French Friday with Dorie: Tourteau de Chevre

MY FIRST EXPERIENCE BAKING WITH GOAT CHEESE

I usually steer away from anything with goat cheese or goat anything.  In my recent past I’ve tried some really nasty stuff, including some horrible goat yogurt at a taster kiosk in Costco...it was so bad that they drowned it in sweet honey to show how to eat and enjoy it...it was still terrible.

SOFT FRESH GOAT CHEESE--PRODUCT OF FRANCE

I kept thinking that I would just use cream cheese when making the Tourteau de Chevre, and I convinced myself it would work just fine.  But I was looking through the specialty cheeses at the grocery store; actually looking for something else, when there it was...the soft goat cheese, and it talked to me.  It said, “Part of why this Dorie experience is appealing to you is it MAKES you try different ingredients...it causes you to stretch and learn and to actually find  new foods to add to your repertoire....so, buy me and use me, not cream cheese, in this recipe.”

READY FOR THE OVEN--I THOUGHT THE CRUST MIGHT SHRINK A BIT, BUT NOT ENOUGH

I said, “No!  I will hate you and you will waste my $$.”  But that pretty package of goat cheese jumped into my shopping bag and came home with me and made it into my Tourteau......I seriously had no control.

JUST OUT OF THE OVEN

The tort baked nicely.  It actually smelled good and looked rustically pretty.   I just did not think about that nasty cheese; put it out of my mind. 

But then it was time to take it out of the oven...so I did and I set it up on a shelf, away from me, to cool.  I would just forget about it.  Someone else would have to taste it and tell me what to post.

Well, except for honey (yes it is Wednesday...my favorite day of the week), I was the only one home and it was getting late and then getting later, and I started talking to myself.  I knew that somebody needed to try it.  If I tried it I could just prove that it is disgusting and take it to the trash...or maybe to the neighbors who gave me a week’s worth of eggs from their hens...it was their eggs that had all been ruined in this Tourteau.

HONEY LOVES THE GOAT CHEESE TORT--SHE'S MUCH BRAVER THAN I

One more option: Honey could try it.  She likes everything, but I just knew she would hate it and prove me right.  I gave her a bite and she made the noises that signal she wants more.  Well, this proved nothing.  I caught her eating dirt earlier when we were outside watering my flowers.  And then I picked a Mandarin orange and I peeled it for her, but she wanted the peelings and not the good part.  Can’t trust her.

I started pacing around the kitchen...my circle grew to include the family room.  OK...I’ll just take a photo.  I had to slice it to see how the inside looked.  Nice.  The goat cheese filling looks lots like Dorie’s photo with one problem... I did not know how far up the side of the spring form pan to place the crust...and I thought the filing would rise a bit higher and become one with the crust, but no, I made my crust go up too high. (Maybe I did not read carefully enough.)  But that’s OK...just looks more rustic and no one around here will know what it should look like...I will just hide the recipe book with Dorie’s photo. 

THE TORT CAME OUT OF THE PAN PERFECTLY...NOT EVEN A CRUMB STUCK

I decided I could taste just a tiny, little piece...just so I would know what I had baked, and I could say that I tried it.  And, you know, it was actually not bad.  In fact, it was so surprisingly good that I ate the whole piece that I had cut out for my photo.  Amazing!

And isn’t that what all this is about...besides all my new cyber friends who are a bonus that comes with FFwD?  I have learned something new...I like soft goat cheese in my Tourteau.  It actually tastes really good...not at all like other goat things I’ve tried recently.   I just have to purchase a good product...and it is more expensive than cream cheese, and I have to use it correctly...probably not drowned in honey.

Hubby came home sometime later and gave it a try.  I asked him to guess the “secret” ingredient...he knew there were eggs, but he could not guess the cheese.  I gave him a hint by letting him know it took lots of courage for me to try this dish...and after saying a few more things like that he was all through...thought I’d really added something awful.  I told him it is goat cheese and he said, “I don’t have a problem with that.”  He actually likes goat cheese...so I learned something new about hubby, too.

SURPRISINGLY DELICIOUS

We both agreed that this Tourteau would be great with some fruit and maybe a little syrup of some kind drizzled over the top.

Note: No. 1 son came home the next day and had a try.  He told me that this Tourteau is the best recipe yet from FFwD.  Wow.  That put me and my goat cheese attitude in my place .

And later in the day, No. 4 daughter and her Russian friend arrived home unexpectedly, and it was certainly good I had been baking...they were starved after a very long drive...semester break at college.  And, you guessed it, they also loved the Tort and finished it.

This is a recipe I would have, for sure, skipped over...just because of one ingredient that I thought I would not like.  I’d better take my own advise that as a mother I’ve given a million times to my kids...just try it, you might like it, because I did.