Leek & bacon tart - a quiche-alike!

One of my favourite vegetables is the leek.  Now I know that friends would say there's not a vegetable that I don't like - and I admit they have a point.

However, leeks are right up there in my top 10, along with things like the humble spud and the princely asparagus.

So, when I decided that I must explore egg enriched pastry dough (which is a very lovely thing that finishes with a biscuity texture), I naturally pondered on what to put in said pastry.  Naturally, I contemplated such things as pasties, sausage rolls - even a rhubarb & strawberry pie (which has to be done, very soon).  However, we all like a quiche and even if the pastry was a complete disaster (which it wasn't), I figured you can at least eat the filling out of the middle and save dinner that way.

Having just made a couple of Quiche Lorraines (for different occasions) recently, I was after something more interesting than the standard egg, cheese & bacon.  Consulting my copious list of "recipes gleaned from t'internet", I came across this one - Leek Tart, from the Cooking in Plain Greek blog.  Now, as I've said up there ~nods upwards~ leeks are one of my favourite veggies and I remembered this recipe. I'd had it sitting in my list for probably years, just waiting for a moment such as this.  Curiously, it also uses an egg enriched pastry dough!  Oooh, it was meant to be.

Now because I'm me and you wouldn't expect anything else, now would you?  I tinkered about with the recipe for the filling.  Well, you see, I had 100ml of single cream that had no home to go to and just made sense to put it in this recipe.  I also had more bacon than 100g available to me - and everything is made better with more bacon, right?  I looked up the cost of Gruyere cheese, as I know it has been pricey in the past - and it hadn't improved any.  However, there on the same online shopping page, was Gouda cheese - and for a lot less money.  Well, it seemed to make sense, so that's what I went with.

It even looked fairly pretty before it was baked!

Well, I was jolly pleased with how the whole experiment turned out.  The pastry was light and crisp, with a touch more substance to it, finishing up slightly more biscuity than a standard lard/butter shortcrust pastry.  I shall definitely be using it in more recipes.

The filling became interestingly fluffy from the addition of the yoghurt.  As I mixed it into the eggs, the whole lot thickened - somewhat alarmingly at first - which caused the filling to be a lot less "wet" than a usual quiche filling often is.  Interestingly, our son's opinion of the tart was that the filling was more "wet" than normal, but not in a "runny" kind of a way, but in a juicy-leeks-and-bacon kind of a way.  I know exactly what he means - and I like it!

True, this tart isn't the cheapest to prepare - the butter, eggs, bacon, cheese and cream all add up.  However, it is a deep fill tart and a quarter of an 8 inch tin goes a long way, so you can afford to be cautious with your portion sizes.  I dare say you could easily feed five, if not six, if you're careful with your cutting.

Mmmmmnnnn, there's a good half of my tart left in the fridge.  I can tell, it's not going to have a long wait before it sees me again.

LEEK & BACON TART    (serves 4)

Ingredients :

For the pastry

200g plain flour
100g cold salted butter
1 egg yolk
3 tbsp water
pinch of sea salt
freshly ground black pepper

For the filling

1 tbsp olive oil
100g thickly sliced smoked bacon
3 medium leeks, halved and finely sliced
1 large banana shallot, chopped finely
100ml Greek yoghurt
100ml single cream
2 eggs
freshly ground black pepper
60g Gouda cheese, grated.

Method :

Put the flour, butter and seasoning into your food processor and process until the contents resemble fine breadcrumbs.  Add the egg yolk and the water and blitz again, until the contents form a clump.

Decant out onto a large piece of cling film and form into a ball and cover with another big piece of cling film.  Then, roll the pastry out flat until sufficiently large to line your 8 inch pie dish, or tin.

Remove the top layer of cling film and drop the pastry into the dish, pastry side down.  Ease the pastry into the dish with the cling film attached and once securely lining your dish, remove the cling film.  Trim the pastry to fit and crimp the edges in a pretty pattern.

Pre-heat the oven to 180degC/350degF/Gas 4.

Cut a piece of baking parchment to slightly bigger than your pastry lined dish, then crumple it into a ball and smooth out on top of the pastry.  You'll find crumpling it like this allows it to fit the dish better.  Tip in a good quantity of baking beans (to prevent the pastry from bubbling) and place the pastry case into the oven to part bake for 15 minutes.  Once the time is up, remove from the oven, remove the parchment paper and baking beans and set the pastry case aside to cool slightly while you prepare the filling.

Heat the olive oil in a frying pan and add the bacon.  Fry over a high heat until all the water has evaporated and the bacon is just beginning to turn golden.  Reduce the heat to moderate and add the leeks, shallots and more black pepper.  You may need to add a little more olive oil at this stage - I use a little extra virgin olive oil for flavour.  Once the leeks are softened, remove from the heat and set aside to cool slightly.

Place the yoghurt, cream, eggs and black pepper into a bowl and whisk to combine.

Add a small amount of the grated cheese to the bowl, along with the leek mixture from the frying pan.  Stir quickly and gently, to combine.  Then, pour the filling into the pastry case, taking care to distribute the leeks and bacon evenly.

Sprinkle the remaining cheese over the surface of the leeks and put the whole thing into the oven (middle shelf) for some 35-40 minutes, or until the surface is nicely golden and the centre feels firm and not at all squishy.

Set aside for 10 minutes or so to settle before serving, or alternatively allow to cool and serve at room temperature with salad.

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Aubergine and cherry tomato tart

I know!  It's that rare beast, a vegetarian recipe on Jenny Eatwell's Rhubarb & Ginger.

I do try to include the odd vegetarian recipe from time to time, it's just that the carnivore in me often gets the better of it and I wind up throwing in something meaty at the last minute.  I'll try to do better, honest!

Well, this tart definitely qualifies as vegetarian - you could even use vegetarian parmesan cheese, if you so wanted.  If you choose Jus-Rol puff pastry, you'll find it is Vegetarian Society approved and even suitable for vegans!  So I think we can safely say that this is very definitely a recipe that is vegetarian friendly.  Hurrah!

I can't remember where I saw the thing that gave me the inspiration for this tart, except I saw an article somewhere online about char grilling sliced aubergines - and the photograph accompanying it showed lines of aubergine slices laid down slightly overlapping each other and I thought "that looks like they're on a tart".  Oooooh!  That would be good!  What could I put it with?  And that was how it happened.

I came up with the cherry tomato idea before the pesto, in fact.  I knew that cherry tomatoes - particularly the Aramatico type that are available at the moment - would be a lovely counterpoint to the relatively bland but smoky aubergine.  What it needed, though, was something to provide a basic, underlying flavour that the vegetables could ride upon.  Cream cheese seemed too rich, although I liked the cheese idea.

I didn't want anything too squishy, as the aubergine would be doing a good enough job there without any help.  Equally, I didn't want anything too overpowering - like chilli.  I gave some serious consideration to red onion marmalade, but rejected it on account of the sweetness.  I began going through what I had in the fridge - and hit upon the pesto.  That gave the herbiness that would provide good depth to the flavour, with a little bit of cheese influence too.  It was strongly flavoured, but you wouldn't need to use too much so it wouldn't be too squishy and compromise the crispiness of the tart base.  Perfect!  I then hit upon the ruse of adding some grated parmesan to the tart while it was still hot from the oven - and the recipe was born.

It received a mixed reaction from the assembled throng, in that I loved it and consider it to be one of the best tarts I've come up with to date.  Hubby liked it - but was disappointed that, to his taste buds, the pesto overpowered the aubergine.  Son & heir hated it because he finds aubergine too much of a challenge and isn't keen on cooked tomatoes at the best of times.  Hey ho!

I really enjoyed the contrast between the sweet acidity of the cherry tomatoes against the creamy blandness of the aubergine and had no difficulty picking the aubergine flavour out of the whole melange.  I felt that the pesto gave everything a good base flavour that didn't interfere and the parmesan on top added that salty bite that brought the thing alive.  The whole tart was just bursting with umami - that elusive flavour profile that can be so hard to find, but when you do, it's worthwhile hanging onto!  

The textures were great, with the crisp lightness of the pastry, the soft aubergine and crunchy grated parmesan.  I had a piece cold the following day for lunch and it was just as good, hence it is here on the blog for you to try.  I suspect it will get mixed reactions, but you'll know what your family like - so bear that in mind when deciding whether to try it.

I'm not so sure that this one is either teenager or child friendly either, but as I say, you'll know your family's tastes better than I ever will.

I served our tart with a mixed salad including feta cheese and green olives, which made hubby happy and a potato salad made using Cornish crystal new potatoes.  Well, I loved it - and I hope you do, too.


AUBERGINE & CHERRY TOMATO TART   (serves 6)

Ingredients :

2 smallish aubergines (eggplant, to those of you from over the water!)
3 tbsp oil (I used a combination of sunflower and rapeseed)
1 x  320g roll of puff pastry
1 tsp of green pesto
12 cherry tomatoes, halved
sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
1 tbsp grated parmesan cheese.

Method :

1.  Slice both aubergines into small slices (approx 5mm or thereabouts) across the round, rather than along the length.  Keep the slices in piles so as to prevent oxidisation (discolouration, in other words) and brush the top slice of each pile with a little oil, which also prevents oxidisation.

2.  Heat a griddle pan, or failing that a plain old frying pan or even a barbecue, until blisteringly hot and lay as many slices as will fit, oil side down, onto the pan.  Lightly brush the top sides with a little oil, ready to be turned.

3.  Once the underside is either charred or browned (depending on which pan you use), flip them over and repeat on the other side.

4.  Remove to a large plate and lay each slice slightly overlapping the next, around the plate so that they have a chance to cool.

5.  Repeat until all the aubergine slices have been used.

6.  Place the empty pan in a safe place to cool down!  You won't need it again.

7.  Line your baking tray with a sheet of parchment paper, or non-stick tin foil, or just plain use a non-stick baking tray.  Lay the sheet of puff pastry down flat upon it and, with a sharp knife, draw a line - not piercing through the pastry - around the rectangle to define where the crust will be.

8.  Spread the inside of the rectangle with the pesto, making sure to spread it thinly or you won't taste the aubergine.

9.  Place slices of aubergine in an attractive display onto the top of the pesto.  I used three lines of slightly overlapping slices.

10.  Sprinkle the cherry tomato halves over randomly, but making sure they are evenly distributed.

11.  Season well with sea salt and black pepper, then place into a pre-heated oven at 180degC/350degF/gas 4 for around 25-30 minutes.

12.  As soon as the pastry is golden and risen around the edges, remove the tart from the oven and sprinkle the parmesan over the top so as to allow it both the heat and the time to wilt a little prior to serving. 

Serve warm, not hot, with a mixed salad.

Printable version

Goat's cheese, leek & hazelnut super-smart tart!

Now there are some tarts that are nice but dull - and some tarts that are surprisingly delicious.  This is one of the latter.

I liked the idea of this tart for more than one reason.

First of all, I really like leeks - they're the only one of the onion family that I can eat without experiencing some severe regret in the tummy department, later on.  I particularly like the way they are so adaptable and can be used in so many different ways.  My favourite leek recipe is the Tave Me Presh or Baked Mince with Leeks.  If you haven't tried this recipe yet, do give it a go.  Trust me, it's fabulous.

Goat's cheese always gets a thumbs up from me.  There was a time when I found goat's cheese to be entirely too "goaty" for comfort.  It always tasted wonderful, but I just couldn't get past the smell.  It always brought back memories of Harvey - a goat-I-once-knew - and his stinky beard.  ~shudder~  Why boy goats think it's sexy to pee on their own faces (which could be defined as a talent, I suppose), God only knows.

These days, I seem to have been able to get past the Eau de Harvey and into the lovely creamy texture and fresh flavour of goat's cheese.  So I could imagine how the creamy goat's cheese would go so well with buttery leeks.

The tips of the goat's cheese caught a tiny bit - but it certainly didn't mar the flavour!

Now the addition of hazelnuts to the equation is a new one - and jolly interesting, I thought.  I have to be careful over the use of nuts in my cooking, as hubby has some tooth issues and we don't want him to lose one of them on a surprise nut.  The problem was easily dealt with, as the nuts are sprinkled on top of the tart filling as opposed to being mixed in.  I simply sprinkled hazelnuts over three quarters of the tart - and sprinkled a little red chilli on hubby's portion.  Where there's a will, there's a way!

It may seem ridiculous to be concerning one's self over the fat involved in pastry, when the filling of the tart includes full fat creme fraiche and full fat goat's cheese.  However, as the old lady said as she wee'd in the sea - every little helps.  Because this tart uses filo pastry sheets to build up its pie crust, you can at least consider that a certain amount of fat has been reduced.  Aha, yes, I hear you thinking "but, surely you need to brush the filo pastry with melted butter?".  No - you don't.  I know, it goes against all previously received wisdom, but you just lay the pastry sheets down - and fill them up with filling, then bake.  Don't ask me why or how, but it works.

I gave the egg mixture a jolly good whisking before pouring into the pastry and I think it was worth doing so, as the filling rose beautifully.  It was light and fluffy - almost souffle-like, although I hadn't taken the eggs that far.  All in all, it made for a lovely light, fluffy forkful of deliciousness.

I served the tart with a simple salad made with a watercress/lambs lettuce/rocket combination of salad leaves and a diced avocado.  Just think of all the lovely nutrients we gained from that combination.  I always feel healthier just thinking about eating watercress and avocado, never mind actually doing it!

I also made some mini Paprika Roast Potatoes, which went extremely well with the whole combination.  They aren't so bad as you might think, either, as you simply dice the potato then toss it in a tablespoonful of rapeseed oil (which has health benefits all on its own), a pinch of salt and pepper and 1 tsp of sweet smoked paprika.  Roast in a hot oven (I put them on the rack above the tart, which was cooking at 180degF) for some 45 minutes, remembering to give them a toss around half way through and you're done.

Obviously, hubby knew that the tart was vegetarian - but I seriously doubt that son & heir even gave it a moment's thought that he had no meat on his plate.  Now that's the kind of meat-free meal that makes you want to serve another! 

With the salad and the roast paprika potatoes, it made for a satisfying meal

GOAT'S CHEESE, LEEK & HAZELNUT TART   (feeds 3-5)

Ingredients :

4 large filo pastry sheets, halved
a knob of butter
1 leek, trimmed, quartered lengthways and sliced finely
1 tsp Dijon mustard
250g creme fraiche d'isigny (or low fat creme fraiche if you must)
2 medium eggs
140g soft goat's cheese
sea salt & freshly ground black pepper
25g toasted hazelnuts, chopped.

Method :

1.  Pre-heat your oven to 180degC/350degF/Gas 4.

2.  Taking one half sheet of filo pastry at a time, lay it into the bottom of a 23cm quiche dish or loose bottomed tart tin.  Without brushing with oil, lay the next one at an angle to the first - and so on - until the sheets have covered the tin and formed a base for the tart, with no gaps for leaks and with the edges draped over the sides of the tin.

3.  Heat the knob of butter in a frying pan and once melted, add the leek pieces.  Cook on a gentle heat until softened but not browned at all.  Set aside to cool slightly.

4.  In a large bowl, whisk together the mustard, creme fraiche, eggs and a third of the goat's cheese.

5.  Add the leeks and stir through, including some seasoning.

6.  Pour the egg mixture into the flan case and add pieces of the remainder of the goat's cheese, distributing them evenly.

7.  Sprinkle over the hazelnuts and fold in the overhanging pieces of filo pastry.  Brush these with a little oil.

8.  Bake the tart for some 25-30 minutes, until the filling is risen and golden, with just a little jiggle left in the centre.

9.  Allow to cool in the tin for some 10 minutes or so, then remove and cool until just warm.

Serve with some mini paprika roast potatoes and a salad of watercress, rocket & spinach with avocado.

Printable version

3 Cheese & Leek Tart - it's all down to taste!

It’s a funny thing, taste.  No, not “taste”, as in flavour – but “taste” as in “preference”.

What got me thinking along these lines was the Three Cheese Tart that I made for dinner last night.

It was fairly unassuming, involving Ricotta, Maasdam and Cheddar cheese, all bound together with eggs and cream and flavoured with leeks and tarragon.  It smelled wonderful when it was cooking (well, baking cheese – doesn’t it always?) and looked very promising when baked.

I served it with a mixed salad, involving rocket leaves, celery, cucumber, cherry tomatoes and a finely sliced nectarine, along with some marinated beetroot, for added zing.

It garnered three very different reactions from the family.  Hubby didn’t like the texture of the filling and felt that the tarragon was too strong.  Our son felt it didn’t have enough flavour and would have preferred some bacon in it, or more leeks.  I thought it was fabulous just the way it was!

How curious, that we should all have had such different reactions.

Hubby’s dislike of the texture isn’t altogether surprising as the texture was fairly “foamy” from the use of Ricotta and he's not good with "foamy".  However, as the tart was billed as having a “cheesecake” sort of texture, I had thought it would pass muster – as cheesecake is one of hubby’s favourite things.

Our son’s opinion that the tart required bacon was easily explained if you know what a carnivore he is.  To be faced with a meal completely devoid of meat, was something of a shock to the system, I think.  Add to that our accepted opinion that everything is made better with bacon – and you can understand why he chose bacon as his preferred addition.

The tarragon was right up there in the flavour profile and, ordinarily, hubby approves of the aniseed flavour.  Not in this tart, however.  I was surprised at how strongly the tarragon came over and I will admit that it took a couple of goes before I got used to it and began to like it.  You can always reduce the amount you use, if you're nervous about this aspect of the flavour.  However, I loved the texture and didn’t, as so often happens, find myself feeling bilious before the end of the piece.  It is often the way that the tart fillings that hubby enjoys the most are the ones that leave me feeling bilious.

There are, of course, foods and dishes that the entire family love and result in clean plates all round.  But it just goes to show what a lottery this cooking malarkey can be.  Even though, as the family’s cook, you take into account everyone’s likes and dislikes when planning a meal, you just can’t legislate for individual taste.

What makes us particular about our food?  What makes hubby (for instance) truly dislike the flavour of potatoes, yet our son and myself consider potato to be a staple?

What is it in our son, that makes him dislike cooked tomatoes?  He’ll happily devour fresh cherry tomatoes by the handful – but if he finds one in his Spaghetti Bolognese, it gets hooked out and stays on the side of the plate.

Then there’s me – who can and will eat just about everything.  At one time, I couldn’t (digestively) cope with onions – right up until I was pregnant.  Prior to being pregnant, I hated the smell of fish and rarely ate any that wasn’t in batter.  What was it about being pregnant that flicked a switch somewhere inside me and enabled me to eat onions without anything untoward occurring – and made me crave fish?

I do think that there’s a lot of learned responses with regard to food – such as our son’s liking for coffee flavoured chocolate.  This follows on from both hubby’s and my own liking for the same thing.  However, we both also like cooked tomato – so that’s where the argument for learned responses falls down.

Then there’s a subconscious reaction to a foodstuff – such as our son’s abhorrence towards cooked mushrooms.  To him, they both look and feel (on the tongue) like a slug would feel on the tongue (so far as I know, he’s never tried a slug on his tongue).  Surely that’s just a self-preservation thing, a subconscious need to not take in anything that might make you ill.  Perhaps, as adults, we’ve been able to get over that subconscious impulse and the knowledge of how yummy a mushroom can be, has won the battle.

I blame the brain.  There’s so much we don’t understand about how our brains work – and taste is just one of the tips of the very many icebergs involved.

So do you have a peculiar like or dislike with regard to food?  Do share!

3 CHEESE & LEEK TART with NECTARINE SALAD  (Tart serves 4-6, salad serves 3)

Ingredients :

500g pack of shortcrust pastry (or make your own)
knob of butter
2 large leeks, sliced thinly
250g ricotta cheese
100ml double cream
2 eggs
2 tbsp chopped fresh tarragon
100g mature Cheddar cheese, grated
100g Maasdam cheese or similar (Gruyere is the obvious, but more expensive option), grated or chopped finely
sea salt and freshly ground black pepper.

For the salad :

Salad leaves (iceberg lettuce and rocket were my choices)
half a tub of mustard cress
7cm piece of cucumber, skinned, quartered and sliced thinly
9 cherry tomatoes, halved
6 cocktail sized marinated beetroot, halved (ours were marinated in raspberry vinegar & mint)
a ripe nectarine, stone removed, quartered and sliced thinly.

METHOD :

1.  Pre-heat your oven to 180degC/350degF/Gas4.

2.  Roll out the pastry and use it to line the bottom of a 23cm tart tin.  Line with crumpled greaseproof paper (crumpled fits better, once you've straightened it back out again!) and baking beans.

3.  Bake for 15 minutes, then remove the baking beans and bake for a further 5 minutes.

4.  Reduce the oven temperature to 160degC/325degF/Gas3.

5.  While the pastry is baking, melt the butter in a large pan and add the leeks.  Gently cook for around 10 minutes, or until softened.  Set aside to cool a little.

6.  Beat together the ricotta, cream, eggs, tarragon and some seasoning.

7.  In a small bowl, combine the two hard cheeses together and toss lightly to mix them well.

8.  Stir the leeks and all but a handful of the cheese in to the eggy mixture.

9.  Pour the mixture into the tart case and scatter over the remaining cheese.

10.  Bake for 25-30 minutes or until golden and set in the middle.

11.  Take a large bowl and add all the salad ingredients, except the beetroot.  Toss lightly, with your fingers, to ensure everything is evenly distributed.

12.  When ready to serve, add the beetroot to the salad, taking care not to let it cover everything and turn it pink!

13.  Once the tart is baked, leave it to settle and firm up for 5-10 minutes, after which it should be easy to cut and remove from the tin.

Serve

Printable version

Pizza Tart - or Chorizo, Mushroom & Mozzarella Tart, if you like!

We were in the mood for some tart, last week.  We hadn't had one for quite a while and, although pastry is on the no-no list for my diet, I hoped that I'd be able to offset it a little bit with the other ingredients.


Being Pizza Tuesday, I was able to craft the tart to please just hubby and I - which obviously meant mushrooms!


Aside from that, however, I had been having difficulty with chorizo just lately.  I am not all that taken with the taste of a lot of smoked paprika, which of course, makes chorizo very difficult.  I like a little smoked paprika in dishes, but find it becomes almost medicinal in quantity - which isn't very nice.  However, our local Asda has begun to stock some cooking Chorizo, as well as the "ready to go" version.  I thought it would be worth giving it a try, so used it in the filling for the tart and was pleasantly surprised.  I certainly would be willing to use it again, so it can't have been all that strong!  Hubby used the last Chorizo sausage in the Chilli Con Carne later in the week, and it was crackingly good in that.


Something else that's worth noting, is that I used the Jus-Rol Low Fat Puff Pastry for the first time.  Now I know that "low fat" and "puff pastry" seem like a contradiction in terms, but it worked perfectly!  You must bear in mind, though, that I wasn't looking for a well risen pastry for this tart, but something that would give a lighter effect than shortcrust - and in that context it worked just fine.  I'll be using it again, as every little ounce of fat that can be gained, is all to the good.


So.  What did I do?  Well, I unrolled the pastry rectangle and placed it on a baking tray, then because it was a bit big (ordinarily I'd run a knife around the outside to create a crust), I rolled up the edges to form the crust of the tart.  After copious amounts of pricking to prevent it from puffing up hugely, I then part baked it for 10 minutes at 200degC.


Next, I took a pizza sauce (yes, shop bought. I was interested in a tart that was easy to prepare!  If you want to make a pizza sauce, then by all means be my guest.  I know they aren't difficult to make, but it was one step further than I wanted to go, that night) and put a coating of that over the pastry.

Next job was to slice the chorizo very thinly and add that to the tart base, followed by the sliced mushrooms (which in the recipe, below, I have sauteed first - it will remove a lot of the water that they carry) and topped off by the slices of mozzarella and a small sprinkle of grated parmesan cheese over the lot.


That done, it went into the oven for 25-35 minutes, or until the mozzarella was melted and browned on top and the filling was obviously heated through.


I served it with the Zesty Beetroot Salad on top of some mixed salad leaves.  Oh, incidentally, I used a pack of beetroot that had been marinated in honey & ginger for this - and it was gorgeous.  That's something else we'll be having again!


The salad was just lovely with the tart and provided that nice freshness to counteract all the rich flavours of the tart.


Totting up the Inflammation Factors, the end result is -356 per serving, so as you can see, I failed miserably where offsetting the pastry is concerned.  *sigh*  I was SO sure that beetroot was anti-inflammatory, but it turns out it's anything but.  Hey ho.  Back to the drawing board!


PIZZA TART  (Serves 2-3)


Ingredients :


350g puff pastry
3-4 tbsp tomato pizza sauce
a tsp of olive oil
3 cooking chorizo (4" links), sliced finely
3-4 mushrooms, sliced finely
2 balls of mozzarella, sliced finely
a small amount of parmesan cheese, grated.


Method :


1.  Pre-heat your oven to 200deg C/350deg F/Gas 4.

2.  Roll out (if home-made) your pastry to form a rectangle which will fit your baking tray, then using the tip of a knife, score approx 1" in from the edge a line around the inside of the pastry, to form the crust.  Alternatively, (if shop bought) simply unroll the pastry onto your baking tray and score - or if slightly larger than your tray, roll up the edges to form the crust.


3.  Using a fork, prick the inside of the pastry all over, then place into the oven for 10 minutes.


4.  While the pastry cools slightly, in a frying pan, add the teaspoonful of olive oil together with the chorizo and cook on a medium heat for 5 minutes or so, until the oil has changed colour.  Add the mushrooms and cook on a fairly high heat until they have given up their water.


5.  Next, coat the inside of the pastry with the pizza sauce, then add the chorizo & mushroom mixture, levelling off as you go.


6.  Lay the slices of mozzarella on top, then sprinkle the parmesan over and place back into the oven for 25-35 minutes or until the mozzarella is browned and bubbling.


7.  Allow 5-10 minutes for the tart to cool once removed from the oven, then serve with a salad.


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