Potato-Bacon Torte

So I don't know who follows Food Network's "Next Food Network Star" but I love it! This season I was totally rooting for Melissa D'Arabian. She's a stay-at-home mom and not a trained chef, but she's amazing. Her husband's family is from Nice, France...just like mine! Anyway, as you can probably guess, she totally won and I'm her biggest fan. She's awesome. So I made her Potato-Bacon Torte last night for our anniversary, and it was so freaking good! We had my mother-in-law over because she was going to watch the kids and she was just raving about it. I'll admit, I cheated and used store-bought pie crust, but it totally worked because my mother-in-law asked for my crust recipe :) I used Pillsbury brand. Anyway, this is a pretty cheap recipe except for the gruyere cheese, but you can totally substitute swiss, and if you don't have fresh thyme, you can just add dried thyme to the heated cream and add that to the pie. I followed the recipe because it was a special occasion.

Also, I made her Cafe Green Salad, it's a spring mix salad with a homemade dressing and it was pretty good if you're wanting to try something new. Click HERE for the recipe.

Sorry, no picture...I wasn't expecting to post this until after I tried it! Jeremiah is already begging me to make it again, so when I do I'll post a picture...if I can snag a camera.

4 strips bacon
3 sprigs fresh thyme
2/3 cup heavy cream
2 Pie Crusts, recipe follows
3 medium baking potatoes, peeled
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
1/4 cup grated Gruyere cheese (I probably used about 1/2 cup)
1 egg yolk, whisked with a splash of water

Directions

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F.

In a skillet over medium heat, cook the bacon until just crispy. Drain on paper towel lined plate and set aside. Crumble the bacon when cool to the touch. Melissa, on her show, stated she always keeps bacon in the freezer. The fat content doesn't allow for the bacon to completely freeze and it makes it super easy to cut. See how awesome and helpful she is?!

Meanwhile, in a small saucepan, heat the thyme and cream over low heat to a bare simmer. Turn off the heat and let steep for about 5 minutes. Remove the thyme sprigs.

Remove the pie pan from the refrigerator. Slice the potatoes in half lengthwise and then finely slice the potatoes. Working in circles, arrange the potato slices in the pie crust, stopping to season each layer with salt, pepper, and about 1/4 of the crumbled bacon. Continue layering until the pie pan is nearly full. Top with an even layer of the cheese and gently pour cream around and over the entire pie, allowing it to seep down between the potato slices. (You may not use all the cream, I actually added a little more to mine, so I used about a cup).

Roll out the remaining disk of refrigerated dough. Cover the pie with the dough and crimp the edges closed. Brush the top and edges of the crust with egg wash. Make a few slits in the center of the top crust, for the steam to escape, and put the pie pan on a baking sheet. Bake the torte until the crust is browned and crispy and the potatoes are cooked through, about 50 to 60 minutes. If the crust edges get too brown, cover them with some strips of aluminum foil (I covered mine about half hour into the baking time). Remove the pie from the oven and let rest at least 15 minutes before cutting into wedges and serving.

Pie Crust:

Again, I didn't make this, but the reviews for the crust are phenomenal. If you want to save money and have all these ingredients, go for it. The trick is to keep the butter cold throughout the process, so you have to work quickly.

1 cup butter (2 sticks), cubed and chilled
2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon salt
8 to 10 tablespoons ice water

Put the butter, flour, and salt in the food processor, and pulse lightly just until the mixture resembles wet sand. Add the water, 1 tablespoon at a time, pulsing briefly after each spoonful of water. Keep adding water until the dough just begins to gather into larger clumps. Transfer equal amounts of the dough into 2 resealable plastic bags and pat each into a disk. Let rest in the refrigerator for at least 30 minutes. Remove 1 of the disks from the bag to a flour coated surface. Using a rolling pin, roll the dough out to a 10-inch round. Gently fit the rolled dough into a 9-inch pie pan, and refrigerate while you prepare the torte ingredients.

Yield: 2 (9-inch) pie crusts