JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: Readers, you're in for another delicious treat as our friend Celia Wakefield presents the best possible way to eat all those zucchini and tomatoes overflowing your garden and filling up the farmers' market. I got to have this at a luncheon following a home Eucharist led by the Reverend Canon Eleanor Prior, who only looked a little bit taken aback when we started peppering her condensed sermon with comments and questions.
With or without an accompanying religious celebration, this savory tart will put the essence of September on your palate.
Good morning my dear Reds and readers. I love it
when Julia’s turn comes around and she asks me for a recipe to share. I wanted
to check up on how long I have been writing for JRW on Julia’s page, but went
down the site search engine rabbit hole and realized this was a task to put
down. How am I? Happy to say much, much better over this time last year. My
beloved, who will attain his 95 birthday this month, is so much improved in his
health, though at his age there is concern on long term issues. Still enough of
that, all is well right now.
What have I been cooking, same old, same old, same boring! I needed a brain jolt, which I got a couple of weeks ago when Sam Shifton, NYT cooking head honcho, chef, and bottle washer wrote about no recipe recipes. I only read the Cooking section emails as I have refused on principle to pay for a second subscription. Plus one can get plenty of ideas from reading the articles, not to mention that Sam (or his crew when not washing up after him), usually adds in a non cooking article which just cries out to be read, and I have not been disappointed there yet.This gave me a new lease on my cooking life which added to having some real activities to look forward to, in addition to enlarging our social circle of two, would involve bringing food.
The first outing was to an annual barbecue for
the St. Luke’s volunteers who work at the Preble Street Soup Kitchen in
Portland. St. Luke’s is the Episcopal cathedral in Maine which both the
Hugo-Vidal and Wakefield families attend, when not sheltering from the plague.
There is no more soup kitchen work per see, that’s now in our past life, but
they do still need volunteers so St. Lukes is still involved. However our hosts
brines, marinades and smokes briskets, pork and chicken each year and invites
us to feast at their lakeside camp. We bring the rest. Today’s recipe was my
offering and more on that later.
I’m not sure if there is a corner of the world that hasn’t experienced some topsy turvy weather this year. We certainly have up in our NE corner. August usually arrives with beautiful sunny days, hot enough to be outside in comfort after the swelter of July. Not this year. We have had swelter day after day. We retreated indoors to our Heat Pump providing dry, cool air, which does defeat the outdoor point of summer. But it was time to think up non heat generating food and as there is plenty of zucchini and tomatoes on the farm stands that gave me the idea of todays recipe for a Zucchini, Cherry tomato tart. I made it as finger food for the barbecue and cut it into bite sized pieces. It was most successful.
Let’s make it again. My cousins were visiting Maine from Vermont. We invited them to lunch and I wanted something easy so that I spent the time with them, not with the kitchen. I wasn’t sure what the weather would produce, but the tart plus antipasti from our Portland Italian store, Mucicci’s gave me necessary freedom with all food prepped for service in advance. Our trip through the summer social circle concluded with more friends for whom I made a seafood salad of mussels, shrimp, tiny potatoes and shucked corn.The salad was a great success, but a request for the dressing from one of the guests left me searching for the original recipe which I adopted for our meal. As I cook without recipes, creating some accuracy on amounts was needed, and here is part of my reply to the request.
Dressing, Well my recipe measurements are always a bit vague, however here is the recipe from which I worked!
https://www.myrecipes.com/recipe/mediterranean-potato-salad-with-shrimp-feta
I used at least a 1/4 C of olive oil, about a Tbsp lemon (half a large lemon), 1 tsp Dijon mustard approx, 1Tblsp frozen basil which had been prepped for pesto, 3-4 cloves baked garlic, (I bake several garlic heads in foil with olive oil at a time and store in the fridge), good squeeze of TJ'c Balsamic glaze instead of the sugar. (You can get Balsamic glaze in WhF too). I hope this helps.
I used tiny potatoes which I boiled, an ear of shucked fresh corn, about 2 C tiny frozen shrimp, which I cooked in vermouth and water with parsley and 5 Spice powder, and of course the mussels.
My guests came with six pounds of mussels which
we cooked with vermouth plus seasonings, let them cool and mixed them with more
dressing into the potatoes, corn and shrimp. There’s no photo as it really was
a one color dish with some freshly chopped parsley on top. The vermouth is an
old Julia Child trick. In Mastering the Art . . She wrote that is
no white wine was opened or available use vermouth instead. And it works.
But back to my original tart recipe, having written the back story already. I know that tart conjures up baking, but for once I bought my tart pastry ready made. I won’t bore you to death with how I am not THAT baker, but I can make pastry however it was the 90+degree week and way too hot to make pastry so I bought frozen pastry shells and defrosted one. A rectangle is easier to work with for finger food and the pastry allowed me to remold and roll out to a rectangle. Once rolled it went into a foil lined pan. Then I pricked the rectangle all over, covered it with parchment paper, (foil works too), and sprinkled it with metal pastry weights. Into the oven for ten minutes, remove paper and weights, being careful not to burn oneself. Sigh! Return to the oven for five minutes plus just to finish. Buy or make some bread crumbs. I choose to make mine but Panko will work well.
This can all be done in advance. Next step is
the assembly and the baking. I chose small zucchini and cherry tomatoes of
different colors for contrast. I found a tip for grating Mozzarella on Google.
Put the ball in the freezer for about twenty minutes plus and it grates just
fine. Because this is a no recipe tart, be ready to eyeball your tart as you
assemble as the quantities are approximate
Summer Zucchini & Cherry Tomato Tart
INGREDIENTS
Packet of short crust pastry (the sort already in ready-made pie pans works well)
1 baking sheet at least 9”x13” for the pie tin pastry.
Line your pan with foil for easy removal, and spray lightly with oil spray. A pan or baking tin with a small lip works well, but this can be made free form too. As we are using zucchini cut into lengths, a square or rectangle works best.
2 small zucchinis, cut into thin slices
lengthwise
Green box of cherry tomatoes, mixed colors if possible
1 Cup grated Mozzarella ball
Cup of fresh toasted breadcrumbs or Panko crumbs
3/4 - 1 Cup Parmesan / Pecorino Romano grated cheese
Method:
You have 2 choices for pastry:
1) Make a shortcrust pastry using1 3/4 cups Flour, 1 stick + 1Tblsp unsalted butter, 1 egg yolk,
1/2 tsp salt, 2-4 Tblsp water to mix into dough*. I make pastry in the food processor.
2) Buy frozen shortcrust pastry, defrost 1 pie pan if already rolled
Fold pastry in four, and reroll into a rectangle or square to fit the pan.
3) Chill the pastry until ready to blind bake it.
4) Heat oven to 350 degreesF, cover pastry with parchment or wax paper and add pie weights
5) Bake for 10 minutes,
6) Remove paper and weights, and bake another 5-10 until pastry is firm but not colored.
7) Cool pastry until ready to assemble
Assembly
Cover pastry with a thin layer of breadcrumbs. These keep the pastry from getting soggy as it bakes.
Set the zucchini slices on the breadcrumbs in a single layer
Cover zucchini with a layer of grated mozzarella
Cut cherry tomatoes in half across and add to the tart,
Sprinkle generously with Parmesan cheeses
Bake in a 350 degreeF oven for 30-40 minutes, rotating once.
Serve warm or at room temperature. The leftovers are great, but heat in the oven. Nuking doesn’t improve pastry.
My pastry recipe is the one I have been making since I received these Robert Carrier Cookery Cards for my Twenty first birthday, and that’s a long time ago!ENJOY!
