This one is really worth your time and money. Let’s put it this way: apparently Yotam Ottolenghi’s recipe tester told him this was the most delicious thing in the world. I’m not sure I would give any one recipe that much honour, ever, but Jason and I inhaled half of this before we even knew what had happened. Then we looked at each other and said, “I’m just going to have one more piece.” After that there were two slices left, one of which I ate for breakfast the next day and one of which I fed to Anna for lunch. The poor tart didn’t even last 24 hours.
This is not a tart for people who don’t like garlic and cheese. It’s also probably not the best recipe for vegans, I’m afraid. It contains all of the richest dairy products around, plus eggs. It is DIVINE. I guess if you hate goat cheese you could substitute some kind of cow cheese in here, and if you’re against puff pastry you could make your own tart shell. But why am I even bothering to write this stuff? You’re either going to drool over this or I’m going to think there’s something a little bit wrong with you, and that’s just the way it is.
Note: I made my tart a little bit smaller than the original recipe, because I didn’t have the proper tart pan (explained below) and my heads of garlic were small. So I reduced the heavy cream and crème fraîche by a tablespoon each – I used 5 Tbsp of each instead of 6. I’ve written out the original amounts below, though.
Ingredients:
Enough puff pastry to line a tart shell/shallow pie dish with a bit extra. I used half of a 397g package of Tenderflake and rolled it out quite thinly – this lined a nine-and-a-half inch pie dish nicely. Ottolenghi suggests 13oz of puff pastry for an 11-inch fluted tart pan, so if you’ve got one of those handy and can measure 13oz easily, go for it.
3 medium heads of garlic, cloves separated and peeled
1 Tbsp olive oil
1 tsp balsamic vinegar
1 cup water
3/4 Tbsp sugar
1 tsp chopped rosemary
1 tsp chopped thyme, plus a few sprigs for finishing
salt
4 1/2 oz soft, creamy goat cheese (like chevre)
4 1/2 oz hard, mature goat cheese (like goat gouda, although I just used a plain, mild goat cheese and it was fine) – I didn’t actually weigh out 4 1/2 oz, I just put cheese in the tart shell until it looked like enough. I’m sure you can figure this out.
2 eggs
6 1/2 Tbsp heavy cream
6 1/2 Tbsp crème fraîche
black pepper to taste
First of all, make sure you’ve thawed your puff pastry according to the directions on the package. I had a moment of panic where I realized I was all ready to go with my garlic peeled and my herbs chopped and the pastry was still in the freezer. Luckily there were microwave quick-thaw directions on the package. Technology saved the day. Roll out the pastry into a circle that will line the bottom and sides of your pie/tart dish. Once the pastry is in the pan, cut out a circle of wax or parchment paper to fit in the bottom of the pan. Place this on top of the pastry and weight it down with pennies or pie weights or something similar (dried beans are often suggested but then you can’t eat the beans, can you?). Leave the pastry-lined pan in the fridge to rest for 20 minutes or so.
Preheat the oven to 350°F. Put the tart shell in the oven and blind bake for 20 minutes, then remove the weights and paper and continue baking until the pastry is golden (5 to 10 minutes more). Set it aside and leave the oven on.
Left: garlic before being caramelized. Right: after. Note that it has started majorly disintegrating.
While the tart shell is baking you can start making the caramelized garlic. I think I blanched mine for too long, or maybe used too deep of a pot or not enough garlic or something, because by the end of this process my garlic had mostly fallen apart, and it took a lot longer for the liquid to reduce than Ottolenghi said it would. Never mind, it tasted delicious anyway. First you put the garlic in a small saucepan, cover it with lots of water and bring it to a simmer for three minutes to blanch it (or maybe less if you want it to stay whole?). Drain it well, dry out the saucepan, then put it back on the heat with the garlic and olive oil. Fry the garlic for a couple of minutes, then add the balsamic vinegar and cup of water (perhaps less than a cup of water if your garlic heads are small like mine were). Bring this to a boil, then simmer it gently for 10 minutes. Add the sugar, thyme, rosemary and 1/4 tsp of salt and continue simmering until the liquid has mostly evaporated and the garlic is coated in a dark caramel syrup. Ottolenghi says this takes 10 more minutes but I think it took at least 20 for me. Maybe it’s because I use a little apartment sized electric stove and all real cooks have fancy gas ranges. Who knows. Or maybe, as I am beginning to strongly suspect, cookbook authors always lie about how long it takes to make their recipes because they don’t want you to be put off by the fact that it will take you two hours to make one little garlic tart. “If I just say it only takes ten minutes, people will be more likely to actually cook this!” is what I imagine Mark Bittman and Yotam Ottolenghi saying to themselves.
Anyhow, once you’ve caramelized your garlic, set it aside and turn your attention to the tart shell again. Break up both the types of goat cheese and scatter them around in the tart shell. Then get the garlic and spoon it (with its lovely syrup) over the cheese. In a 2 cup-measure or small jug, whisk together the eggs, cream, crème fraîche, 1/2 tsp salt and some black pepper. Pour this over the tart filling to close the gaps, making sure you can still see some garlic and cheese above the surface. Turn the oven down to 325°F, stick the tart in, and bake until the filling has set and the top is turning golden brown (this may take anywhere from 35 minutes to an hour, depending on your oven). Remove from the oven and let cool a little, then serve warm with salad, grilled vegetables, or just gobble it up all by itself.
