Fig, Caramelized Red Onion and Blue Cheese Crostata
Caramelized red onions, chopped fresh figs and crumbled blue cheese all baked into a buttery, flaky crust.
Equipment
- baking sheet
Ingredients
Filling
- 12-15 whole Brown Turkey figs (stems removed and coarsely chopped) peeled and sliced
- 1 large red onion (thinly sliced)
- 1 cup crumbled blue cheese (can also use Gorgonzola)
Flaky Crust
- 2 cups all-purpose flour
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 6 oz. unsalted butter, grated or cut into small pieces (1 1/2 sticks)
- 2 teaspoons cider vinegar
- 1/3 +/- cup ice-cold water
Instructions
Flaky Crust
- Line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Set aside.
- Mix flour and salt in a large bowl. Grate cold butter on a cheese grater, or cut it into very small bits. With a pastry cutter or clean, cold fingers, crumble the butter into the flour until integrated and the butter is the size of small peas.
- Sprinkle cider vinegar over the mixture and stir with a fork. Add ice-cold water, a little at a time (strain out the ice before adding to the dough), and blend with a fork until the dough is moist enough to roll into a ball, but not too wet. Roll into one large ball for the crostata and a smaller ball for another use. Note: We love to make cinnamon-cardamom roll-ups with the leftover dough.
- Roll the larger dough ball out on a floured cloth or board into a circle about 14 inches in diameter. Place the dough onto the prepared baking sheet.
Crostata Filling
- Drizzle a sauté pan with 2-3 tbsp. of olive oil. Add sliced onions and cook over medium-low heat until beginning to brown and caramelize. I add a little bit of water as I go to keep the onions from drying out. This process may take about 20 minutes or so. You can speed up this process, but I like to take my time when caramelizing onions. This can be done several days ahead of time. Just refrigerate the caramelized onions in an airtight container until you're ready to assemble your crostata.
- Remove stems from figs, and coarsely chop them. There is no need to remove the peels from the fruit.
To Assemble the Crostata
- Preheat the oven to 400℉.
- Spread the caramelized onions over the dough (which you previously placed onto the prepared baking sheet), leaving about 2 inches around the perimeter of the dough to fold back over the filling.
- Cover the onions with the chopped figs and then sprinkle about half of the blue cheese over the figs. Reserve the remaining blue cheese.
- Fold the outer edge of the dough in towards the center of the crostata. Bake for 35-45 minutes, until the blue cheese is melted and the crust is golden-brown. Remove from the oven, and immediately sprinkle the remaining blue cheese over the filling in the center of the crostata. It will begin to melt as it sits.
- Let the crostata sit for about 10-15 minutes before cutting and serving.
Notes
When we make pie crust, or even crumb topping for fruit pies, we learned a trick a while back that makes crumbling the butter into the flour so much easier. Simply grate the butter on a cheese grater and it is so much easier to cut it into the flour. Be sure that the butter is really cold, or even frozen when you grate it.
I like to grate extra butter while I am at it, and keep it in the refrigerator for the next time I want to make a pie, tart or crostata!