Once we figured out how to make a perfect crust I recalled the goat cheese tarts I used to eat in France. The region where I lived produced a lot of goat cheese because, like Oregon, there was good pasturage and abundant ground water. It wasn’t a stretch to think of cooking with it. The French being resourceful cooks had long since taught me how to get creative out of necessity.
I started by blind baking the tart shell, meaning to bake the shell without the filling. The oven is set to 425oF. Foil is flattened onto the tart dough and the edges crimped to keep from slipping down. It bakes for about 12 to 15 minutes until it dries out.
The way to test its doneness is to peel back the foil. When you see steam simply close the door and come back in 5 minutes to test the dryness again. If there is no steam, remove the foil, but if it gives any resistance, close the door and wait 5 minutes. When the foil lifts out easily, leave the tart in the oven, and continue baking till light golden. The dough can’t start to color until all the moisture is gone, so blind baking guarantees that a tart dough cooks and won’t be gummy.
When opening the oven door don’t act like you have all the time in the world. If the oven is at 400-425o and you tale your time checking the cooking, the temperature can drop 50 or 75 degrees. If the dough needs heat to evaporate water and crisp, it’s going to find that difficult if there isn’t enough heat.
While the tart dough blind bakes, prepare the filling. In a utility bowl mash 4 ounces of fresh goat cheese with 2 ounces of softened butter simply with a spoon. Add eggs one at a time, mixing with a whisk. Add a third of the milk mixture, along with about a teaspoon of salt, mixing to make the base homogenous. The remaining liquid will mix easily without lumps.
You want to mix butter into the goat cheese because goat cheese doesn’t have the fat that cow’s milk cheese does. When it cooks, the texture becomes grainy. Feeding it butter gives fat back to the milk that it never had. Fill the tart dough, sprinkle the top lightly with thyme. Put it in the oven, turn the heat down to 375 and set a timer for 20 minutes.
The filling will turn golden, and puff slightly. Poke the side of the pan with your finger to tell if the center is still liquid. If it needs more time tent the tart with a piece of foil, and baked it a few more more minutes.
Since the filling only had 1-1/2 eggs per cup of liquid, don’t expect the filling to set solid like a quiche. The way to judge if the custard was set is to watch the whole custard move as one piece when nudged. When you remove it from the oven it will have beautiful color, have souffled nicely. Ours shimmered as I carried it to the rack to cool. Everyone looked at it with wonder and knew we had something magnificent.
Once it cool to warm, it sets further. As I notched the crust with a serrated bread knife and sliced surgically, everyone held their breath. The filling held. We separated the halves, sliced each half into quarters and served the tart warm.
Everyone admired its beauty, hesitating to lift a fork. Each approached it reverently, and one person said after the first taste, “It melted before it got into my mouth.” The perfume of the thyme scattered on top provided the final delight marrying perfectly with the goat cheese. We served a Viognier from the Southwest of France, goat cheese territory, and experienced pure harmony.
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