13.12.07

For the love of Tart



Did I tell you how colour plays an important role in my life? I'm often reluctant in buying books with bad covers or bad designs - it's against my nature. Sometimes I really want a book but can only find an edition that makes me tremble when I look at it... oh pain! Ok, I admit I need the smell of printed paper, I need good typographic choices, I need good images to fully enjoy a book. I need "pretty" books. Of course I had big disappointments when buying books only based on a great cover... Being "pretty" doesn't make a good book but having a bad presentation sure hurts a good one. That said, you can see why I fell in love with red onions: they're pretty!



Red Onion and Mushroom Tart

2 large red onions
1 Tbsp olive oil
150 grs fresh mushrooms
1 Tbsp balsamic vinegar
1 Tbsp muscavado sugar
1 goat's cheese (about 125 grs)
4-5 fresh basil leaves
1 sheet ready rolled puff pastry

Halve the onions, then cut into thin wedges. Place in a pan with olive oil. Cook for 3 minutes, add sugar and vinegar, stirring until they get caramelized. Add mushrooms and cook gently for another 5 minutes. Season to taste.
Blind bake the pastry at 180º C oven for 8 minutes or until pastry starts to golden. Remove from oven, slice 3/4 of the goat's cheese and spread over the pastry. Pour onion and mushroom mixture and bake for extra 5 minutes or until crisp and golden. Again, remove from oven, allow to cool onto a wire rack for a while. Top with remaining goat’s cheese, crumbled and basil leaves, chopped.

Serve with green salad of rocket and lettuce leaves, red onion and balsamic dressing.



I didn't exactly followed a specific recipe to this tart, my inspiration was Joey's Tatin Tarts. As usual, I couldn't stick (not even slightly) to the original - I'll have to try those lovely little things someday!

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Aren't these tarts so easy and delicious? I agree with you on the red onion. Very pretty!

Thistlemoon said...

That looks so delicious! I am big on having lots of color in my life too. It is so important! It is very rare now that I will buy a cookbook without pictures for the recipes. There is just no excuse for that!

Terry at Blue Kitchen said...

This looks beautiful and sounds delicious! For a little added color, perhaps some finely chopped red bell pepper sautéed along with the onion would be nice. I like the tartness of the balsamic vinegar to balance the creaminess of the cheese.