Saturday 30 August 2008

Recipe: Tomato & Blue Cheese Tart



This is the last of the recipes from this year's Masterchef Weekend, back in July. Yes, I know...but somehow I just haven't got round to it. This was Jennie's first-course offering, and it was truly delicious. I'll reproduce it here exactly as she provided it to me - but in fact, before having actually read the recipe, I did make a version of it as a canapé a couple of weeks after the weekend, and my simplified version worked just as well as the 'official' one...but took significantly less time..


For Four.


Ingredients: 750g ripe vine-ripened Tomatoes; Salt & Pepper; 450g Puff Pastry; 100g Blue Cheese (e.g. Gorgonzola Piccante); 1 tsp fresh Thyme; 1 tbs Olive Oil; handful of Rocket leaves.


Method:


1. Thinly slice Tomatoes. Place them on a greased baking tray or a silpat sheet, add seasoning, and bake for ten minutes in a 250 degree C oven, then reduce the temperature to 150 degree C and bake for a further hour. Remove and set aside.


2. Roll out the Pastry, to make four 10cm squares of pastry, and bake ten minutes in a 200 degree C oven, then carefully turn them over and bake for a further five minutes.


3. Arrange the slices of Tomato over the Pastry squares, leaving a 1cm border around the edge of each square; crumble the Cheese over the top and sprinkle the Thyme and Oil over the Tomatoes, then return to the oven for five minutes until the Cheese has melted.


4. Before serving, garnish with chopped Rocket, and a final drizzle of Olive Oil.


For canapés, I used some leftover shortcrust pastry, rolled thin and cut into 2c m squares; on each one, after baking them, I put a basil leaf, then a single slice of cherry tomato (baked in slices for twenty minutes at 180 degrees C), topped with a little Blue Cheese and some dried Oregano, then back into the oven until the Cheese had melted, and served immediately with a glass of prosecco.