Kid#2 just turned 17! She and her chickpea gang landed in my place for her birthday lunch. They had just gone through their graduation ceremony from secondary school, which was why they had time away from the crazy grind of junior college studies. So after the orgy of photo taking they were more than ready for lunch. Kid#2’s request was actually to have fried chicken and waffles (oh for teenager metabolism!) but given the kids’ appetites, I assumed they would need more than that.
So it ended up to be a fun spread of good food – what’s not to like about lots of dip, sausages, chicken and waffles right? I felt particularly pleased that it was all low carb. At least I was a “good” Auntie and wasn’t serving up junk food. And I decided that since I had bought a whole lot of eggs (in preparation to make waffles), to also make a tart as well.
I love making tarts and I really hadn’t done so for a while – the crust is usually an extra step and on most of my lazy days, I usually end up making a frittata. But it is really nice to have a nice crust and the wonderful thing about low carb baking is that almond flour crusts can take any amount of rolling, poking and mending and it absolutely doesn’t matter! So different from crusts made from regular flour that cannot be over-handled.
In the end, although most almond meal crusts can be press-in crusts in the tart pan, I still make the effort of rolling out the dough between 2 pieces of baking paper as I feel it makes a more even crust. The filling is also easy and it just happened that I had half a packet of smoked salmon left and some mushrooms and they seemed to make quite a happy marriage together in this tart. I actually have a post about other great fillings for tarts from a couple of years ago. There is nothing more bistro-esque to me like a well-made tart…if not for the party I would have happily run off with this tart, and spent the rest of the day with the tart and a good coffee.
Low Carb Smoked Salmon and Mushroom Tart
Ingredients
Tart Shell
- 2 cups almond flour
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 2 tbsp avocado (or other vegetable) oil
- 1 large egg
- 1 medium red onion, chopped
- 80g smoked salmon, sliced into small pieces
- 200g cremini mushrooms, sliced
- 4 eggs
- 3/4 cups whipping cream
- 1/3 cup shredded cheddar cheese
- 3/4 tsp salt
- 1/2 tsp pepper
- 1/2 tsp dried dill
- 2 tbsp butter
Method
- Preheat the oven to 180 deg C.
- Mix the tart shell ingredients (almond flour, salt, egg and oil) in a food processor. Bring the processed dough into a ball.
- Place the dough between 2 pieces of baking paper and roll out into a large circle. This should be slightly larger than the estimated base and sides of a tart pan.
- Carefully lay the rolled out dough in the tart pan. If there are tears, just take a little dough and patch them up. Trim the rim of the tart shell. Using a fork, pierce holes into the base of the tart.
- Place tart shell in the oven and open bake for 8 minutes.
- Heat a skillet over moderate heat and add 2 tbsp butter to the pan. Sauté the onions and mushroom. Cook the mushrooms until just done and not soggy. Drain any liquid from the mushrooms.
- Beat the eggs, whipping cream, dill, salt and pepper in a large mixing bowl. Add the smoked salmon, mushroom and onion mixture and the cheddar cheese and mix through.
- When the tart shell is done, pour the filling into the shell and spread out the mushrooms evenly with a fork.
- Bake for 30 minutes. Remove the oven. This can be served hot or at room temperature.
Still Feeling Peckish 