Thursday, July 14, 2011

Onion tart with some sort of pastry

Here is another recipe from my current favourite (non-electronic) cookbook, Small Adventures in CookingPlus, this recipe for onion and anchovy tart is even easier to make if you use store-bought pastry, like I did. More on the pastry later...

All you need to do is slice up some onions (no fiddly dicing required - slicing is so much easier, don't you think?); a few small tears were shed, I must admit. Then cook down the onions till they are soft. Roll out the pastry and blind bake, fill the tart and you're on your way to enjoying a sensationally scrumptious meal.

Onion and Anchovy Tart
serves 8

Ingredients
300g shortcrust pastry
50g butter
6 onions, peeled and finely sliced
salt and pepper
2 eggs
100ml cream
100g grated Gruyere or Cheddar cheese
approx 12 anchovy fillets in oil, drained

Method
1. For the pastry: Preheat oven to 180C. Line a 25cm tart tin with the pastry. Prick all over with a fork, then line with a piece of baking paper and fill with cooking weights or uncooked rice or beans to weigh it down. Bake in the oven for 20 minutes, then remove the paper and weights and return to the oven for 5 minutes.

2. For the onions: In a large frypan, melt the butter over low heat and add the onions. Season with salt and pepper, cover and cook for 1 hour, stirring occasionally.

3. Allow the onions to cool a bit. Beat together the cream and eggs and stir into the onions together with the cheese. Season with salt and pepper and pour into the baked tart shell.  Lay the anchovies over the top. Cook the tart in the oven for 30-40 minutes, until the filling is set.  Cool for 10 minutes before serving.

recipe from Small Adventures in Cooking by James Ramsden

Ingredients: Lots of onions, lots of butter, eggs, anchovies and cheese.
And cream. And pastry, but more on that later...

I'm not the only one who's crying - Tabitha cat is affected by the onion fumes, too!

Slow cooking of the onions makes them soft and luscious.
The pastry (more on that later...) is blind-baked before being filled with the onions.

The anchovies provide a sharp saltiness to the tart. 

Deliciously rich. Serve warm or cold.

And what about this pastry? The packet says shortcrust, but surely that's puff pastry in there!
The puff pastry didn't affect the flavour of the tart, but shortcrust might have been preferable.

Another recipe from Small Adventures in Cooking is here.

21 comments:

  1. YUM. I think you just seriously influenced the Meal Plan.

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  2. That onion-y flaky pastry looks seriously good Bel! I bought my first Careme pastry boxes from the GFW Show in Sydney, can't wait to give them a go!

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  3. I'd love a warm slice of that onion tart served with a crisp salad (with some kind of creamy dressing) for lunch. Thanks for the recipe - using store-bought pastry makes it very doable!

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  4. I've printed this out and am going to attempt to make it...wish me luck!

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  5. Haha, I'm getting confused by all those pastry flakes left behind by the "shortcrust" pastry too!

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  6. Oh dear haha - false advertising much? Oh well, it looks fab anyway :)
    Your cat is too cute!!!!

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  7. stringy onion + cheese in a tart...YUM! haha yea def looks like puff to me...mb coz it has high sour cream content? ok my reasoning prob doesnt make sense!

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  8. OK, groaning with pleasure at the combination of onion and anchovy. The look on Tabatha's face is priceless

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  9. YUM! I need to bake this. Just make sure I am not kissing anyone LOL

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  10. I love cooked onions and to have a whole pie of them! Dreamy. Tear-worthy.

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  11. Definitely my kind of tart coz its savoury and perhaps the only time I would slice this amount of onions apart from making French onion soup.

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  12. Haha I just love all your descriptions of your dishes ;) You know... I don't think I would mind a bit of a flaky pastry for my tart, best part about a pastry! But I suppose if you were expecting a short crust pastry, you'd expect it to be... well short.

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  13. Ok lady, this tart looks delicious. And that is coming from an onion loather! Seriously, can't stand crunchy onions. I say this as a 100% compliment to your beautiful photography and descriptions. You might have converted me.

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  14. oh looks delish but not sure if i would slave over onions for one hr :s

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  15. We love onion tarts...they are very popular here.
    Amazing that Tabitha stayed there...

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  16. Yummie, onion, cheese and anchovy...looks delicious, great combination of flavors.
    Hope you have a great week Bel :-)

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  17. teehee Tabitha cat looks so irritatedly cute! think i'll try this recipe out this weekend :)

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  18. Poor Tabitha in the onion fumes. Did she get an anchovy to make up for it? The tart certainly sounds like it makes up for a few tears with excellent flavours.

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  19. hahah! Tabitha cracks me up. Love it when cats don't like a certain smell. Creamy squints, walks back then runs to the highest point to observe. Love this recipe.

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  20. Your poor Tabitha looks very affected by the fumes lol. Anyway the tart looks fabulous!

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  21. This is a shortcrust pastry.. The sour cream in it gives it the lift! Delicious! If you try Carême's All Butter Puff Pastry you will see the difference. Check out their website for products and cooking tips.

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