This courgette tart is a recipe from my lovely godmother
Maggie, who is a fantastic cook. It’s truly scrumptious – buttery, garlicky
courgettes, rich salty crème fraiche, and crisp pastry. As a kid I never used to like
courgettes (among many, many other things), but now I can’t understand why
because they’re so tasty – even with nothing added to them they have a
wonderful buttery flavour, and the addition of olive oil and garlic makes them
utterly divine.
The tomato salad is just something I knocked up to go
with this when I was bored of lettuce – but you could mix it with rocket or
lettuce if you wanted to add something green.
Ingredients:
One block of puff pastry (normally it comes in a pack of
two, so you can freeze the other one)
A biggish tub of crème fraiche
Parmesan
Salt and black pepper
Two fat courgettes
Olive oil
Four or five garlic cloves
For the salad:
A packet of salad tomatoes (for this purpose, it’s better
when they’re crisp rather than ripe)
Two or three spring onions
Fresh basil
Red wine vinegar
A pinch of sugar
Start at least an hour before you want to serve, although
the longer you leave it the better. Slice the courgette very thinly, then pop
it into a bowl and pour in enough olive oil to coat the slices. Chop up the
garlic cloves and mix them in with a bit of black pepper, then leave the
courgettes to absorb the scrummy garlicky flavours.
When you’re ready to do the rest, roll out the puff
pastry until it’s no more than 5mm thick, and about the right size to fit onto
your baking tray or sheet. Score it around the outside to make a border of
about 2cm (but make sure not to cut all the way through!). In a bowl, mix the
crème fraiche with a generous grating of parmesan, and a bit of salt and
pepper. Then spread it thickly on the puff pastry, leaving the border clear.
Next, arrange the courgettes on top – I think they look pretty overlapping each
other in long rows, but it really doesn’t matter! Finally, brush the pastry
border with the garlicky oil, and drizzle any that’s left over on top of the
courgettes.
Preheat the oven to 200˚C, and cook the tart for about
20 minutes, or until the crust is risen and golden. The rest of the tart will
probably puff up during cooking (the clue’s in the name, eh) but don’t worry,
it will settle down as soon as you take it out of the oven.
While it’s cooking, prepare the salad. Cut the tomatoes
in half and scoop out the seeds (discard these, as they’ll make the salad all
soggy), then chop them up roughly. Slice the spring onions finely, and then mix
them with the tomatoes, plenty of fresh basil leaves and a slug of red wine
vinegar. Taste it and season, and add a bit of sugar if needed.
Serve the tart straightaway while it’s hot, although it’ll
also be great served cold, the day after cooking, if you don’t scoff it all in
one go!