TOMATO MINI TARTS FOR APÉRITIFS

 

These little bite sized tarts are so easy to make and work really well as nibbles for a crowd.

Scoring the lines in the pastry is the only fiddly part.

You can get 48 tarts from one sheet of puff pastry!

(Depending on the size of your tomatoes!)

There are endless variations you could do.

Ingredients

1 sheet of oblong ready made puff pastry

A handful of cherry tomatoes, a mix of colours makes the nibbles more interesting 

A handful of grated hard cheese, any type

1tblsp grated parmesan (optional)

1-2 tsp mustard (optional)

1tsp dried herbs (optional)

Method 

Remove the pastry from the fridge 10-15 minutes before using, otherwise it may crack when you unroll it.

Preheat the oven to 200°C / 180° fan.  Unroll the pastry and leave it on the paper it comes rolled in. 

Being guided by the size of your tomatoes, cut the pastry into even squares.  Then mark out border lines just within all sides of the squares but not cutting through.

Smear a little mustard onto each square if using and sprinkle with the grated cheese.

Cut your tomatoes into slices about the thickness of a £1 or 1€ coin and place one slice in each square.  

Lightly grind salt and pepper over the tarts and sprinkle over the parmesan and dried herbs if using.

Transfer the paper loaded with the tarts to a baking sheet and bake for 15-20 minutes until the pastry is golden brown and cheese bubbling.

Makes up to 48 nibbles.

NOGGLE END TOMATO TARTS

Our tomatoes have started to ripen but although they taste delicious they would not win any beauty contest!  They are a bit "noggly" - lumpy and bumpy with the odd split.  With a pack of puff pastry in the freezer I decided to use some of them for little tarts.

There was also a selection of bits of cheese in the fridge - we call those "noggle ends" - bits you would put under the grill on toast or in a quiche.  I used Camembert and something called Tome aux Fleurs, a hard cheese with a crust of flower petals, which you can read about here.  Grated cheddar would have worked well.

Also lurking in the fridge was a small pack of cocktail frankfurters, purchased for some long forgotten event and never used but fortunately well within date. 

I used my free Yorkshire pudding tin (see here) to make four tarts but this time used a slightly bigger template to cut the pastry allowing me to crimp the edges more neatly.  (It's actually something I spotted in Ikea, is meant to be the base for one of those stainless steel kitchen tool holders and I had a hunch it would be just the right size.)

My pastry made four tarts and eight cocktail sausage rolls (recipe here) from the trimmings.  All fun to make and very tasty - a nice way to entertain children on a wet afternoon in the school holidays I think - they are very adaptable and bake in just the right amount of time to clear up then heat up a tin of baked beans!😋

Ingredients 

1 pack of ready made, ready rolled, oblong puff pastry

2 tsp French mustard (or brown sauce, onion chutney or ketchup if you prefer)

6 thick slices of tomato

Thin slices of any cheese you have (or grated cheddar if you prefer)

1 egg, beaten (optional but worth using if you are also making the sausage rolls)

Fresh or dried thyme

8 cocktail frankfurters (or one large frankfurter cut into bits or the filling from a sausage)

Method 

Preheat the oven to 200°C / 180° fan / gas mk6.  Grease the four holes of a Yorkshire pudding tin or four small tart tins (or use four ovenproof saucers placed on a baking sheet).

Allow the pastry to thaw and come up to room temperature.  Unroll and cut four circles about 2cm bigger than the holes using anything you have that’s the right size as a template.  Lay the pastry into the holes and crimp the edges.

Using the back of a teaspoon spread 1/2 tsp mustard over the base of each tart.  Add the slices of tomato, cutting to fill the pastry.  Arrange thin slices of cheese on top but leaving gaps as the cheese will melt and spread.

Brush the pastry edges with beaten egg (optional).  Sprinkle with fresh or dried thyme and bake for 20 minutes until the pastry is crisp and golden brown and the cheese has melted and bubbled.

Use the pastry trimmings to make little sausage rolls which can go into the oven at the same time.

Makes 4 tarts and 8 cocktail sausage rolls

AMUSE BOUCHE

An amuse bouche is an appetiser served before a meal usually with a drink or apéritif.  Usually it would be  blinis, dips or toasts, but sometimes something in a small glass called a verrine.  These are often layered up with  cream cheese, chopped veg or salad, chilled soup or even a mini prawn cocktail.

Some friends served a delicious amuse bouche a while ago (in little plastic pots) that she had bought locally and ever since I have been on the lookout for the right kind of glass or verrine.  When I spotted these glass espresso cups on a stall at a brocante it occurred to me that they would be perfect for an amuse bouche.  With a full set of ten for 3€ they were a bargain.  They could even be used for actual espressos if I was entertaining quite a crowd!  You can of course use any kind of glass of the right size but preferably glass not china so that you can see all the layers.  Mismatched glasses look very pretty too.

My first experiment was layers of whipped goat's cheese with crème fraîche, topped with chopped cooked green asparagus and finally chopped dice of smoked salmon mixed with a little lime juice, decorated with some snipped chives and an asparagus tip. For the second attempt I swapped the asparagus for chopped cucumber and decorated with a slice of cherry tomato.  

They were not quite as refined as the shop bought alternatives - a little more rustic or homely looking - but delicious!

I think I could improve the look by whipping the cheese and crème fraîche to give it more volume and  make it lighter in texture.  Piping it into the glass would make it a bit tidier.  But there was nothing wrong with the taste.  The friends I used as guinea pigs were very "amused"!

Ingredients 

2 tblsp whipped goat's cheese or other cream cheese

2 tblsp crème fraîche

1 tbslp chopped cooked asparagus stems (or chopped cucumber)

1 tblsp chopped smoked salmon

1 tsp lime juice

snipped chives

asparagus tips or cherry tomato slices to decorate

Method

Beat together the whipped goat's cheese and crème fraîche and divide between the glasses.  Mix the smoked salmon and lime juice together.  Layer the asparagus and smoked salmon on top of the cheese mixture, snip some fresh chives over, add the decoration and chill in the fridge until ready to serve.

Serves 4.  Serve with a small teaspoon or coffee spoon alongside, small enough to get to the bottom of the glass!

For a very quick vegetarian amuse bouche, which came about because of a couple of nearly empty tubs of shop bought dips in the fridge:

Ingredients 

1 dessert spoon tzatziki (a cucumber dip)

1 dessert spoon ktipiti (a red pepper and feta dip)

1 dessert spoon natural Greek yoghurt 

Chopped cucumber

Chopped pepper (red or green)

1 cherry tomato or 1 red and 1 yellow (you will only need half of each)

Method 

Stir half of the yoghurt into each dip to loosen it.

Layer up with the cucumber and pepper into espresso glasses

Top with sliced tomato

Garnish with a sprig of mint or chopped chives if you like (I didn’t get that far)

Chill for 30 minutes before serving, if you can wait that long!

Serves 2.

PARMESAN BISCUITS (canapé size)

I recently spent a happy half hour (or more) leafing through my cook books for recipes for nibbles.  We had friends coming for lunch and I found myself with the luxury of time on my hands that would enable me to do more than just spread some paté on bits of toast or put olives in a dish.

I found a Nigella Lawson recipe that I liked the look of and with all the ingredients to hand thought it worth a try.  The recipe makes a bowl full of little cheesy biscuits for now and enough mixture to freeze half of it for later.  Always a good idea in my book!

Very easy to do, delicious and highly recommended.

And then there were three!

Ingredients

150g plain flour

75g grated parmesan (I used the ready grated kind as that's what I had in)

100g butter, softened

1 egg yolk

Method

Put all the ingredients into a large bowl and mix together using an electric hand mixer until it comes together in a large clump.

Transfer to a work surface and knead briefly until smooth.  Divide roughly into equal halves.

Take one half and roll it into a log then an even cylinder about 3cm diameter, with nice flat ends.  Wrap in cling film, twist the ends to secure and chill for at least 45 minutes or until needed, by which time it should be firm enough to slice easily. Repeat with the other half of the dough.

Preheat the oven to 180C / 160 fan / gas mk4.

Unwrap one or both cylinders and slice neatly and evenly into discs about 1cm thick.  I got 20 discs from my first one (the second is in the freezer).  Some of my discs looked rather irregular in shape but miraculously turned into nice neat circles when cooked.

Arrange on a baking sheet lined with baking paper (one sheet for each cyslinder) and cook in the oven for 15-20 minutes until a pale golden brown (depending on how thick the discs are).

Makes about 20 biscuits per log.  Store in an airtight tin or box (if there are any left!).