Greek Salad Bread Tarts

I love bread tarts. Simple to make, no fussy pastry involved and even the most discerning gourmand usually fails to guess they’re eating white bread and butter. I had previously made Cheshire Cheese and Marmalade Bread Tarts but for this month’s Cheese, Please! Challenge I was looking for a way to use Feta.

Greece is one of my favourite countries in the world. My first holiday overseas was to island hop across the Cyclades Islands with my big sister when I was 18. Although the television would have you believe that all young people abroad are staggering about with their vomit-spattered boobs hanging out, we were ridiculously civilized, with not so much as a waiter-snog between us. My memories are often of the food; of fresh grilled calamari, swordfish steaks and thick creamy yogurt and honey for breakfast. We ended up having a food budget of about £5 a day and so lived on Spanakopita (spinach and feta pies) and Greek Salads. (I confess the budget didn’t include beer and ouzo money.)

So the inspiration for these tarts is Greek Salad. They are traditionally made with tomatoes, black olives, cucumber, Feta cheese, oregano and olive oil. I’m not a fan of cooking cucumbers (is anyone?) so left them out but the other ingredients are all included. An ouzo chaser is optional.

Ingredients

12 slices of bread (I used white but you could use wholemeal or granary too)
50g of melted butter
1 beaten egg
1 tbsp milk
40g Feta, crumbled
12 black olives, chopped
1 small red onion, sliced
3 small tomatoes, deseeded and chopped
Salt and pepper
Dried oregano
Extra virgin olive oil

Cut the crusts off the bread and roll it out flat with a rolling pin. Cut into rounds with a glass or pastry cutter and brush the circles of bread on both sides with the melted butter. Press into a baking tin. Meanwhile, fry the chopped red onion in olive oil until soft.

Bake at 200˚c / 180˚C fan assisted / Gas Mark 6 for 10 minutes. The bread should be turning golden and hard. Put some of the olives, tomato, red onions, Feta and oregano into each case and spoon over the egg and milk mixture to cover. Do not over fill. Bake for a further 15 minutes until the filling has set. Delicious warm or cold. Drizzle with olive oil to serve.

Because this recipe includes Feta cheese, I am including it in the Cheese, Please! Recipe blog sharing challenge hosted by yours truly. Further details of this month’s challenge can be found here.