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Snow Foods:Pumpkin tarts with spinach and gorgonzola |
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Serves 6
Pumpkins and squash are great in tarts. It's that mixture of the sweet and the salty in savoury pumpkin pies that really gets me. I like to use Crown Prince for this (a grey-green coloured pumpkin) or butternut squash. They both have a good flavour but if you have a favourite variety of squash or pumpkin use that.
Ingredients
For the pastry:
225g plain flour
175g butter
good pinch salt
a little very cold water
for the filling:
450g pumpkin or squash
olive oil
450g spinach
2 large eggs plus 1 egg yolk
275ml double cream
50g Parmesan cheese, grated
200g Gorgonzola
Method
1. For the pastry, put the flour, butter and salt into a food processor and, using the plastic blade, process the mixture until it looks like breadcrumbs. Add just enough water to make the pastry come together. Wrap it in foil or clingfilm and refrigerate for about half an hour.
2. Preheat the oven to 180 C/350 F/gas mark 4. Cut the pumpkin from top to bottom into broad slices, remove the inner stringy bits and seeds, and peel. Brush lightly with olive oil and bake in the oven for 20 minutes, or until just tender. De-stalk and wash the spinach. Put it in to a large saucepan, cover, and wilt in the water left clinging to it (about 4 minutes over a medium heat). Drain well and leave to cool.
3. Make the custard by mixing together the whole eggs, egg yolk, cream and Parmesan. Season well. Roll out the rested pastry and line a tart tin 23cm (9 inches) in diameter and 4cm (1 1/2 inches) deep. Chill for another 30 minutes (or just stick in the freezer for 15 minutes). Prick the bottom of the tart and bake blind - line the pastry with greaseproof paper and put ceramic baking beans or ordinary dried beans on top - in the preheated oven for 7 minutes. Remove the paper and beans and cook for another 4 minutes.
4. Cut the pumpkin into small slices, about 10cm (4 inches) long and 1cm (1/2 inch) thick. Squeeze every last bit of water from the spinach and chop it roughly. Season both the pumpkin and the spinach and add some freshly grated nutmeg to the latter. Spread the spinach over over the bottom of the tart case, then add the slices of pumpkin and dot with nuggets of melting Gorgonzola. Pour in the custard mixture and bake, again at 180 C/350 F/gas mark 4, for 40 minutes, or until the pastry is golden and the filling is just set. Leave for 10 minutes to let the custard finish cooking and set a little more once you have taken it out of the oven.
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