Artichoke and Chard Tart
Equipment
- 1 tart tin 20cm
- baking parchment
- 300g ceramic beans (or cheap beans like soy) for blind baking
- 1 Rolling Pin
Ingredients
The pastry
- 200 g plain or pastry flour
- 100 g vegetable margarine
- 3 g xanthan, guar, konjac or locust bean gum
- 3 g fine sea salt
- 56 ml water
The bechamel sauce
- 500 ml dairy free milk -oat, almond or soy (we used oat)
- 0.5 onion, peeled
- 1 bay leaf
- 5 peppercorns
- 1 pinch nutmeg
- 50 g plain flour
- 50 g light olive oil or vegetable margarine
- 10 g cornflour, potato flour, arrowroot or tapioca flour
- 20 g nutritional yeast flakes
- 1 pinch salt
- 1 pinch pepper
The chard and the baby artichokes
- 1 stalk of chard
- 10 ml olive oil
- 4 baby artichokes
- 1 splash vinegar
- some salt and pepper
Instructions
The pastry
- Cut the margarine into tiny cubes and with a balloon whick or with an electric mixer, combine quickly until you have a sandy texture.
- Add and stir in the salt and the gum
- Add the water and mix, either by hand or with the machine, until you have a homogenised dough that leaves the side of the bowl clean
- Shape the dough into a ball, flatten it like a puck, cover it and refrigerate it for at least 30 minutes until ready to roll it out.
Prepare and blind bake the pastry base
- Preheat the oven to 200C or 180C with fan. Gas 4
- Cut a circle of baking paper 6-8 cm larger than the diameter of your tart tin
- Using a light dusting of flour on the work surface and the pin, roll out the pastry about 3mm thick into a circle about 25cm wide. Lift the rolled pastry onto the tart tin and gently press the pastry down into the edge and sides of the tin. Trim off any pastry overlapping the edges of the tin. Prick the pastry base with a fork several times, cover it and let it rest again in the fridge for 15 minutes.
- Push the paper circle into the pastry tin, making sure it it touches the inside wall of the tin all the way around. Pour in the beans and make sure they will support the pastry wall
- Bake the pastry case for about 20 minutes, then take it out, lift out the paper with the beans, and return the pastry to the oven for another 5 minutes to cook the base a little longer. Then remove it from the oven, but leave the part-baked pastry in the tin.
The chard and the baby artichokes
- Cut the green leaf off the chard and dice the stalk into fingernail sized pieces. In a small frying pan heat the olive oil and fry the stalk pieces until they start to colour, seasoning them with salt and pepper. HInely shred the leaf and add to the pan and contimue to cook until all of the chard is soft and lightly browned.
- Prepare the baby artichokes: there are plenty of videos and photo guides on the internet to help undertsand how this is done, but here are the steps.......
- Peel off and discard the first 2-3 layers of outer leaves until you reach leaves which are half yellow colour. Cut the stalk to a length of about 5cm
- Cut off the top half of the artichoke and cut away any remaining, tough purple or dark green leaves at the base of the artichoke. If there is some hairy choke inside, using a teaspoon or melon scoop, scrape it out.
- Peel off the outer dark green layer of the stalk with a veg peeler or knife.
- Cut the prepared artichoke into quarters and put them into some water to which you added a splash of vinegar to stop them discolouring.
- Bring a litre of water to the boil, salt it and transfer the quartered artichokes into the boiling water, gently boil for 5-7 minutes until the tip of a sharp knife easily goes through the thickest part of the stalk.
- Drain the artichokes into a colander and leave them to dry well and naturally as the hot water evaporates- so do not plunge them into cold water.
The bechamel
- In a pan, add to the milk an infusion of a half onion, the peppercorns, bayleaf and nutmeg. Let the milk infuse on a gentle heat, but not boil, for 20 minutes then strain out the infusion. Set aside 50 ml of milk in a small bowl to cool and use later
- In a clean pan, beat or whisk together the oil/fat and the flour, then set it on a low to medium heat and stir until just bubbling. Now add the milk a small amount (half a ladle) at a time, whisking or beating energetically to incorporate it and ensure there are no lumps. Continue to add the milk in small amounts, beating or whisking it in. When done, continue to heat the sauce un til it is simmering and has thickened
- Now because you need a very thick sauce for this recipe, take the reserved 50ml of milk, stir in the cornflour/ equivalent, then add this to the hot sauce, strirring continually until it thickens even more.
- Off the heat, add the nutritional yeast and check for seasoning, correcting with salt and pepper if required.
- Spread the cooked chard into the bottom of the tart case
- Pour the sauce into the blind-baked pastry case, on top of the chard
Assembly and final baking
- Heat the oven to 240C/ 220c fan/ gas 7
- Place the 16 artichoke pieces around the tart, like the hands of a clock, pressing them gently into the sauce. Place the artichokes so that the inside part is facing upwards
- Cook the tart again hot and fast for 10 minutes at 220C, to brown the filling
- Keep an eye on the tart to make sure the pastry edge doesn't burn then take it out onto a cooling rack. Can be eaten when warm of when left to cool. It can also be heated again on a low heat 140c/120C fan/ Gas 2, gently for 30 minutes.