Savoury tart

Ingredients

Pastry:

400g plain flour
1 tsp salt
200g butter, diced
1/3 cup iced water

Filling:

2 eggs
3/4 cup cream
1 tbsp olive oil
2 red onions, thinly sliced
2 tbsp olive oil
1 cup sweet potato, peeled and diced
sea salt
handful sage leaves
salt and pepper to taste

Method

To make the pastry, measure the flour and salt into a large bowl. Add the diced butter and place in the freezer for half an hour. Then tip the lot into the bowl of a food processor, add the iced water and pulse until the mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs.

Turn this out to a lightly floured bench and bring together with the heel of both hands until you have smooth dough. Shape into a large, flat disk, wrap with plastic and place in the fridge for half an hour.

Preheat the oven to 200°C or 180°C fan-forced. Remove pastry from the fridge, dust your work surface with flour and roll out the pastry until you have a nice thin round. Grab yourself a loose-bottomed tart tin (mine is 24cm in diameter) and gently drape the pastry over your rolling pin and then unroll into the tin. Press into the fluted corners and gently roll the pin over the top of the tin to trim the pastry edges nice and neatly. Return the pastry in the tin to the fridge for another half an hour.

To blind bake the pastry shell, line it with baking paper and then tip in any spare change you have lying around the house. Seriously! Coins are a great pastry weight and can/should of course be re-used after baking. Place in the oven for 10 minutes or until the base and sides are just beginning to turn golden. Remove from heat, discard baking paper but not coins, and set aside while making the filling.

To make the filling, whisk the eggs and cream together and season to taste.

Heat a saucepan over medium-low and add a tablespoon of olive oil. Cook the onions over a low heat, until lovely and soft, this will take 20 minutes or so.

Toss the sweet potato in a little olive oil and sea salt and cook in the oven for 15 minutes or until soft and just beginning to brown on the edges.

Line the base of the blind-baked pastry shell with the sweet potato, top with onions and sage leaves and then pour over the egg and cream mixture. Bake for 20 minutes or until the top of the tart is beautiful and golden. Let set for at least ten minutes before eating. This tart is great warm or at room temperature.

Notes:

To save time, you can bake the sweet potato while the pastry is resting for the second time in the fridge.
You will need to watch those onions so they don’t burn. You want a nice, caramelised onion for this tart and that is why it takes 20 minutes.
This recipe was created by Sophie Hansen for Kidspot, New Zealand’s best recipe finder.