I still wanted to make a nice Sunday meal though, so I went
to a (very little) bit of effort. There are lots of different versions of this
sort of tart on the internet; this one is mine.
A note on pastry – life’s too short to make puff pastry, so
I have chosen not to bother.
Courgette tart with chilli and garlic roasted broccoli
Ingredients
For the tart:
1 packet of ready – rolled puff pastry
1 large onion, sliced
A clove of garlic, finely chopped
Two courgettes, sliced into discs about 5mm thick
About 20 grammes finely grated parmesan (basically that’s
all I had left)
A tablespoon of crème fraiche
Two tablespoons double cream
For the broccoli:
A head of broccoli
A really good slug of olive oil
Half a red chilli, finely chopped
A clove of garlic, finely chopped
Juice of half a lemon
Plenty of salt and pepper
Stick the oven on to preheat at about 200 degrees.
Prepare the broccoli by cutting into florets, and tossing
it in all the other ingredients. You want it to be reasonably well coated in
the oil to avoid it burning. Put on a baking tray in one layer.
Over a low heat melt a knob of butter and a drop of
vegetable oil. Add the onions and a good pinch of salt, give them a stir to
coat them in the butter and oil, and cook, occasionally stirring. You want to give
them about 15 – 20 minutes, so they slowly caramelise and go quite sweet. Add the
garlic for the last ten minutes.
While that’s cooking, lay your pastry out on a buttered
baking tray, and use a sharp knife to mark a border about two centimetres in
around the outside. You don’t want to go right the way through, just score it.
Inside that line, prick the pastry all over with a fork. Shove that in the
preheated oven for about five-ten minutes to crisp up/start to rise. The middle
will still puff up, but you can just squash it down with a spoon.
Take the onion/garlic mix off the heat, then add the
cheese, cream and crème fraiche, taste and add more salt and pepper if needed.
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| Not pretty, but damn tasty... |
Spread this mix in a thin layer over the pastry (within the border) and then
put the courgettes on top.
Put both the broccoli and the tart in the oven for
about fifteen-twenty minutes until crisped up. I turned up the heat too much on
mine because I was getting impatient, but it was still fine. You might want to
give the broccoli a stir around half way through.
We had a tomato salad with it too – but if you feel that
you need something a bit more substantial you could do some buttered new
potatoes.
BONUS RECIPE
It’s not that we currently have a glut of courgettes, but
seeing as I’m writing about them anyway, here’s a recipe for one of my
favourite quick dinners.
Put enough spaghetti on for one hungry person.
Grate a courgette and finely chop a clove of garlic. Melt
a good sized knob of butter in a frying pan over a low heat, then add the
courgette, garlic a good pinch of salt and a pinch of chilli flakes. Fry slowly
– the courgette pretty much disintegrates into a sauce. It takes as long as it
takes for your pasta to cook.
Squeeze in the juice of half a lemon and a generous
tablespoon of half fat crème fraiche.
Drain the spaghetti, reserving a little bit of the water
it boiled in, and add to the courgette mix. Stir everything through and cook
for a minute or two in the pan so the spaghetti is well coated and has picked
up all the flavour.
Eat!
