Pumpkin, Feta and Caramelised Onion Savoury Tart
I used to cook this all the time when I first left home, it’s a real housemate pleaser.
Ingredients
olive oil
butter
3-4 medium brown onions
half a bunch of fresh thyme (about 6 sprigs or so)
1 butternut pumpkin
sea salt
pepper
200g of good Greek feta cheese
Pampas frozen puff pastry (you are most certainly welcome to make your own however I prefer to use ready made for a mid week meal)
1 free range chicken egg
Method
Preheat oven to 180 normal or 160 fan forced
Chop up the butternut pumpkin firstly by removing the tough skin. Then use a spoon to scoop out the seeds and pop these into your compost bin. Chop the pumpkin into 5x5cm squares and then place into a (greased) roasting tray sprinkled with sea salt and olive oil. Pick the leaves from the thyme ( or do what I do and chuck the whole stem in there) and mix through with your pumpkin. Roast in the oven for around 25 minutes or until soft and slightly caramelised around the edges.
Remove your puff pastry from the freezer so it can defrost.
Whilst the pumpkin is being baked, finely slice your onions into rings. Get a small pan heated up on the burner with a knob of butter and a splash of olive oil. Pop in all of the onion and stir pretty often so it doesn’t catch. You’re basically trying to achieve a cheats version of caramelising the onion (without adding sugar). Once the onion is starting to go a golden brown colour keep the burner on low and slowly cook it down. When you are happy with the result remove from the heat and out aside.
Remove the pumpkin from the oven and set aside.
Now for the slightly tricky part, and when I say tricky, I mean it’s going to be tricky to explain rather than do! Okay so get two pieces of the puff pastry (it should be defrosted by now) and place them in your roasting tray overlapping each other so they fit the tray nicely. Make sure you have the two ends of the pastry sloping up the sides of the pan as you will be folding these over the tart. Prick holes with a fork or knife in the bottom of the pastry.
Now spoon over a layer of the caramelised onion. Make sure you leave a border around the edges of the pastry, say 3cm or so.
Then arrange the roasted pumpkin on top of that beautiful caramelised onion still leaving that border so you can fold up and the end.
Crumble about 200g of that delicious Greek Feta over the top of the pumpkin. If you like Goats cheese you could also substitute the feta for that. I’ve also added some salty mozzarella in the past and that works but you still need the tang of the feta or goats cheese.
Okay so now you have all the ingredients in place, fold up the edges of the pastry (the border you’ve left) up over the pastry. There should still be plenty of space for the ingredients to shine through. Then cut some strips lengthways from your remaining pastry, about 3 or so cm in width. Place these across the width of the tart leaving a gap of about 5cm between each strip. This should mean you use about 3 or 4 strips. Bend these underneath the sides of the pastry and pinch them down lightly so they stick.
Lightly beat one egg for the egg wash. Use a pastry brush and stroke the pastry with the brush so it’s even covered with the wash, this will create a beautifully golden pastry.
Bake in the oven for about 20-30 minutes until pastry is golden brown and crunchy.
Serve warm with side salad or rocket and pear or something similar. Enjoy!