Butternut squash and Gruyère AOP flaky crust torte

105' 25'

Did you know that the torte could be as ancient as the passion to eat well? We find traces of this dish already in antiquity. Its reputation has endured until today due to its principal advantage of protecting the ingredients inside with its outer crust. In addition to this significant factor, the torte also allowed for combining all sorts of leftovers and ingredients with no specific perspective in sight, which otherwise risked being wasted. This situation is similar to that of the Alsatian ‘baeckeoffe’ or the French ‘l’oreille de la belle aurore’. In these periods of time, one threw nothing out, so it quickly became a welcome source of gastronomical pleasure.

However, above all there is one particularity of the torte: its sacredness. In fact, at a meal surrounded with the people we love and admire, nothing is more impressive than placing this dish on the table, one which takes a lot of work to create and which signifies one’s esteem for others, with the pleasure of sharing again and again. Why sacred? Because at the moment when the torte is ceremoniously placed on the table, after the spontaneous clamouring comes the subtle game of guessing what’s inside this beautiful, flaky crust torte: that which is magic because it comes from us, for us.

Ingredients for

4

Note

Attention changement nombre de personnes

  • 160 g
    all purpose flour
  • 1 pinch
    of salt
  • 0.8 dl
    water
  • 120 g
    margarine with 20% butter
  • 3
    garlic cloves
  • 2
    shallot
  • 160 g
    squash
  • 100 g
    Jerusalem artichokes
  • 160 g
    Brussel sprouts
  • 160 g
    Gruyère AOP
  • 80 g
    smoked bacon
  • 0.4 dl
    35% cream
  • +
    garden herbs
  • +
    salt and pepper
  • +
    egg yolk
  • +
    cooking oil

Preparation

  1. Slightly heat the water and add the salt. Let cool to obtain cold salted water.
  2. Create a ‘well’ in the flour.
  3. Add the water into the middle of the well and mix delicately. Be careful not to overwork the dough.
  4. Refrigerate the dough for at least 15 minutes.
  5. During this time, prepare your vegetables. Finely chop the shallots and garlic, peel and dice the squash and Jerusalem artichokes.
  6. Heat a bit of oil in a frying pan and cook the vegetables over low heat. Make sure the vegetables are well done.
  7. Spread the dough into 4 points to form a Swiss cross. The part in the middle needs to be thicker than the rest.
  8. Knead the margarine between your hands in order to break up any hard pieces. It should be the consistence of modeling clay. Be careful that it doesn’t melt.
  9. Form the margarine into a square and place it at the center of the dough.
  10. Carefully, fold over the 4 points of the Swiss cross to avoid piercing the dough with the margarine.
  11. Fold the dough in 3, turn it 45° and repeat a 2nd time. You have just given the first two rotations. Refrigerate for 20 minutes.
  12. Blanch the Brussel sprouts a few minutes in boiling salted water, cool rapidly. Drain and remove the stems and separate the leaves. Put them all aside.  
  13. Finely chop the smoked bacon.
  14. Fold the dough in 3, turn it 45° and repeat for a 3rd time. You have now given it the 3rd and 4th rotations. Refrigerate for 20 minutes.
  15. Grind the squash and the Jerusalem artichoke mixture, season to taste, and add the smoked bacon pieces and the Gruyère d’Alpage AOP. Put aside ¼ of the mixture in a small pan for the sauce.
  16. Fold the dough in 3, turn it 45° and then repeat the same process again for a 6th time.
  17. Roll out the dough and cut out 2 circles per person, one of which is a bit larger than the other. If you run out of dough, don’t hesitate to use the scraps left over after cutting. They can be used to form the bottom of the torte.
  18. After brushing the edges with the egg yolk, place the mixture in the center of the bottom circles.
  19. Carefully cover with the top circles pressing firmly with your fingers and pinching the edges together and then brush with the egg yolk.
  20. Using the dry air setting without the fan bake for 25 minutes at 200°.
  21. Cook the sauce with the Brussel sprout stems, add the cream and mix together. Season to taste. The sauce needs to be foamy.
  22. Garnish the tortes to your liking, or like the model shown.

Delicious to know

Avoid too much liquid in the mixture; this could make assembling everything perilous. Also, don’t put too much mixture in the torte or the process of enclosing the mixture could become complicated.

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