boursin & caramelized onion tartlets

June 10, 2015

This is part of a little series on our wedding eats! I’ll be sharing homemade versions of some of our reception eats, our cake, and our wedding favors in the next few weeks. You can see the first part of this series — a few of B2’s favorite Hawaii foods for his birthday — here!

Guys, I really love wedding appetizers. Something about endless varieties of enticingly arranged small bites speaks straight to my miniature-loving, perpetually indecisive soul. Teeny spring rolls! Mini burritos! Dainty things in spoons! I’m still dreaming about these chicken quesadilla cones we had at a friend’s wedding in April. At all the weddings you’ve been to, I’m that person in the corner accosting servers, balancing a canapé and three vol au vents on one cocktail napkin and trying to figure out how to get enough of that dipping sauce on one piece before it’s awkward and the server has to walk away.

So I was pretty bummed when I realized I might be missing out on my gluttonous fill of appetizers (cheerfully dubbed “pupus” in Hawaii) at our own wedding, since we’ll be taking pictures during the cocktail hour. So many mini things I won’t get to snarf! I’m contemplating getting someone to just hoard one (okay, two, okay, three) of all the appetizers in a fort of napkins for me (because that will totally look normal), but just in case that doesn’t pan out, I made one of our appetizers at home, to eat to my heart’s content and to share with you all as part of the second half of this series.

We picked four pupus to serve during the cocktail hour: a chicken skewer with sesame sauce, pulled duck wontons, mini shrimp summer rolls, and Boursin & caramelized onion tartlets. The tartlets were actually the one appetizer I didn’t try during our tasting, just because I couldn’t imagine how a buttery, flaky-light puff topped with gently toasted Boursin cheese and jammy caramelized onions could possibly be bad — but B2’s parents got to sample it, and his dad (who I’m thinking could be a food writer if he ever wanted to quit lawyering) wrote us that the crust was “light and delicate,” with a flavor that “blossomed over two or three seconds.” For all I know, the ones we get on the day of won’t look anything like these ones I made, but I thought that was a perfect description of this gorgeous combo.

For these, I used a half-batch of Izy’s croissant dough for the crust, just because I’ve been dying to try it (those gifs!), but you could absolutely use frozen puff pastry or even your favorite pie dough if you have an extra batch sitting in the freezer. The play between the creamy, slightly pungent Boursin and a tangle of darkly sweet onion, topped off with a sprig of fresh thyme and over a perfectly golden, crackly pastry, was exactly what I was hoping for. For a bit more liveliness to cut through the dairy, I think a drizzle of balsamic glaze (which I meant to do but totally forgot in my excitement to gobble these all down) would have been spectacular.

Hope you’re all having wonderful Wednesdays!

Boursin & caramelized onion tartlets.

Print Recipe

Ingredients

Scale

about 1 lb of your favorite croissant, puff pastry, or pie dough (I used a half-batch of this superlative recipe from Izy at Top with Cinnamon)
5 oz (1 package) Garlic & Fine Herbs Boursin cheese (or creamy goat cheese)
2 cups sliced red onion
1 tbsp olive oil
salt and pepper to taste
1 tbsp balsamic vinegar (optional)
1 egg, beaten
for the balsamic glaze (optional):
1/4 cup balsamic vinegar
1 tbsp brown sugar
to serve:
handful (about 15 or so) fresh thyme sprigs, or as much as needed to top

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Instructions

First, make your caramelized onions. Heat olive oil in a cast-iron skillet over low heat. Spread thinly sliced red onions in a single layer in the pan and let cook slowly, stirring only occasionally, for at least 30-40 minutes and up to an hour. When onions are brown and jammy, add the balsamic vinegar and cook a little longer. Remove from the pan and set aside.
Roll out the dough of your choice to about 1/8-inch in thickness. Use a biscuit or cookie cutter to cut rounds to your desired size. Using a smaller cookie cutter or a knife, score a circle inside the pastry without cutting all the way through, then prick holes in the center circle with a toothpick or fork.
Top each round with a teaspoon of Boursin and a few slices of caramelized onions. If you’re using croissant dough, let the rounds sit and rise for about two hours. If you’re using puff pastry, go ahead and preheat your oven to 425 degrees. Using a pastry brush, brush the edges of the rounds with beaten egg, then bake at 425 for about 15 minutes, or until golden.
Optional: Make a balsamic glaze by combining balsamic vinegar and brown sugar in a small saucepan over medium heat. When mixture simmers, turn the heat down to medium-low or low and let bubble until reduced by half, about 10 minutes. Remove from heat and let cool briefly.
When the tarts are golden and puffed, top with small sprigs of fresh thyme and a drizzle of the glaze, and serve warm. Enjoy!