So following on from yesterday’s recipe for Rusticated Fruit Tart, here’s how I did a veggie version. It’s quite like the fruit tart, but obviously not sweetened.

Serves: 4 as a main course or 6-8 as a starter
Preparation Time: 15-20 minutes
Cooking Time: 30-40 minutes

Ingredients

• 500g packet of puff pastry
• A good quantity of “summer” vegetables (see below)
• 2-3 handfuls of grated hard cheese (cheddar or a cheddar/parmesan mix)
• 2 tbsp olive oil
• Fresh ground black pepper
• 1 egg, beaten (or some milk)

For the veg I used 2 yellow peppers, 8-10 cherry tomatoes, a fennel, 3 large mushrooms, small red onion, 2 cloves of garlic. You could also use chopped fresh herbs (thyme would be good), aubergine, courgette, celery, leeks. Of course, if you want a non-veggie version you could always add some chopped bacon.

Go easy with the cheese but don’t be mean. While you want enough for good flavour, too much cheese will make the tart too greasy.

Instructions

1. Preheat the oven to 220℃/200℃ fan/gas mark 7.
2. Prepare a baking sheet and cover with baking parchment.
3. Prepare the veg much as you would for doing roast vegetables (just cut a bit smaller). Cut into pieces to roughly match the cherry tomatoes or 2cm pieces. Roughly chop the garlic (and any herbs). Put in a food bag with black pepper to taste and the olive oil. Shake up to get the veg coated in oil.
4. Roll out the pastry to form a rough circle the size of the baking sheet (or slightly bigger; it doesn’t have to be precise) and transfer to the baking sheet.
5. If the pastry has come out square-ish, snip off the corners to make something rounder, otherwise you end up with too many thick folds of pastry. Keep the pastry offcuts!
6. Paint the pastry liberally with the egg.
7. Sprinkle about 2/3 of the grated cheese in the centre of the pastry leaving a 3-4cm border around the edge.
8. Pile the veg on the cheese. If you think you have too much veg, you haven’t as it will cook down.
9. Fold the edges of the pastry up and over the veg to form a tart. Try to get some veg inside the fold so it isn’t just pastry!
10. Brush the edge of the tart with the egg. And if there’s any egg left over sprinkle it over the veg.
11. Top with the remaining cheese.
12. Bake for about 30 minutes until the pastry is crisp & golden, the veg cooked and the cheese browning.
13. Serve either hot or cold with a good white wine.

Here’s one I made earlier, fresh from the oven.

Tomorrow, what to do with those pastry offcuts.