The Alsatian Trinity

In my mind, Alsatian food is based on the three main ingredients, a holy trinity of bacon, onions, and emmental cheese. I know there's a good case to be made for foie gras, recently illegalized in California. And it's hard to ignore the strong, hoppy, local beer, or one of the hundreds of white wines. I won't even mention sauerkraut, foundation of the greatest Alsatian dish, choucroute garni. But in the end, Alsace is the land of le seigneur cochon, the noble pig. And what lord would comfortable without his chief advisers, onion and cheese? Perish the thought.
When I wanted to write something solely about the food of Alsace, therefore, I thought I would pick recipes based on those ingredients. The following are not only three of my favorite Alsatian foods, but three of my favorite recipes across cuisine. Making one of these will remind you why the cooking of France's eastmost province maintains such a sterling reputation.

Flammekuchen

Flammekuchen is a sort of pizza, topped with bacon, onions, and a sauce of creme fraiche. The slightly fancier version includes a few gratings of strong emmental on top, sizzled dark. The point to remember about flammekuchen, though, is that the base isn't a bread dough, but a pastry.
To put the dough together, mix some flour with a little bit of salt and water, and knead briefly. It should be a relatively soft, but not sticky dough. Roll it out, and then add the butter in one of the two following ways. 1) If you're dealing with high quality European butter, with above 82% butterfat (just check the box), then put the butter between two sheets of cling-film and beat it to a thin sheet. Place the sheet on a third of the dough, fold the rest of the dough over like a letter, roll it out, and then do two more of these folding "turns" (without adding any more butter). If you find the butter breaking through the dough, just refrigerate to re-solidify the butter - it gets real messy if fat is melting everywhere. 2) If you've only got standard issue US butter, just cut little pieces off the stick and dot them around the dough - American butter won't flatten to a sheet without cracking. Then proceed just as above.
It should be noted that in both cases, you don't need that much butter - careful readers will note that this is the same technique that's used for croissants, and that's definitely not what you're after here.
Once the dough has been "turned" three times, put it into the refrigerator to firm up. Meanwhile, make the sauce of a half unit of heavy cream, a half unit of creme fraiche, and an egg per cup or so. Mix throughly.
While all this is happening, thinly slice an onion and fry on very low heat in butter for 40 minutes, or until golden brown. Let cool.
Finally, pre-heat your oven. Roll out the dough to an extremely thin sheet (the closer to paper, the better), top with a light layer of creme fraiche sauce, add some bacon lardons, and top with grated cheese. Bake on a sheet in the oven for about ten minutes, until extremely crisp, brown, and delicious.

Coq au Riesling

Fry some bacon in butter or oil until it becomes crispy, and has released much of its fat. Remove the bacon, but not the fat, from the pan. Add your pieces of chicken (ideally, simply a chicken cut into 8 pieces, but you can buy a pre-cut chicken as well), and brown on high heat until well coloured on both sides. They should also release some fat. Once browned, remove them from the pan and let the chicken sit on some paper towels.
Now, add finely diced onions and garlic to the fat in the pan, along with some roughly cut mushrooms (the stronger tasting, the better). Fry on low heat, letting soften without colouring. [It's better to do the mushrooms and the onions seperately, since mushrooms are better cooked on high heat, but I can't always be bothered). Once that's done, use a bit of wine to deglaze the pan (that means put a little wine in the pan and swirl around with a spoon to pick up all those tasty bits stuck to the bottom), return the pieces of chicken, add one bottle of riesling (a white Alsatian wine; I find that gewurtztraminer works just as well), and a litre of chicken stock. Also add some thyme. Let simmer for an hour to cook the chicken until extremely tender. Remove the chicken, and stir in a pint or so of single or double (light or heavy, in US parlance) cream. Simmer for another half an hour, and then return chicken to the pot for five minutes. The stew should be thick and delicious.
Note that this goes really well with white rice, spaetzle, noodles, or even great cuts of crusty bread. It's also even better the next day.

Onion Tart
Make a pastry with one unit of flour and one unit of butter, with a little bit of salt. For those who don't want to use a food processor, the way to do it is to cut the butter into small pieces, add to the flour, and then use two knives to cut the butter into the flour from the center to the edge, one in each hand. Use a little water to make the dough come together if you want, wrap in cling film, and put in the fridge to firm up.

The filling is a little unclear in terms of proportions to me, but I tend to like one unit of cream, one of full fat milk, and two eggs. You can scale that up or down as you like, but that should produce a strong, tasty, tart. You'll need the same kind of caramelized onions as above, and lardons as well.

Roll the dough out into a tart pan, and fill with baking beans or even rice to bake blind - if you don't bake the tart before filling, it'll leak everywhere. Take the tart out just when it goes brown, and let cool. When it's ready to go, add the onion, lardons, and filling to the tart shell, and bake at medium heat for 25 minutes, or until cooked and firm. If you like, add some emmental on top, and place under a grill or salamander for a crisp glaze.