This week was the green light for using butter liberally in the kitchen and baked pastry is totally acceptable to eat for breakfast, lunch, dinner, and dessert.
Jennifer, as the one to pick this week’s challenge submitted her flaky goodness first. She made a roasted vegetables puff pastry tart. She started with slow roasted tomatoes so the pastry didn’t get soggy (smart!). To bring her tart to fruition she chopped basil leaves and mixed them with soft goat cheese. She spread the cheesy goodness onto a sheet of puffed pastry (store bought since she isn’t that kinda cray cray). She topped it with the roasted tomatoes, garlic, asparagus, sliced red pepper, and grated Parmesan cheese. She finished the baked tart with a drizzle of balsamic vinegar and she had a winner on her hands.
Theresa had a lot of challenges in deciding how to approach the theme, tart, and what that actually meant (she’s got some culinary training and has standards). She had to decide if tart included or excluded pie, galette, pop tart, etc. Ultimately, she thought a tart should be in the traditional styled tart pan, but then that rules out tarts on puff pastry…. so dilemmas.
She settled on making this swiss chard tart. Bonus was that it could serve as breakfast for the next few days (smart and not one to waste food). Since NYC was in sweltering temps this week she didn’t futz about with pastry dough for long and instead styled it like a galette (or crostata, if prefer Italians to French). In her words, “The pastry was delicious, and while the tart leaked quite a bit of the cream out the side, the filling is good and flavorful. I actually think I prefer this style to the original tart shell shape because it increased the amount of pastry to filling, which I think was a plus.”
Because she had the pastry itch, she also made a stunning (eating with the eyes here!) tomato ricotta tart, and it’s one of the most beautiful looking things I’ve made so I feel okay with this less beautiful, but tasty, submission.
For my effort this week I followed Jen’s route and used the frozen puffed pastry since it’s been a busy past couple of weeks and I just didn’t have time to make some from scratch (she is that kind of cray cray). I made a free form savory tart with roasted zucchini and heirloom tomatoes over a base on ricotta mixed with fresh minced oregano and thyme. It was quite tasty and Olive happily ate the edges and roasted zucchini off the top.
I also made a peach and raspberry tart on top of a vanilla honey ricotta. The raspberries were pretty tart and the peach not quite sweet enough so the pastry was lacking a little something. Maybe a glaze on the fruit next time. I’m already thinking of a fig and mascarpone tart … maybe next weekend I’ll try again.
Mike kept it short and sweet (savory really) for his entry. He made a savory tart tartin with potatoes, tomatoes, goat cheese, and oregano. The recipe is from Yotam Ottolenghi (so really what could go wrong?!). He’s made it before and said, “It was delicious then and it’s delicious now.” So basically, make this one people!
All in all a solid week of savory and sweet tarts that brought out the best of the flaky crust. On to paper!
Capers in the Kitchen 