Serve up a slice of Nordic leek and goat fetta tart on rye pastry
It is that time of the year people – new year, new me. Whether or not you believe in resolutions, there’s a high chance you’ve come out of the festive period feeling pretty sluggish, craving fresh and healthy food. Enter, the Nordic diet. Based on the cuisine of Northern Europe, the diet embraces homemade and home-grown seasonal food, with an emphasis on grains, berries, vegetables, poultry, fish and game. Scandinavian cook Trine Hahnemann’s book Eat Nordic explores the diet through more than 80 diverse recipes, including this delicious leek and goat feta tart on rye pastry.
INGREDIENTS
Pastry
75 g plain flour
175 g wholegrain stoneground rye flour
1 teaspoon salt flakes
75 g butter
125 g skyr or quark
butter for greasing the pie dish
Filling
500 g leeks, cut into slices
2 tablespoons olive oil
2 garlic cloves, finely chopped
1 tablespoon finely chopped tarragon
1 teaspoon salt flakes|
5 eggs
150 g skyr or quark
150 g goat fetta cheese
salt and freshly ground pepper
TO MAKE
First make the pastry: mix the flours and the salt together into a bowl, then crumble the butter in with your hands. Mix in the skyr or quark and bring together as a dough. Knead the dough with your hands. If you have a food processor, place all the ingredients in it and blend until it becomes smooth dough. If the dough does not come together, add a little water.
Roll out the dough on a floured surface and butter a 28-cm pie dish. Line the dish with the pastry and leave in the refrigerator to rest for 30 minutes.
Preheat the oven to 180ºC.
Cover the dough with baking paper and add some dried beans or rice. Bake blind in the oven for 20 minutes.
While the pastry is baking, rinse the leeks well. Heat one tablespoon oil in a pan and saute the leeks for about five minutes. Drain in a colander. Using the same pan, add the remaining oil and saute the garlic and tarragon for a few minutes, then mix in the leeks and remove the pan from the heat.
Beat the eggs in a mixing bowl and add the skyr or quark and goat cheese, then mix in the leek mixture. Remove the beans or rice and the paper from the tart base. Pour the mixture into the blind baked pastry case and bake again in the oven for 30 minutes.
Serve warm with a green salad.
Tip
A slice of this tart makes a perfect lunch to take to work. One of the best ways to rinse leeks is first to cut them in slices and then put them in a bowl of cold water and leave for five minutes. Lift out of the water so the grit stays at the bottom of the bowl. Sometimes you need to do this twice.
This is an edited extract from Eat Nordic by Trine Hahnemann published by Quadrille and is available in stores nationally.
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