The North: Potato Tarte Tatin

"Smeagol won't grub for roots and carrotses and - taters. What's taters,precious, eh, what's taters?" "Po-ta-toes!" said Sam. 

 J.R.R. Tolkien, The Two Towers

Stoney and I subscribe to the philosophy of "cheat days," where we don't eat quite as healthy as normal, 's this week, for our cheat day, I made a potato tarte tatin for our cheat meal.  I had made this dish once before, several years ago, and it was delicious, but I remembered the ending being kind of dicey - after baking, you have to flip the whole thing over so you have the puff pastry on the bottom and potatoes on the top.  The prospect of having to repeat that nightmare has kept me away from the dish since, but I figured this time, with two of us, it would probably be less awkward.

What you need:

• 1 jar sun-dried tomatoes in olive oil
• 2 tbsp olive oil
• Salt and black pepper, to taste
• 1lb. new potatoes (skin on)
• 1 large onion, sliced
• 3 tbsp sugar
• 2 tsp butter
• 1 tbsp Italian seasoning
• 5 oz. goat cheese
• 1 puff pastry sheet

 To begin, boil your potatoes for 25 minutes, drain, and let cool.  Slice into discs about 1" thick.  Set aside.

Saute the onion slices in the oil and some salt for 10 minutes or until the onions are slightly browned.

Grease the bottom of a 9" cake pan (we sprayed in some olive oil) and then place a circle of parchment paper in the bottom.  Next, cook the sugar and butter in a small pan on high heat, stirring constantly with a wooden spoon until you get a nice caramel color.  Pour this caramel into your cake pan and make sure it spreads over the entire piece of parchment paper. 

My parchment cutting skills are clearly not up to snuff, but the caramel came out good.

Scatter your Italian seasoning onto the caramel, and then press your potatoes into the pan, close together and forming concentric circles.  Gently press your tomatoes and onions into all of the gaps between the potatoes, and then place slices of goat cheese (or sprinkle crumbles of it, if you have crumbled goat cheese) over the potatoes.

Cut your puff pastry into a circle that is an inch larger than your cake tin in diameter.  Lay the pastry over the tart, and press the edges down around the outer potatoes.  At this point you can chill everything for up to 24 hours, but this time I chose to stick it straight into the oven.

Bake at 400 degrees for 25 minutes, and then reduce the heat to 350 degrees, baking for another 15 minutes (or until your pastry is completely cooked).  Once out of the oven, let it sit for 2 minutes, and then grab a plate that is bigger than your cake pan, hold it inverted over the top of the pan, and flip everything over (you want to move quick here).  Lift your pan off, slice, and serve.

We actually did a pretty good job with the flip!