Summer Recipe: Cherry Tomato & Zucchini Tart

mycookinghut June 20, 2009
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I know that I am no master in baking but I have been hoping to bake more when I got more time. When comes to pastries, I only started to make savoury ones in recent years. I made quiches/tarts a while ago, like Spinach & Blue Cheese Tart and Cheese & Onion Quiche. They both were really nice and I like to make tarts for lunch from time to time as they are pretty simple and quick to prepare.

Last weekend, I tried for the first time to make pâte feuilletée (puff pastry). Pâte feuilletée (puff pastry)  is a light, flaky, unleavened pastry containing several layers of fat which is in solid state. It sounded pretty scary for me at first as I have never made pastry from scratch before. Worse still when I always tell myself that I am still a very beginner in baking.

I took a recipe off the internet and followed every step in making puff pastry. It worked !! But quite time consuming.  I want to perfect it so I hope to try making it again next time and show you guys every step in making pâte feuilletée if you are interested! I know that you can easily buy puff pastry from any major supermarkets but the idea of making things on my own does appeal to me very much!

So, what did I do with my puff pastry? To continue with the sumer recipes series, oh, I used it to make cherry tomato and zucchini tart, topped with buffalo mozzarella (mozzarella di bufala). Cherry tomatoes are abundant now. I bought lots of them to just eat raw or cook. They are the sweet little gems that I really adore.

Just a few weeks ago, I saw this really nice and easy recipe in one of the food magazines. They have used only cherry tomatoes. But, I thought, I could add zucchini too, to make it more Mediterranean. 🙂 Also, that also makes it really colourful. Oh, I love my food to be colourful!

Cherry tomato and zucchini tart is suitable to be served as lunch or dinner. I guess while the weather is warm and nice like now, light lunch like this sounds like a good idea to me. If you want, you can make this into mini tartlets too. Mini tartlets like these are suitable to be served as pre-entree.

Give this cherry tomato and zucchini tart a try. I think it will be a fantastic idea to serve this easy but yummy recipe for lunch!

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Tomato and Zucchini Tart

Yield:

Ingredients:

500g all-butter puff pastry
1 onion, peeled and finely chopped
4 tsp fresh thyme leaves
4 tbsp olive oil
600g vine-ripened cherry tomatoes, halved
1 small zucchini,sliced
250g baby mozzarella balls
16 black olives, pitted and halved
a small handful fresh basil leaves
2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil

Method:

1. Lightly flour a work surface. Cut the puff pastry into 4. Then, for each one, roll out to a 18cm square which has a thickness of 3mm. Place on a lightly floured tray and chill for 5 minutes. Remove from the tray, for each square, use a cutting ring of 16cm and cut into circle. Repeat for the rest of the squares. Use a sharp knife, score an indent all around each circle pastry, about 1cm in from the edge, to make a border, and chill on a baking sheet lined with baking paper.

2. Preheat the oven to 230°C/210°C. In a frying pan over a low heat, soften the onion with the thyme in half the oil for 8 minutes without browning the onion, season, then leave to cool.

3. Take the puff pastries out of the fridge. Spread the onion mixture onto the pastry inside the scored line and top with sliced zucchini, then layer with the tomatoes.

4. Brush the tomatoes and the edges of the pastries with the rest of the olive oil and season. Cook in the oven for 12 minutes.

5. When cooked, remove the tarts from the oven and arrange the mozzarella and olives over the tomatoes. Return to the oven for 2-3 minutes until the cheese has melted. Remove from the oven and set aside to rest for 5 minutes.

6. Garnish with basil and drizzle with extra-virgin olive oil to serve.