Potato crusted silverbeet and feta tart

Being a self confessed food and cooking addict means that I have several vices such as most pieces of obscure kitchen equipment known to man; too many cookbooks to fit on any bookshelves in existence and a substantial collection of food pornography in the form of several magazine collections.  It is for these reasons that I committed to using my cookbooks as my first research point when wanting to find new recipes and to only subscribe to one magazine per year.  I have one ‘get out of jail free’ clause in my deal and that is I am allowed to buy an additional magazine if, and only if, I genuinely think that I will cook more than two recipes from it. 

My recent purchase of the August/September issue of dish magazine was not taken lightly and I knew I had many things to cook from it.  I have mentioned before how much I love this particular publication because I find the recipes are that little bit different but use ingredients that you tend to have on hand or can easily find.  You will find the other recipes that I have done from their pages here.  

I chose to cook this dish because when I went to the fruit and vegetable markets over the weekend the silverbeet (also known as swiss chard in some parts of the world) was so fresh that I just had to buy some.  I have always loved the deep iron flavour of silverbeet, even as a child.  So paring it with crunchy potato, smooth feta and sweet cherry tomatoes seemed like a treat to me.

potato crusted silverbeet and feta tart (recipe from August/September 2010 issue of dish magazine)
makes one 26cm (10 inch) tart, serves 6 – 8

Ingredients 
Crust
800g (1 ¾ lbs) floury potatoes
1 egg 
1 teaspoon cumin seeds, toasted  
1 clove garlic, crushed 
3 tablespoons melted butter 
sea salt and freshly ground black pepper 
Filling
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 red onion, thinly sliced
1 clove garlic, crushed   
1 tablespoon finely chopped rosemary or thyme
3 cups packed, shredded silverbeet leaves (250g/½ lb)
1 cup sour cream   
5 eggs
1 tablespoon wholegrain mustard
150g feta cheese
10 cherry tomatoes, halved  
¼ cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese 

Preparation  
Preheat oven to 180°C (350°F/Gas 4). 

Grease a 26 cm x 3.5 – 4 cm deep loose-based tart tin or metal pie tin very well and place on a baking tray.

For the crust, peel and coarsely shred the potatoes.  Whisk the eggs, cumin and garlic in a large bowl and toss through the potato.  Add the melted butter, season generously and toss well to coat.  Press the mixture into the tin, bringing it up the sides as you would with pastry.  Bake for 30 minutes.  As it cooks, remove it from the oven several times and lightly press the crust with the back of a spoon as the potato softens, pushing it against the sides and base and sealing any holes in the crust, until crisp and golden. 

For the filling, heat the olive oil in a large sauté pan and cook the onion, garlic and rosemary or thyme until soft.  Add the silverbeet, season and cook until tender.  Cool for 10 minutes.  In the meantime, whisk the sour cream, eggs and mustard in a large bowl and season. 

Set a third of the feta cheese aside and crumble the rest into the silverbeet mixture.  Combine, tip into the potato crust and crumble the remaining feta over the top.  Dot over the tomatoes and scatter with Parmesan cheese.  Bake for 25 minutes or until the filling is golden and firm to the touch.  Serve hot or warm with sautéed Brussels sprouts. 

My tips/alterations:  *I choose to use a slightly smaller tin (24.5 cm) which meant that the tart was slightly deeper.  It took the same time to cook.  *I used some of the melted butter to grease the tin then combined the remaining butter with the potato crust.  *I sprinkled the parmesan cheese over before dotting the tomatoes on top, this means that you could see the brightness of the cherry tomatoes better.  *After cooking this for 5 minutes less than recommended I let this stand, removed the edge of the tin then, when we were ready to eat, place it back in the oven to reheat it.  This meant that the crust browned a little more because when I removed it from the case initially I found that it hadn’t browned as much as I would have liked.  You could also get this effect by removing the sides of the tin for the last 5 minutes in the cooking process, just make sure that the centre is slightly set first.

ease: 8/10.  The potato crust is a little different than pastry and requires a gently touch. 
prep time: 20mins + 10 minutes cooling time. 
cooking time: 25-30mins.
total: 60mins.          

taste: 9.5/10.  The famous words – “Please Sir, can I have some more?” – spring to mind when I think of this dish.  The flavours were delicious and the textures excited our palates.  Crunchy potato, soft, iron rich filling with the occasional burst of sweetness from cherry tomatoes, our mouths felt like this was one big party.

Even my little carnivore G kept coming back for more!  He said the only reason he didn’t rate it 10 was because there was no meat in it :). 

would I make it again:  Absolutely.  I would make it ahead and reheat it to crisp the shell even more.