Thursday, June 24, 2010

Plum Tomato and Mustard Seed tart



(picture taken just after it came out of the oven - lots of steam in the photo!)

Leigh went to the BBC Good Food show last week and came back with a recipe card from the British Tomato Growers' Association - this recipe is from the card. Despite the fact that I completely forgot to put in the basil and the recipe doesn't actually give a measurement for baking powder (consequently I was slightly surprised when reading through instruction 3 and had to read it several times before realising it wasn't just my eyes!) [I used about half a tsp] it came out really well and tasted great. Especially the crust - the recipe suggests you can replace the crust with ready made puff pastry for a speedier option...but I say don't! The crust is yummy!

Ingredients :
300g British plum tomatoes
30g butter
10g soft light brown sugar
a good squeeze of lemon juice
1 tsp black mustard seeds (didn't have any in the cupboard so I used normal mustard seeds)
a handful of fresh basil leaves

for the crust :
100f self-raising flour
pinch of dry mustard powder
pinch of cayenne pepper
1 tsp black mustard seeds
15g freshly grated Parmesan cheese
2 tbspn olive oil
salt and freshly ground black pepper
2-3 tbspn for mixing

1. Grease an 18cm/7" flan tin (I used a pie dish) with some of the butter. Put the rest of the butter into a bowl and mix with the sugar, lemon juice, mustard seeds and season with salt and ground black pepper. Spread this mixture over the base of the tin.

2. Cut the tomatoes in half horizontally. Arrange them cut side down on top of the butter to completely cover the base of the tin. Shred the basil leaves and scatter them on top of the tomatoes.

3. Set the oven to 220C/200C fan/425F/gas 7. Sift the flour, baking powder, mustard and cayenne pepper into a mixing bowl. Season with salt and pepper and stir in the mustard seeds, Parmesan and oil. Mix together with a knife and then rub in with fingertips until the mixture resembles breadcrumbs. Bind to a soft but firm dough with the milk.

4. Turn the dough onto a floured surface and knead gently until smooth. Roll to a circle about 5mm/ 1/4" thick to fit the top of the tin. Lay it on top of the tomatoes and press down lightly, tucking the edge in around the tomatoes.

5. Bake for 5 minutes until the crust is crisp and golden. Loosed the edge with a knife then turn the tart upside down onto a serving plate. Decorate with basil leaves and serve straight away (mine sat on the oven for over an hour before we ate. It was still great, but I should think the pastry is slightly crisper if you eat straightaway).

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