Three weeks to go before we head back to London to hopefully avoid Nassau’s hurricane season (tropical storm Emily is no more) and get a bit of euro-ness back in our tanks. The countdown’s started and apart from the whole packing thing (which I’m just pretending isn’t going to happen), it means going through my kitchen cupboards and seeing what ingredients are threatening to go off before we get back in November. It’s basically going to be like Ready, Steady, Cook! for the next few posts, so I apologise in advance for any culinary weirdness. (E.g. what would you make out of a tin of condensed milk, a handful of pistachios and a bag of instant farina? And see this bread for what to do with all those ends of bags of seeds and odd flours.)
Everything in the freezer has to go too – bits of stale bread, cooked beetroot, roast potatoes, blueberries and about a million egg whites – oh yes, and that 1.5kg of puff pastry I made a couple of weeks ago. Yeah, I was feeling pretty smug about making my own until I realised we’ve basically got to eat puff for every meal for a week. Bugger. Cheese straw, anyone?
Here we go then: this improvisation actually came out pretty much as I wanted it to. Tender asparagus spears nestled in a pillowy cloud of ricotta and parmesan, encased in billowingly crisp golden puff pastry. Sorry, I appear to be writing a country house hotel menu this evening. Anyway, 300g down, only 1.2kg to go…
Asparagus and ricotta tart
Makes enough for two, pretty greedily
Ingredients
- 300g puff pastry
- 200g ricotta (supermarket stuff fine)
- a bunch of asparagus
- 2 eggs
- grated parmesan
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 180˚C.
- Remove woody ends of aparagus and steam or boil them until tender, about 5 minutes. Refresh under cold water and pat dry.
- Roll out the puff pastry on a floured surface until about 3mm thick – I made mine into a rectangle about 7 x 9 inches which fit the asparagus in horizontal rows, but it’s a freeform tart which, thank goodness, hides a multitude of rolling sins. Place on a baking tray lined with non-stick paper. With a sharp knife, score a line about 3-4 cm in from the border of your pastry, to keep clear of filling so the pastry puffs up around it.
- Mix the ricotta with a good handful of grated parmesan and one of the eggs and season well with salt and pepper. Lemon zest or juice might be nice too. Spread this all over the inner part of the pastry. Arrange the asparagus spears on top.
- Beat the remaining egg lightly and brush over the outer border of the pastry.
- Bake the tart for about half an hour, until puffed, golden and crispy around the outside, and the pastry has cooked through even in the middle. Cool to warm on a wire rack, so it doesn’t go soggy.
Preparation time: 30 minute(s)
Cooking time: 30 minute(s)
Number of servings (yield): 2
Leftovers
- Leftover tart that doesn’t get eaten can be reheated in a hot oven for 5 minutes, then left to cool on a wire rack, to refresh its crispiness.
- With the leftover ricotta and the asparagus spears that didn’t fit on the tart, I made a creamy pesto for pasta: I blended the cooked asparagus with a few extra florets of broccoli boiled until tender in the pasta water, a handful of pistachios and a couple of tablespoons of ricotta. Grated parmesan and olive oil to serve, as well as the last of the violet-green pistachios, chopped and sprinkled on top.
