spring vegetable tart

spring vegetable tart

• 6 Mar 2017

I just love ricotta cheese. I recently bought a kilogram of it so needed to find ways to use it. I used it to make a pasta sauce; made a cake with it and even made some ricotta gnocchi. Whilst looking through my copy of The Cook and Baker, I saw a recipe for an asparagus, pea, leek and ricotta tart. I needed to buy leeks and asparagus but everything else was either in the fridge or in the cupboard.



Now I made the tart shell using a pastry recipe I've used many times in the past. I started out using the filling recipe in the book but found the proportions didn't work for the tin I used, so I rejigged the recipe and changed the technique a little.



Let's be clear, it might be called a tart but this is a quiche and excellent lunch time fare served warm with a salad.



Here's the recipe for you. For all my recipes, I use a 250 ml cup and a 20 ml tablespoon. All eggs are 60 grams and my oven is a conventional oven not fan forced, so you may need to reduce your oven temperature by 20°C. It's a little time consuming to make but I think it's worth it.



Spring Vegetable Tart - adapted from the asparagus, pea, leek and ricotta tart recipe from the Cook and Baker
Pastry
1 cup (150 gm) plain flour
Pinch each salt and baking powder
60g butter
1 egg yolk
2 tablespoons iced water
Squeeze lemon juice

Filling
20 g butter
1 leek, pale part only thinly sliced
1 bunch asparagus
½ cup frozen peas, defrosted
4 tbls grated parmesan
50 g baby spinach leaves
2 eggs
75 g fresh ricotta cheese, drained
½ cup milk
½ cup cream
½ teaspoon salt
Pinch nutmeg

Pastry
Sift the flour, baking powder and salt into a bowl. Rub the butter in lightly until the mixture resembles breadcrumbs.

Combine the egg yolk, water and a squeeze of lemon and sprinkle over the flour stirring with a knife to form a dough. Add a little extra water if necessary. Knead lightly on a floured board to bring together, then wrap the pastry and chill for 30 minutes or until required.

Roll the pastry out on a lightly floured board to fit a 10 x 34 x 2.5 cm loose based rectangular tart tin. Roll the pastry into the flan tin pressing the pastry well into the flutes leaving a small overhang. Chill the pastry for 30 minutes before trimming the pastry level with the top of the flan ring. Preheat the oven to 180°C. Line the pastry shell with a piece of baking paper and pour in some baking beads or uncooked rice. Blind bake for 20 minutes then remove the paper and baking beads and bake for another 5-10 minutes or until the pastry is dry and golden. Cool a little.

Filling
Preheat the oven to 200°C. Heat a small frying pan over medium heat. Melt the butter and saute the leeks for 3-4 minutes or until softened. Trim the asparagus. Cut the tips and set aside for garnishing and chop the stems into small pieces. Mix together the asparagus, the peas, the cooked leek and 2 tbls of parmesan.

Place the spinach leaves in the base of the tart, nestle the leek and asparagus mixture amongst the spinach. Garnish with the asparagus tips and sprinkle over the remaining parmesan cheese.

In a medium size bowl combine the eggs with the ricotta cheese and mix until smooth. Mix in the milk and cream; add the nutmeg and season to taste. Place the tart shell on an oven tray then pour in as much custard as you can without the mixture spilling over the edge.

Bake at 200°C for 10 minutes before reducing the temperature to 180°C. Bake for another 20-30 minutes or until the filling is set and the top browned.

Serve hot or at room temperature.



When spring vegetables are back in season, I hope you get a chance to make this. 

See you all again soon.

Bye for now,

Jillian