This delicious tart was part of last night’s dinner – inspired by Barb Freda’s blog, Babette Feasts. Some minor changes – I added balsamic vinegar to the onions rather than wine and used a sharp sheep’s milk pecorino instead of parmesan shavings. It was topped with super-ripe Roma tomatoes that we’d bought from Jimmy at the markets last week, and would definitely have been better had I remembered to buy some basil!
Instead of the puff pastry specified in the recipe, I used June’s sour cream dough. This was the first time I’d tried it in a savoury context and it worked really well – I can see it becoming our new house standard. It’s a surprisingly simple recipe, which I always make by hand in a large mixing bowl – it’s so easy that I don’t feel it’s worth dragging the food processor out!
Sour Cream Pastry
- 500g plain flour
- 250g unsalted butter, cut into cubes
- 300g sour cream (thick)
Rub the butter into the flour, then work in the sour cream until the mixture forms a silky dough. If you’d like it to be flaky, you can fold the dough a few times (as shown here). I only gave it one fold, followed by a rest in the fridge, and the pastry was perfect for lining the quiche dish. This quantity of pastry is massively more than I needed – I used about a quarter for our small dish and froze the rest (in two lots) for a later date. I’ve been thinking it might be the perfect pastry for curry puffs!
You need to grow some basil. There is nothing better than basil from your own garden. At the moment my basil is growing so well. I think I need to plant about 5 more plants as the kids favourite sandwich filling is basil.
Sigh. I just need a garden. It’s on the to-do list for the next 12 months…