Red onion confit, fresh thyme and goat cheese tartelettes
Posted: April 26, 2011 Filed under: Pastry and Baking | Tags: Finger food, Goat cheese, Herbs, Red onions, Snacks, Sugar 2 Comments »
I first saw the onion confit and and goat cheese tartelettes on Mafalda Pinto Leite’s website (here, in Portuguese). It looked easy enough, but things went South when ready-made caramelized onion the recipe called for was nowhere to be find in Zurich. The only solution was to embark on a quest for the perfect red onion confit recipe. Finally, it was C’est moi qui l’ai fait who offered the perfect method for a luscious red onion confit. And, since they had gone through all the trouble of doing their own jam from scratch, it was only fair to give it a go to their tartelette. It was a good call – the whole batch was gone in less than a sigh.
Red onion confit, fresh thyme and goat cheese tartelettes
Ingredients
- 1 roll of puf pastry
- 1 pot of red onion confit (recipe here)
- 1 fresh soft goat cheese, crumbled
- 1 yolk
- 1 tablespoon of milk
- Fresh thyme
Method
Preheat the stove to 210oC
Spread a bit of flour all over the kitchen top, and lay the pastry roll. Mix the yolk with the milk, and brush it all over the pastry surface.
Cut it in squares (4cm side), and place them on the baking tray.
Drop a teaspoon of onion confit at the center of each square (the corners should be free, so they can puff). On top of the confit, put the equivalent of a small teaspoon of cheese. Sprinkle with fresh thyme.
It is now ready to put on the stove, for about 8min, or until the pastry is golden.
Apple, sage and goat cheese salad
Posted: September 25, 2010 Filed under: Salad, Vegetarian | Tags: Apples, Goat cheese, Mafalda Pinto Leite, spinach 1 Comment »
T. brought this warm apples, nuts, sage, goat cheese and autumn leaves salad last time she came home for dinner. “Did you know Mafalda Pinto Leite?”, she asked, while she took over the kitchen and put the salad together. “Mafalda who?” I answered. Clearly, I was missing out on something. The recipe is from the book Cozinha Para Quem Não Tem Tempo (in a very liberal translation from the Portuguese, Cooking for Those Who Have No Time)
Apple, sage and goat cheese salad
Ingredients (4 persons)
- 60g butter without salt
- 1 tablespoon of sage leafs (no chopping needed).
- 3 tablespoons of white vinegar (I used cherry vinegar)
- 1 tablespoon of brown sugar (cane sugar will also work fine)
- 2 green apples without core and cut in quarters.
- Half mug of chopped nuts
- 100g de rucola or red spinach (I used a bag of autumn leaves)
- 150g of sliced goat cheese (the creamy one)
Method
Put the butter, sage, vinegar and sugar in a frying pan (low heat). When the butter has melted, add the nuts and the apples and. Let cook for a few minutes or until the fruit is tender.
Make a bed of leafs in the dishes, and place the apples and the nuts on top. Reserve the juice that was left on the pan, and poor it over the nuts and apples. Finish with the sliced goat cheese.
Total time of cooking: 8 minutes-ish. Looking for the right ingredients in the cupboard: one eternity.
Tomato galette, take 2
Posted: September 19, 2010 Filed under: Pastry and Baking, Vegetarian | Tags: Goat cheese, Tomato, Yotam Ottolenghi Leave a comment »
Tomato galette and roasted spring onions
Posted: September 1, 2010 Filed under: Pastry and Baking, Vegetarian | Tags: Goat cheese, Spring onions, Tomato, Yotam Ottolenghi Leave a comment »
The spring onions’ recipe is a courtesy of T.. The tomato galette was a creation of Yotam Ottolenghi for his New Vegetarian column on The Guardian.
Tomato Galette
Ingredients
- 375g all-butter puff pastry
- 8 stalks fresh oregano, leaves picked and roughly chopped
- 100g goat’s cheese, crumbled
- 450g red, yellow or green tomatoes of various sizes, sliced 2mm thick
- 8 stalks fresh thyme
- Olive oil
For the sundried tomato paste
- 10 sun-dried tomatoes from a jar
- 1 fresh red chilli, sliced (I use a tea spoon of dried piri piri)
- 2 garlic cloves
- Half tablespoon of sugar
- 1 teaspoon of salt
Method
Preheat the oven to 200oC/gas mark 6. Roll out the pastry to 3mm thick (Alternatively, if you have a large enough baking sheet, roll out the pastry into one circle, like a big pizza.) Transfer the pastry rectangles to a large baking sheet lined with baking paper and refrigerate for 30 minutes.
Meanwhile, make the sun-dried tomato paste. Put all the ingredients in the small bowl of a food processor and process to a rough paste; if necessary, add a little oil from the tomato jar to bring it together. If your food processor bowl is too large, you may need to do some of the chopping by hand.
Spread a thin layer of the tomato paste over the chilled pastry, leaving a border about 1cm from the edge. Sprinkle with the oregano and goat’s cheese, and arrange the tomatoes on top, slightly overlapping but not too precisely. Make sure the tomato paste is covered by fresh tomatoes because it tends to burn. Drop the thyme stalks over the tomatoes and drizzle with a little olive oil.
Bake for 15 minutes, until golden on top; check the base to make sure the pastry is brown and fully cooked. Remove from the oven and leave to cool before drizzling over more olive oil and serving warm.
Roasted spring onions
Ingredients
- Spring onions, cut in half
- Salt, pepper
- Olive oil
Method
Preheat the oven to 200oC. Put the Spring onions on a baking tray. Sprinkle with salt and pepper, and then drizzle with a little olive oil. Bake for 10 minutes or until golden on the top.
