A Very Full Tart

Today is Valentine's Day. It's a weird day at the best of times with the "buy to show your love" rhetorics clashing with the "we don't need a holiday to show love, we do it all the time" factions, both colliding with the "I am so in love and everyone needs to know!" consortiums. I knew from the get-go this morning that I wanted a quiet day to myself. I decided I would stay in instead of going to campus and spend the day alternating between reading ('The God Delusion' by Richard Dawkins) and cooking something time-consuming.

"Time-consuming" as a category is actually fairly hard to find in Plenty. Most of the recipes are fairly straightforward and remarkably swift. I'd had the recipe for the Very Full Tart in mind to make sometime this month and realized today would be the perfect time. Everything was in the fridge, the day was wide open, and I already had puff pastry in the freezer which would save me the extra step of making up a pie crust. Done and done. I assembled everything and got to work.

Saying up front - this recipe does take quite a while to put together. In addition to creating the pie crust and the multiple rounds of roasting for the veggies, the final bake itself is a healthy 35-45 minutes. I highly recommend that you read through the recipe carefully to assess the time it will take. That said, nothing about this recipe is hard and there is plenty of hands off time while the ingredients roast, caramelize, bake, etc. The other caveat I feel needs to be made ahead of time is to choose the smallest vegetables you can for this tart. I went with the smallest I could find for the zucchini and eggplant, used half of a leftover onion and sweet potato and still ended up with enough roasted veggies to make a 12" diameter tart, another 8" diameter tart, and still have a good cup-and-some roasted veggies left over (which are delicious and hardly a problem). For a recipe that says it makes a 9" diameter tart to feed 4-6 people, the yield was a LOT. So feel free to go with the tiniest veggies you can find - I can't see it being a problem. As usual, the ingredients and proportions are as indicated in the book, while the instructions incorporate my observations and alterations.


Very Full Tart
(p. 84, Plenty)

Serves 4-6 according to the book.

1 red bell pepper
1 yellow bell pepper
about 6 tbsp olive oil
1 medium eggplant, cut into 2-inch dice
salt and black pepper
1 small sweet potato, peeled and cut into 1-inch dice
1 small zucchini, cut into 1-inch dice
2 medium onions, thinly sliced
2 bay leaves
11 oz pie crust dough
8 thyme sprigs, leaves picked
1/3 cup ricotta
4 1/4 oz feta
7 cherry tomatoes, halved
2 medium eggs
1 cup heavy cream

Assemble ingredients!

Preheat the oven to 400F. Use a small knife to cut around the stem of each pepper. Lift it out along with the seeds. Shake the peppers until the remaining seeds are removed and discard the seeds and stems. Place both peppers in a baking dish, drizzle with some olive oil and put on the top shelf of the oven.

 In a medium bowl, mix the diced eggplant with 4 tablespoons of the olive oil, some salt, and some pepper.

Spread into a large baking pan (I used a 9"x13" Pyrex and that was a good size) and place in the oven on the shelf under the baking peppers. Bake for 12 minutes. While the eggplant is baking, you can prep the other ingredients if you haven't already.

After 12 minutes, add the diced sweet potato to the baking eggplant and stir gently. Return to the oven to roast for an additional 12 minutes.

Add the zucchini to the pan, stir gently and roast for another 10-12 minutes.

Once that 12 minute increment has completed, the peppers should be nicely browned and all of the rest of the vegetables cooked. Take everything out of the oven. Let the vegetables sit for a bit to cool. Wrap the pan with the peppers in it in a bit of foil and let cool; once they are cool, peel the skins off and chop the flesh into rough chunks. Once everything has been taken out of the oven, reduce the oven temperature to 325F.

In a medium frying pan on the stove, heat the remaining 2 tablespoons of olive oil over medium heat. Saute the onions with the bay leaves and some salt for 25 minutes, stirring occasionally, until they turn brown, soft, and sweet. I forgot about the bay leaves, but it didn't ruin the dish.

Once onions are soft and caramelized, remove from heat. Remove the bay leaves and set aside to cool.

Lightly grease a 9-inch, loose bottomed tart pan.  Roll out the pie crust dough into a circle roughly 1/8th of an inch thick and large enough to line the pan with some dough overhanging the rim. Carefully fit the dough into the pan, pressing it into the fluting. Trim the edges of the crust with a knife or by rolling a rolling pin over the edge of the pan. Apparently I completely forgot to take pictures of this part. Whoops. Line the dough with a piece of parchment paper and fill it with pie weights/dried beans/rice and blind bake (with weights in) for 30 minutes. Once the blind bake is complete, remove the paper and weights, and then return the crust to the oven for an additional 10 to 15 minutes, or until the crust starts to turn golden brown. Once the crust is golden, remove from the oven and set aside to cool a little.  I opted to use the puff pastry I already had in my freezer, but the process was essentially identical. I found the inside of the crust puffed up more than I preferred with the use of the puff pastry, which wasn't a problem; I simply used a fork to carefully pull up a few layers of the puff pastry from the inner circle of the tart, thereby deepening the centre of the crust a bit. If you use a regular pie dough crust you will not have to monkey with that step. ^_^

To assemble the tart, scatter the cooked onion over the slightly cooled crust. I decided to chop the ends of my green onions in there as well, to use them up. Why not?

Top the scattered onions with the roasted vegetables, arranging them evenly. Scatter half the thyme leaves over the vegetables. I forgot the thyme (this was about the point where I realized I had enough filling to make two tarts, so I was making a round of pie dough at this stage for the second tart and got a little absent-minded when it came to the thyme), but it's omission was not devastating.

 Next, dot the vegetables with small amounts of both cheeses. I found even with the larger tart that I didn't use the full amount of either cheese, but that might just be my preferences.

Slice the tomatoes in half and arrange them on top of the cheese, nestling them down into the filling a bit.

In a separate container, whisk together the eggs and the cream with some salt and a few grinds of black pepper. I subbed out the cream for almond milk, which worked just fine. Carefully pour the custard mixture over the tart - you're aiming to fill in the gaps between the vegetables and the crust, without completely covering the top layer of cheese and tomatoes. Scatter the remaining thyme on top, if you remember. Place in the oven and bake for 35-45 minutes, or until the filling sets and everything starts to turn a little golden. Remove the tart from the oven once set and allow to rest for at least 10 minutes before serving.

Then enjoy!

I can't even begin to say how delicious this is. I wasn't sure about the eggplant because I find myself continually suspicious of that particular vegetable, but this was incredible. I'd make it again and again... and that is after having to get through the two tarts this ended up making for me! I think I'd make it as a frittata as well - the roasted veggies would work well in that context, and it would save the fuss of dealing with a crust. Don't get me wrong, a crust is nice sometimes, but for special occasions. On an everyday kind of basis, I'd rather not have the extra fuss of that step. I suggest pairing it with an arugula salad with some kind of citrus balsamic vinaigrette if you have the ability.