Vegetarian puff pastry tart

Right, here's another recipe that I cooked a few times over Christmas. It's surprising how such a simple dish can be so pleasing, but I think that's the beauty of puff pastry - anything that poofs up so much in the oven is pretty much guaranteed to put a smile on my face, even with ready-made pastry. The great thing about this dish, is that once you've done it once you can make up your own variations (the original recipe used courgettes for example) to suit your tastes. If you're cooking for kids, why not get them to pick and lay out the different toppings so it's even more fun!

I think next time I try it I might make meaty versions by scattering over some chopped up chunks of Frikadellen or even slices of cooked meat like salami, pepperoni, or chorizo, but the possibilities are endless!

Here's the link to the original Sainbury's recipe that I based mine on, and here's my version (it's been a while since I made it last, so I hope I've remembered the proportions correctly!!).

Ingredients

1 pack of chilled ready-made puff pastry (300g)
1 medium egg, beaten
2 tbsp olive oil
1 leek, finely sliced (I've also used roughly chopped onion before which gives a slightly different flavour)
2 garlic cloves, peeled and finely chopped
4 tsp red pesto
2 tbsp tomato puree
3 - 4 tomatoes, sliced
80g closed cup mushrooms
1/2 tsp oregano
Salt & Pepper (to season)
2-3 tbsp sweetcorn (optional)
70g-100g mature cheese, grated (I've used alternately Red Leicester, Cheddar and Double Gloucester, so it's up to you which one you prefer, and how much you use depends on how cheesy you want it to be)

Method 

1. Take the pastry out of the fridge and leave in its packaging at room temperature for at least ten minutes. If you unroll it while it's too cold it might tear or crack.

2. Preheat the oven to 220c (mine takes quite a while to heat up so I tend to allow a good 15minutes for this in my cooking timings).

3. After the ten minutes is up, remove the pastry from the packaging and roll it out straight onto a baking tray. If it comes wrapped up with greaseproof paper, which it most likely will do, then there may be some excess which you can just snip off with kitchen scissors. Using a knife, carefully score an outline about 1 to 1 1/2 inches from the edge of the pastry sheet, making sure the knife DOES NOT cut all the way through the pastry to the tray underneath. This is what will create the lip or borders of your tart.

4. Prick the pastry all over (including the borders) with a fork, and brush the beaten egg over the whole sheet of pastry.

5. Once the oven is at the right temperature, place the pastry tray in the oven and bake for about ten minutes until risen and golden.

6. While that's baking, make the tomato base for the tart. In a small bowl, mix together the olive oil, the red pesto, tomato puree and chopped garlic.

7. When the pastry's had its ten minutes it should be golden and will have risen a lot like an inflated balloon. Remove from the oven and gently press down on the middle bits with a spoon to 'deflate' it slightly, and then spread the tomato base over the pastry within the borders you previously cut into it. Scatter over the sliced leek and if you want to add sweetcorn, you can do so at this stage.

Mmmm, love leeks.

8. Then you can add the sliced tomato and mushrooms. You can either just scatter them all over randomly, or you can be sad like me and layer it in (somewhat neat) rows. Presenting it in that way makes it look like you've put in loads of effort, when in fact it's possibly the easiest thing I've ever had to make. Sprinkle over the oregano, season with salt and pepper if you wish, and then top with the cheese.

Doing it this way makes me feel like a trainee chef in a Cordon Bleu school in France!

9. Return to the oven for another ten or so minutes, until the tomatoes and mushrooms have softened and the cheese has melted.

10. Et voila! Dinner is served :)

This can be eaten as a main course shared between two people either on its own, with a side salad, or some nice bread. This might seem like huge portions for just two people, but as it's such a light dish I find that there never ends up being much leftover. You can also cut it into smaller portions if serving as a starter (or even with a buffet, but it's nicest hot so you might not want it sitting out for too long).

Although I've not tried this, I'm sure you could tart it up (excuse the pun!) with creamy dauphinois potatoes and maybe some asparagus on the side. If you've gone for the extra cheesy (more like pizza) version, then it could even go with something simple like peas and chips/boiled potatoes.