I wondered if I could pass this off as a pie, in honour of British Pie Week. Pie, tart, pastry case, pastry base, it’s all the same surely? But in my heart of hearts I knew I had a tart on my hands (so to speak). Possibly a flan. But not a pie. Last week’s chunk of Vulscombe seemed to deserve something better than just me secretly scoffing it when the house was empty, plus I had a veggie coming for lunch which always throws me into a pickle. This is super easy, even if you make a mess of the puff pastry like I did and don’t use the right-sized baking tray.
Ingredients
375g block of puff-pastry
1 tbsp. olive oil
1 bulb of fennel
1 red pepper
1 onion
2 eggs
150ml double cream
50ml milk
75g soft goat’s cheese such as Vulscombe
Pre-heat the oven to 200C/180C fan/gas mark 6. Finely chop the fennel, pepper and onion.
Roll out the pastry to fit into a baking tray of approximately 20cm x 20cm. Prick the base with a fork and chill for half an hour.
Meanwhile heat the oil in a frying pan and fry the vegetables for about 20 minutes until they are soft and starting to caramelise.
Fill the pastry case (lined with baking paper) with baking beans or dried pulses and blind-bake for 15 minutes. Remove the paper and beans and bake for another 10 minutes.
Whisk together the eggs, cream and milk and season. Put the vegetables into the tart case, crumble over the goat’s cheese and pour over the egg mixture (at this point I realised that the sides of my tart weren’t high enough and there was a good deal of leakage. It all came good in the end, though).
Bake for 20-25 minutes until the filling has set. Serve warm or cold.
Fromage Homage 
Funny, isn’t it? I confessed to Mrs. Portly this week that I’m not a big pie fan (eek!). But I do like a good tart. Often there’s just as much pastry, but it’s lighter somehow. I’ll give this a whirl, but I know it won’t contain Vulscombe – no luck so far 😦
It looks like there are a couple of nice soft goat’s cheeses up your way – one called Yellison and Rowley Log. maybe you’d have better luck with those?! And do report back!
Haha, very funny about the pie. I know a lot of people are very strict about pies having a full pastry enclosure – even on top. They’re very vocal on Twitter about it 😉 This still looks delicious even if it’s not a pie!
Yes, I can imagine it’s the kind of thing that would start a Twitter-war! I think a pie does probably need a lid on it in order to graduate from flan-ness/tart-ness.
That looks like a proper feast. I’ll be copying you with this one in the very near future. 🙂
Oh yes do – and let me know what cheese you use 🙂
I am currently suffering from a surfeit, not of lampreys (eek), but of pastry after this week’s marathon but this looks absolutely delicious so I don’t care what you call it! Your piece reminded me of Tamasin Day-Lewis’s books, rather brilliantly titled The Art of the Tart and Tarts With Tops On (I’m easily amused).
You didn’t seriously eat all of those pies, just the two of you?! Kudos to you if you did! And did you double-pie it with the savoury and the sweet?
Sort of … except the sausage pie which was last week, we ate some of all of them but the freezer is full of pie. No, even we didn’t manage the savoury and sweet together. I don’t want to look any more pastry in the face for a while. 🙂
Fabulous! I’d be a happy veggie coming to eat that 🙂
And you’d be most welcome. x
😀😀
Yum! That’s a treat to see!
Thank you, it was pretty tasty even with the pastry faux pas.
Oooh yum… this looks right up our street!
Have you successfully grown any fennel? Looks a bit tricky for a rookie like me, I think…
No, that’s one veg we’ve never tried to grow actually, maybe we should give it a go…