FOOD:Top puff pastry discs with a savoury topping for a quick and easy supper, writes Domini Kemp
I WOULDN'T DREAM of slagging off Delia, but it does get a bit scary when you see something in the shop with a big sticker saying "Delia's cheat" on it. For goodness sake, I thought to myself, I'm only trying to buy some puff pastry, so ease up on the cheat insinuations, Missy.
You don't have to use the round discs, you can use regular sheets of puff pastry which you can cut into your own squares or hexagons.
For a light supper, serve one tart each and feel free to stick whatever you like on it, within reason, of course.
Try some pesto, vary the cheeses or even sauté some mushrooms and dot them with tallegio and rosemary. Most cheese combinations go perfectly well with a nice green salad and glass of something white and crisp.
Anything you fancy, savoury tarts
4 puff pastry ready rolled discs, or sheets cut into squares or rectangles
1 tbsp olive oil
Knob of butter
2 onions, peeled and thinly sliced
Salt and pepper
Sprinkle of caster sugar
400g Gubbeen cheese, sliced
1 punnet of cherry tomatoes (about five per tart)
Few sprigs of thyme
Turn the oven up to 200°C/gas six. Put the pastry discs onto greaseproof paper on a baking tray and let them thaw out while you cook the onions. Heat up the olive oil, add the butter and sauté the onions for about 10 minutes over a very gentle heat until they are brown and caramelised. You can speed this up by adding a good pinch of sugar. Season and allow them to cool slightly before spooning the caramelised onions onto the pastry, leaving about a one-centimetre rim around the edge, free of all toppings. Add slices of cheese, cherry tomatoes cut in half, thyme and plenty of black pepper. Drizzle with a bit of extra olive oil and then either leave in the fridge for a few hours until ready to bake, or cook for about 20 minutes until golden brown.
Broad bean hummus
Home-made hummus is great, but be careful of certain tasty commercial varieties. They're often super-smooth and creamy in texture because they contain so much vegetable oil. Making hummus with broad beans is lovely - you get a soft textured result in a gorgeous colour. It's very quick to make and doesn't require overnight chickpea soaking. I use frozen broad beans for this recipe as unless I can buy very young and fresh broad beans, they can sometimes be a bit too pappy in texture. If you are lucky enough to find lovely fresh ones, 1kg of broad beans should produce approximately 500g of shelled beans.
1 bag frozen broad beans (500g)
Few cloves garlic, peeled
Few sprigs of mint
About 200ml water
50ml olive oil
Squeeze lemon juice
Salt and pepper
Boil some water and cook the broad beans and garlic for a couple of minutes until the beans have just thawed. Drain and rinse them under cold water. Put the beans and garlic in a blender or food processor, add the mint, half the water, the olive oil and the lemon juice. Whizz, adding a bit more water until the blades get going and start mushing the beans to a pulp. I'm impatient, so I always add too much water and thus end up with a slightly watery hummus, so go slowly. Adjust the seasoning and chill until ready to serve. It will last a few days in the fridge.
Raspberry ice-cream
On my long list of pet hates and things that make me really angry are ice-cream recipes that finish up by telling you to "freeze according to your ice-cream machine manufacturer's instructions". Buzz off, I say, because (a) I don't own a home ice-cream machine and (b) even if I did, it would inevitably never get used because the blade would be missing. How annoying. This recipe worked fabulously well, using an old, battered, plastic container, a potato masher and a little elbow grease.
125g punnet fresh raspberries
250ml or large tub of Greek yoghurt
250ml cream, lightly whipped
100g icing sugar
1 tsp vanilla essence
Put the raspberries in a large bowl and mush with a potato masher. Add the rest of the ingredients. Taste, and put the mixture in a plastic container. Transfer to the freezer and after a couple of hours, mix with the potato masher and re-freeze. Serve within 12 hours of making. It goes too icy after that and will make you start hankering after the commercial smoothness of brand name ice-creams.