Goat Cheese and Shiitake Mushroom Tart

Why did the fungi leave the party?
There wasn't mush-room.

Thank all the weather gods for a Saturday not completely covered in pollen.  Well, there was pollen, but not a ridiculous amount.  Also, the stars must have been aligned as well because both our home and our good buddies Whitney and Ben were also free....2 + 2 equals outside dinner party on Whitney and Ben's super cute patio.  (note to self: get a yard, pave off some ground at the far back corner, acquire a bad-ass large wooden table with chairs and a bench, string up some large globe lights, add an adorably cute stone walkway, and then pretend you're in the french countryside versus the middle of the city.)

Now, the hard part...what to make to bring over.  Luckily for everyone (Ha!), I recently watched a marathon of Million Dollar Decorator (Shout-out to Martin Lawrence Bullard, who is the bomb-digity).  And in one of the many, many episodes I watched (sigh), one of the decorators made a gorgeous Goat Cheese and Shiitake Mushroom Tart for a birthday dinner party.  HellooOOOooooo tasty-ness.  

The flavor of this tart is insane, INSAAAAAANE.  Give yourself plenty of time to make it, maybe make it the morning before you need it (not right up until the last minute when you have to leave, trying then oh-so-desperately to let the tart set while driving in the car....doesn't work too well, i promise...i tried...)

Here's what you need for this Goat Cheese, Onion and Shiitake Mushroom Tart:
1 1/2 cups all purpose flour, plus extra for work surface
1/4 teaspoon of salt, plus 1/4 teaspoon of salt, and more to taste
3/4 cup cold unsalted butter
1/4 cup of cold water
5 cloves of garlic
1 1/2 cups heavy cream
5 oz of shiitake mushrooms
1/2 sweet yellow onion very thinly sliced
2 teaspoons of olive oil
4 oz of room temperature plain goat cheese (I like Silver Goat)
1 egg
pepper to taste
1 pie plate
1 rolling pin



Add 1 1/2 cups of flour and 1/4 teaspoon of salt to the food processor. Pulse a couple times to incorporate.

Get out 3/4 cup of cold unsalted butter.

Slice it up.

Add the butter to the processor.

Pulse only until incorporated.  DO NOT OVER PULSE.  Pie crust just hates that.  No one wants hateful pie crust.  Should look flaky, light (see below).

Add 1/4 cup of cold water. Pulse only til comes together (will do so quickly).  Take out dough, wrap in plastic wrap and chill in the fridge for 30 minutes.

While to dough is chilling.  Get your filling ready.  You'll need 5 cloves of garlic (or more smaller cloves, as mine separated into once I got the peel off) and 1 1/2 cups of heavy cream.  Yay! Cream!

Peel garlic.  If you end up with more smaller cloves like I did, no worries...use them all.

Bring 1 1/2 cups heavy cream and whole-peeled garlic cloves to a boil, then reduce temperature to a simmer until cream is reduced to 1 cup.

Keep stirring down as the cream reduces.  Smells sooo incredible.

Once you have cream and garlic (keep cloves with the cream, don't discard them) reduced to a cup, let chill.   I covered my garlic-y-cream and placed it in the fridge til needed.

Get 1/2 a yellow onion.

Slice it up thin.

Pull out 5 oz. of Shiitake mushrooms.  I liked the way mine looked as is, so I did not do any additional chopping or slicing.

Add 2 or so teaspoons of olive oil to the pan.

Throw in onions, some salt and pepper and get caramelizing.

Add mushrooms.

Mix and cook until tender.

When tender, take off heat to another plate and let cool.

While the cream and mushroom-onion mixture is chilling out, your dough should be ready to roll out.  Grab your chilled dough/soon to be delicious pie crust out of the fridge.

Flour a clean work surface.

Start to roll out. Try not to overwork it. Be gentle.

I like to roll with light pressure, then flip, slowly workin' the dough into a circle shape.

Circle-ish.

Once desired thickness is achieved, check your pie plate against it to make sure it will give you a good transfer.

Transfer to un-greased pie plate (cause, hello, dough is basically butter).

Let fall.

Gently, help it settle into the pie plate.

Work it down.

Once dough has settled, start to trim edges.  Follow the pie pan lip all the way around.

Save excess dough in plastic wrap, in the fridge for a next day fruit tart (I'll show you how tomorrow).

I did not get fancy with the edges, but always feel free to get fancy if you like being fancy.  Cover with plastic wrap again and freeze crust for 20 minutes.

After freezing crust for 20 minutes, take out of freezer and remove plastic wrap.  Cover pie with aluminum foil and place pie weights inside. Bake in the oven for 20 minutes at 375 degrees.

Keeping the oven on, remove pie, remove foil and pie weights, and place pie back in the oven uncovered for 15 more minutes.

If crust starts to puff on the bottom while cooking, just fork it a bit and it will drop down (I checked on mine about half way through).

Take out 4 oz of goat cheese and let come to room temperature.

Remove pie crust from oven, let cool.

Take out chilled garlic and garlic-cream, add to blender with 1 egg and 1/4 teaspoon of salt.  Blend just until combined.

Once crust is cooled and goat cheese is at room temperature, add it to the bottom.

Carefully spread it out (try not to puncture crust).

Top with cooled sauteed onions and Shiitake mushrooms.

Top with blended garlic-cream-eggy mixture.  Bake in over at 375 degrees for 20-30 minutes until set (only slightly wobbly in center).

Take out of oven and let cool completely.  Garnish with a couple of basil leaves if you have'um.  I just stuck two sweetly in the middle but forgot to get a picture, since we were late and running out the door.

Come back tomorrow and see what I did with the extra pie crust....spoiler alert, it was AhamaaaAAAaazzing!