warm.