I have been watching a television show called The Incredible Spice Men and love their style of cooking with spice. I’ve had a go at their caramelised onion and goats cheese tart with a few exceptions. I was unable to source caraway seeds at my local supermarket so unfortunately had to leave them out. I also didn’t have any balsamic vinegar but used Apple cider vinegar instead and it was more than fine 😄
Get all your ingredients together first. I had some lovely gluten free pastry left over from a madras curry pie from the other night and didn’t want to waste that. The extra lactose free cheese you see here wasn’t used in the end as it had mould in it 😝 I hadn’t noticed before assembling the tart. I was just going to sprinkle it on top for an extra cheesy taste. It certainly wasn’t needed.
Make your caramelised onion jam first so it can cool down.
I used,
1-2 tablespoons rice bran oil
85 gm unsalted butter
500gm red onions, sliced
Salt and freshly ground pepper
1-2 heaped tablespoons soft brown sugar
80ml Apple Cider vinegar
I added the oil and butter to the pan till it was foaming then added the onion and a good pinch of salt flakes and ground black pepper and stirred for 5 minutes. Then I added the sugar and the vinegar and mixed in well. I covered the pan and cooked on a medium heat for another 15 minutes. I then uncovered the pan and let the juices evaporate for a further 15-20 minutes till it had reached that lovely jammy consistency.
Bake your pastry case. This was a lovely gluten free pastry from the wonderful blog GF and Me. Best gluten free pastry I’ve tried yet. Recipe is as follows. It is called Mary’s Magnificent Pastry.
Pastry
2 cups of gluten free flour (I used Bobs Redmill all purpose flour)
2 teaspoons xantham gum
1 cup/250gm butter , cubed and cold
1/2 cup sour cream
Pulse in a food processor or rub in with fingers the butter and combined flour and xantham gum until dough comes together in pea sized balls. Add sour cream and pulse until dough holds together.
Knead slightly and make into two balls, wrap in cling wrap and chill for an hour or so.
This amount was what I used to make my madras curry pie and I had some left over that I used a couple of days later for this tart. It kept really well in the fridge.
Line your pie tin, preferably one with a removable base for ease of removal. Prick the base with a fork.
Add baking paper and top with pie beads or beans and blind bake for 15 minutes at 180 degrees Celsius . Remove the beads and bake for another 10 minutes. Now a word of warning here. This pastry is very short and will brown faster than your normal non gluten free pastry. Mine looks well browned but in the final bake with filling I popped foil around the rim of the tart to stop it browning to black! It still tasted lovely but next time I’ll take it out sooner.
Now we assemble the tart!
For the filling you’ll need,
200 gm of goats cheese, crumbled or sliced
2 large eggs
200ml of pouring cream
The onion jam you’ve made earlier.
Layer your onion mix in the base first. Crumble or layer the goats cheese over the top. Then mix together the eggs and cream and pour over the top.
I baked the tart for roughly 30 minutes on 160-180 degrees Celsius but I checked it at 20 minutes as well. I thought it turned out rather well, if a little too brown 😄
The taste was spot on with the sweetness of the onions and the saltiness of the goats cheese melding together nicely. This would be lovely with a nice watercress or mustard greens salad to go with it. Just nice for a spring lunch.
Bon appetit!
PS apologies for the layout of the pictures. For some reason my iPad puts them out of order to what I choose when I choose multiple photos! I’ll have to work out how to fix that.
cathyandchucky 