TARTand TERRIFIC
Australian writer and teacher cooks up a storm with her latest book
BELINDA JEFFERY IS an Australia cookery writer and teacher. Together with her husband, Clive, she runs a popular pop-up cooking school in their home town of Mullumbimby in northern NSW.
In her latest book A Year of Sundays,
Belinda shares the recipes, musings and memories that inspire her cooking.
Cooking from the heart to relish in the beauty of justpicked produce or to simply indulge a craving, Belinda imparts her recipes with both encouragement and genuine joy.
SMOKED SALMON, CAPER, DILL and GOAT’S CHEESE TART
This is wonderful served with a salad that includes fennel, as the two go beautifully together.
Ingredients
1 blind-baked 25–26cm shortcrust pastry tart shell, in its tin
5 × 60g eggs
300ml milk
150ml cream (sour cream or creme fraiche)
1 tsp sea salt flakes
1⁄4 tsp freshly ground nutmeg good grinding of black peppercorns 2 tbsp finely chopped dill
2 tbsp finely chopped chives 200g smoked salmon, torn into bitesize pieces
11⁄2 tbsp capers (salted, if possible) 100g (or so) soft feta or marinated goat’s cheese, drained and lightly crushed herb sprigs and leaves, to garnish
Method
Preheat your oven to 175C. Sit the tart tin with the cooked pastry shell on a baking sheet and set it aside.
In a large bowl, lightly whisk the eggs with a balloon whisk to break them up. Add the milk, cream, salt, nutmeg and pepper and whisk everything thoroughly together. Stir in the dill and chives. Pour the mixture into a jug, cover it and put it in the fridge until you’re ready to use it. You can do this a couple of hours ahead of time, if you like.
When you’re ready to bake the tart, strew the smoked salmon, capers, and feta or goat’s cheese evenly over the base of the tart. Give the egg mixture another quick whisk as it will have settled somewhat, then pour it into the
tart shell. I usually do this right by the oven or put the baking sheet with the tart shell on the partly pulled-out oven shelf before pouring in the liquid, as it’s easy to spill if you carry the tray any distance, which I’ve learnt the hard way.
Slide the baking sheet with the tart carefully into the oven. Cook for about 35 minutes or until the filling is set but still a little wobbly. The best way to
check this is to very lightly rest the palm of your hand on the filling and give it a gentle jiggle. Remove the tart from the oven and leave it to settle in the tin for 5 minutes or so. It’s also lovely served just-warm.
To serve, remove the outer ring of the tart tin, then use a long palette knife to help slide the tart off the base and onto a serving platter. Strew fresh herb sprigs and leaves over the top. —
Serves 6–8
A NOTE ABOUT OVENS
I can bang on endlessly about ovens! I think they’re the bane of a recipe writer’s life, as it seems to me that no two ovens are calibrated in quite the same way. At the end of the day, the most important thing is to get to know your own oven, with all its foibles, as this will make life much easier for you and allow you to adjust temperatures if necessary.
The thermostat of my oven can be dodgy, so I always use an oven thermometer to check the temperature accurately. If you’re concerned that your oven may be a bit unreliable, then one of these can be a blessing.
There’s also the question of fanforced ovens. Like regular ovens, these vary enormously. If you’re baking with the fan on, be aware that everything will cook faster and hotter, which means it has the potential to burn and dry out more quickly, so it’s a good idea to reduce the recommended oven temperature by 10C, and to start checking whatever you’re cooking a little earlier than the recipe says.