Baked Reblochon Pithivier style!
The classic French Pithivier gets a makeover
Winter is coming and comfort food is calling. I’ve been walking in Les Gets in the French Alps during Autumn watching the winter approach and dreaming of the cheesey winter delights. These wonderful melted cheese dishes will all follow in the mountain restaurants on the pistes. So a baked Reblochon recipe seemed fitting for the coming winter.
Cooking with Reblochon cheese
Time to get inventive in the Taste of Savoie kitchen with the oh-so-delicious Savoyard staple ingredients! Reblochon cheese made here in the Haute-Savoie is the most popular cheese in the region and the star of the wonderful mountain dish the Tartiflette. Reblochon gained the prestigious AOC title in 1958 and was first produced in the Thones Valley in The Aravis – read my potted history of Reblochon on a previous post.
Taking the main ingredients for the tartiflette and turning them into a satisfying sharing starter or for lunch served with a salad. I was inspired by a recipe I saw on *Chefs Club (link below) and adapted it to create a Savoyard version. It’s a great dish to arrive at the table with as it looks impressive but it is not difficult to make!
Felicity Cloake featured my recipe in her Guardian article – How to make the perfect Cheese and potato Pithivier recipe – I’ll leave you to decide which is your favourite!
Baked Reblochon Pithivier recipe
This makes a great starter or yummy accompaniment to apero time! The Baked Reblochon would also be lovely served with a crisp green salad for a light lunch. To turn this Baked Reblochon into a vegetarian dish, simply replace the bacon lardons with a selection of chopped wild mushrooms. You could use other cheeses in place of Reblochon like Brie or Camembert.
Baked Reblochon Pithivier
Ingredients
- 1 potato
- 1 small Reblochon round
- 1 tablespoon olive oil
- a knob of butter
- 100 g bacon lardons
- 1 onion – chopped finely
- 1 clove garlic – chopped finely
- A pinch of thyme
- Seasoning to taste
- I sheet of puff pastry
- 1 egg for glazing
Instructions
- Peel the potato and cook in boiling water for about 15-20 minutes until soft
- Heat the olive oil and butter in a frying pan and saute the onions, garlic and bacon lardons with the thyme
- Drain the potato and cool a little – cut into thin slices
- Roll the puff pastry into a large circle
- Cut the Reblochon in half to create 2 circles
- Place one circle of Reblochon in the centre of the puff pastry
- Top the reblochon with the onion mixture and add the slices of potato and then top with the other Reblochon circle
- Cut the puff pastry circle into 8 – from the cheese edge to the outside edge
- Take a mug and use as a template to cut round to form semicircles on each 1/8 of pastry – see photo
- Then bring up each ‘petal’ onto the cheese overlapping each one, glazing with egg to seal – see photo
- Glaze the whole parcel and grind with black pepper or sprinkle with poppy seeds
- Cook in a pre-heated oven 200°C or 180°C fan oven for about 20-25 minutes until golden brown
- Serve with a green salad garnish and enjoy
Notes
Bon Appetit!
Why not pin this delicious recipe for later!
all photos are copyright ©Caro Blackwell
*This adapted recipe was inspired by one I saw on Chefs Club – click here to see their video
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Oh good lord what amazing stuff you have on here – this looks like the world’s most lush pie
thank you very much! This is a really delicious pie!
I have made this twice, and both times, even with sealing thoroughly along the puff pastry seams with egg wash and pressing the seams together, the cheese has leaked out. When the puff pastry is cut into 1/8ths/petals, it creates a lot of seams for leakage. Is there another way to form the pithivier to ensure no leaking? Also, with all the layers on top, it took much longer to get the pastry cooked through.
It still tasted good, but Reblochon is not available in the US, and the substitute I’ve found, Chablochon, is pricey, so it’s disappointing to end up with a leaky, runny mess.
I don’t know what size diameter your cheese is or the size of your pastry sheet in the USA, but if I remember correctly, I used a small Reblochon round, which fitted well onto the size of the puff pastry sheet. Maybe it is because the cheese round is too big. It would be about the size oif a Camembert round (European size). Sorry not to be more helpful, but I don’t know the US sizes of these things and this recipe was used with European-size reblochon and a large puff pastry sheet.
One thing you could do is try using filo pastry if you can get that, as you can use several layers and overlap them and I believe Filo pastry sheets are larger than puff pastry sheets.