Spring Vegetable & Feta Filo Pastry Tart

Serves 4

INGREDIENTS:
2 tbsp olive oil
2 leeks, sliced
2 cloves of garlic, crushed / minced
200g spinach or kale
2 eggs
200ml double cream
80g parmesan cheese, grated
100g crumbled feta cheese (or ricotta)
Grating of fresh nutmeg
4 sheets of filo pastry
50g butter, melted
sea salt and freshly ground black pepper

METHOD:

1. Pre-heat the oven to 180oC fan.

2. Place a saucepan over a low heat and add the olive oil, then stir in the sliced leeks and garlic. Cover and cook for 4 minutes. Then remove the lid and stir in the spinach. Cook for a further 1 minute. Then remove from the heat and allow to cool a little.

3. While the leeks have been cooking, in a large mixing bowl, whisk the eggs and then pour in the cream and grated parmesan cheese. Season with sea salt, freshly ground black pepper and a grating of fresh nutmeg and whisk again. Then fold in the cooked leeks and spinach.

4. Grease a 23cm, loose bottom tart tin with the melted butter. Brush each sheet of filo pastry with the melted butter and place the filo pastry sheets in the tin, one by one, in different angles so that each corner of the sheet isn’t overlapping on the rim and gently scrunch the pastry to form a pretty rim. Spoon the tart filling into the centre of the tin and using the back of the spoon spread the mixture out evenly. Crumble over the feta and gently press it into the mix.

5. Place the tart in the pre-heated oven. Bake for 8 minutes then check to see if the pastry golden. Cover the edges of the tart loosely with foil to stop the filo getting too dark and bake for a further 12-15 minutes or until the centre is just set.

A gorgeous spring greens and feta felo pastry tar today it’s a brilliant one to have around the weekend cuz you can have for a little bit of lunch or a light supper with some salad I’ve got my leaks and my garlic I’m going to slice up my

Leaks crush on my garlic sweat them down a little bit of olive oil and then add in all this gorgeous spinach pan is over a medium heat with a tablespoon of olive oil I’m adding in my leaks and my crushed garlic I’m going to give them a little

Stir and then what I want them to do is really sweat down before I add in the spinach so I’m putting a lid on it while the leaks are sweating I’m going to mix up the eggs I’m popping in two eggs into a big mixing bowl these

Are from my hens at our farm and next I’m going to pop in two milliliters of double cream and then lots of Parmesan cheese I’m going to finally grate in it’s 80 g in total okay that’s the parmesan in I’m going to put in some sea salt and some freshly ground black

Pepper and then I’m going to whisk them together okay back to the leaks oo that’s a steam okay the leaks are lovely and S it down and I’m adding in all the lovely spinach and we’re going to wilt down the spinage and it takes about a minute our

Spinach has about to D I’m going to take this off the heat and allow it to cool a little bit leaks and the spinach has cooled and I’m going to pop it into the egg and Parmesan and cream mixture and we’re going to mix all those together

And then we’re going to add in the feta we’re going to fold in the feta just to keep those lovely little crumbles and just get all the rest of this let me use my spatula look at my spatula it looks like I’ve been chewing garish which I

Promise I haven’t it’s time for me to get a new spatula for sure oh my gosh I’m so embarrassed by that I never noticed it before any there we go how do it become like that mixing all that together if you love pepper like I do

You can add some more that pepper in why not to if you love parmesan add more parmesan in it and if if you prefer like a mature cheddar or a Gudda um or a Grier you could add that instead of the parmesan um instead of the feta you

Could put in fresh ricotta would be delicious too um or goats cheese so in goes that and then I’m just going to fold all of those together so keeping those lovely crumbles and that is the filling now so next up is the pastry that we’re going

To use I’m using felo pastry you could use puff pastry if you want to but the fer pastry for this is fantastic you can buy fresh or you can buy it frozen brilliant to have in your freezer and you can use a tar tin I’m using a cake

Tin with a spring tin on it because I don’t have my tin here in London so I’m using this one which I think it’s going to work out perfectly we’ll see good experiment I’m sure not everybody has a fleet tart but maybe you have one of

These it definitely works in AA tart tin so I’m going to do it in this so what you need is your pastry you need some melted butter and you need a pastry brush the first thing I’m going to do is just butter the tin all the way around

And then we’re going to butter all the sheets of filo pastry and start layering them around the tin this is quite relaxing it’s like doing a paint job I’m back to my renovation but you want to liberally paint it with your pastry brush with butter I’m going to use four

Four sheets so it’s like it’s wallpaper so I’ve got two sheets of fer pastry here and I’ve buttered one side and the other side as well I’m kind of doubling up and then what you want to do is because we’re going to put another sheet on this side you want to kind of

Veer it towards one side so it’s falling over and then when we have this all filled what we’re going to do is crumble up the edges and the other pastry sheets on the other side can break it’s so delicate but you just plaster it up it’s the great thing about

Fer paste where you can really plaster it back up now like so and then we’re going to put the filling in just make sure it gently pop it down to the side like that okay and now we’re just going to pop the filling into it give it another

Little mix and then pop put all in like so because of the eggs in here this will rise mix it around and then we’re going to crumple up the edges like this which is very very satisfying like so fill them in a little bit tucking them all in so I’m tucking

It underneath so you can see all of it’s nice and neat and tucked under so it’ll go gorgeous frill and you can if you want to add a little bit more buter at the top what that will do is make it lovely and crunchy and golden in color

Now my oven is preheated I’m going to pop this in for 30 minutes it’s done now I just need to let it cool