Sunday, June 03, 2007

An "everything bar the kitchen sink" tart

I knew this would happen! I'd been shopping and hunted/gathered a variety of fresh ingredients for my fridge and when I decided to make myself a little tart I then can't choose what I'd rather leave out of this taste cornucopia. My first thought was to top the shortcrust pastry with a few spoonfuls of pesto and then ultra thinly sliced new potato slices inspired by a recipe I'd seen in Olive. But then I had a yet unopened fat lump of taleggio calling to me, some Parma ham that was nearing its use by date, some spring onions, pert British asparagus spears, thick Rachel's organic double cream, rashers of dry-cured smoked back bacon, eggs and a mound of mâche. Hmmm decisions, decisions!
I settle on pretty much everything bar the kitchen sink and start whipping up a tasty tart.

POTATO, PESTO, PARMA HAM, TALEGGIO & SPRING ONION TART
1. After defrosting the remaining shortcrust pastry I roll it out and realise there's less than I thought, so a skinny wide tart is the only option.
2. I fold over each edge to make a skant crust and spoon a healthy couple of dollops of Harvey Nichols' pesto and spread it thickly onto the base.
3. Then the v-slicer did its business and sliced the new potatoes finely which were then boiled for just over two minutes.
4. This gave me time to top the pesto with a few torn slices of Parma ham and then arrange the hot potato slices.
5. The daintily sliced spring onions are sprinkled over the potato slices.
6. Just in case there isn't enough going on some gooey slices of melting Taleggio perch on the potato and spring onions and then a couple of splodges of the thick double cream. Luckily the cream is very thick or it would have run off the plump tart as the edges would hardly contain any liquid.
7. The tart is baked for about 23 minutes at 190oC until the pastry is tinged gorgeously golden.

I did ponder adding a few spears of asparagus but there really wasn't any room at the inn and an egg would have really been overkill. But a nice little mâche salad cut though some of the tarts inevitable richness. Considering the rather random nature of the ingredients, this was a delicious tart, though maybe less time - slightly less constituents!

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

YUM! Can I have a slice please!

DDx

Linda said...

tarts in summer are simply the best. and then there was a tomato. and i was in heaven.