Ham & Raclette Tart
This tart is very much like a quiche but not as eggy, which with the current price of eggs and ever-present threat of bird flu panzootic impacting Australia’s egg industry is probably a wise move. How delicious this tastes is directly related to the quality of the ingredients you choose to use.
Ripe, my go-to cheesemongers at the Queen Victoria market, introduced me to a lightly funky organic raclette made by Western Australian cheesemaker, Dellendale Creamery. As delicious as it was in a simple sandwich, I knew it had main character energy and wanted more.
The ham was actually jambon blanc, a subtle European style cured ham from Oakwood Smallgoods in central Victoria. Pair these two with an all butter shortcrust pastry I made earlier and dinner looks very promising.
ingredients
- 350g shortcrust pastry or cream cheese pastry
- 200g jambon blanc
- 100g raclette
- spring onion greens/parsley/chives – your choice
- 4 eggs
- ½ tsp fine salt
- ¼ tsp ground white pepper
- 1 tsp dried thyme
- ¼ cup milk
method
Blind baking the pastry is the first step. Roll out the pastry to line your pie tin. Mine was 25cm diameter and 3.5cm deep. Blind baking involves lining the pastry with some baking paper and weighting this down with pie weights (or dried beans/rice that you dedicate to this purpose as they won’t be fit for anything else after this). At 180 degrees Celsius, it gets 12 minutes with the weights, then remove the weights and paper and give it another 6 minutes.
While the pastry is baking, chop the ham into a rough dice, grate the cheese and finely chop your spring onion green tops or herbs. Whisk the eggs and season with salt, pepper, and thyme then add the milk and whisk again.
Once the base is cooked, bring it out of the oven and layer up the ham, cheese and herbs then pour the egg mix evenly all over. Put the tart back in the oven and bake for a further 20-25 minutes or until the centre is no longer jiggly when touched.