More adventures in rolling out dough...

So as I mentioned in a post below I have a little fear of rolling out any type of pastry dough.  One of my goals has been to conquer this fear face on and make as many items that require rolling out dough as possible.  So as I was invited to a dinner party with Dino, I decided to make a dessert that required me to do just that.  A group of us have a little dinner club, and we often like to do themes with 'secret ingredient' challenges.  This month's ingredient was a seed or nut.  Given the specifications, I decided to make a Pear and Pistachio tart.  Sounds impressive right?  Here are the ingredients:


for the dough:
1 cup flour
1/4 tsp sugar
1/2 tsp salt
1 stick unsalted butter
1/2 cup cold water
First I put the flour, sugar and salt in a food processor and mixed together.  I then added the butter in pieces and pulsed until large crumbs formed.  Once that has been done, add the 1/2 cup water (or as much as needed) in order to have the dough form a large, moist ball.  Then put the ball onto the counter and form into a disk.  Wrap in plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least one hour.  (tip: you can make this a couple days ahead of time and let it chill until you're ready to roll it out)
While the dough is chilling in the fridge, I started to make the filling.  I cut up 3 ripe Anjou pears.  I used an apple corer/cutter to make this easier, and then peeled each individual slice and cut in half to maximize the pear slices.
The ingredients for the filling are:

1 tbsp canola oil
3 ripe Anjou pears
1/4 tsp salt
2 tbsp. sugar
2 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp nutmeg
about 1 cup ground up salted pistachios

Heat a skillet with the canola oil and add the pears.  Saute until soft, about 4 mins.  Add the salt, sugar, cinnamon and nutmeg.  Add 1/2 of the pistachios and mix. Keep cooking for an additional 5 minutes or until much of the liquid released from the pears has been reduced.  Empty skillet onto a plate and let pears cool.

Once the dough has been chilled enough and the pears have cooled you can start assembling the tart.  I used a round baking stone to make this on.  If you don't have one, you can use any cookie sheet and line with parchment paper.  I sprayed my baking stone with PAM and wiped with a paper towel in order to reduce the chance of the tart sticking.  I rolled the dough directly onto the stone, so I started by lightly flouring it and the rolling pin.  I rolled out the dough as large as it would stretch.  I then sprinkled the dough with most of the remaining pistachios. Once I was done with this I started to arrange the pears on the pastry dough.  I attempted to make it pretty so I started to make concentric circles starting at the center of the dough.  Once
 you have used all the pears, there will still be a border of about 1 inch left over of dough.  Fold over this border and pleat it in order to form a round tart.  This creates a 'crust' with an open view of the pears in the center.   Brush the edges of the dough with a mixture of one egg and 1 tbsp water to give it a golden color once it has baked.  Sprinkle more pistachios on top of the tart, and you're ready to bake it!  Put the tart into an oven that has been preheated to 400 degrees, and bake for about 25 minutes or  until the edges are golden.  Needless to say, I think I have conquered my fear of pastry dough!  I was slightly worried when I started to roll the dough onto the baking stone; it came out very thin and I wasn't sure how it would taste.  Fortunately, this dessert was a great success at our dinner party and it was not as difficult to make as it seems! Definitely give this dessert a try!  Kali oreksi! (bon apetit in Greek... I decided I haven't been true enough to my heritage so far!).