Tomato & Roasted Garlic Tart

Last year I started experimenting with puff pastry, making simple savoury tarts as a quick meal. For this recipe I chose to use tomatoes as they’re in season and roasted garlic - one of my favourite things. It does take a bit of time to roast the garlic and get it soft, but it’s completely worth it. The sweetness and complexity you get from it is so different from the usual raw use.

This is a vegetarian recipe as greek yogurt is used and the puff pastry is butter based. If you want it vegan, switch out the greek yog for strained cashew/coconut yogurt- mimicking the greek yogurt texture, and buy a puff pastry sheet that has no dairy - quite a bit of the sheets in stores are actually vegan, check the ingredients.

Tip: The garlic can be roasted beforehand, keep it in the fridge. You want to work with cold puff pastry, so leave it in the fridge until the very last moment.

Ingredients

1 rectangular puff pastry sheet

1 garlic bulb

1 tbsp olive oil

1 tbsp greek yogurt

1/4 tsp red chilli flakes

pinch of ground cumin

pinch of ground coriander

3 tomatoes

1/2 tsp salt

2 tsp fresh parsley, minced

olive oil, pepper

Method

1. Preheat your oven to fan 180°C.

2. Place the bulb of garlic on aluminium foil and add 1/2 tsp of olive oil to it. Completely wrap the garlic bulb with the foil. Bake it for 45 minutes, and then let cool.

3. Whilst the garlic is cooling, cut the tomatoes into 1 cm slices, place them in a colander and toss with 1/2 tsp of salt. Let it sit for 15 minutes, to draw out excess moisture from the tomatoes.

4. Increase oven temperature to fan 215°C.

5. In a small bowl, squeeze out the roasted garlic cloves, mash until it forms a paste. Add the olive oil, greek yogurt, ground cumin, ground coriander, mix until everything comes together . Season lightly with salt and pepper.

6. Take the puff pastry sheet out the fridge and slide it onto a parchment lined baking sheet (if the puff pastry comes with parchment, use that.) Dock/prick the pastry all over with a fork.

7. Evenly spread the roasted garlic mix onto the pastry, leaving a 5 cm border on all sides. Lay the tomato slices onto the spread in rows, without overlapping them.

8. Brush olive oil onto the naked pastry, and bake for 25-30 minutes, or until the pastry goes golden brown. Sprinkle with parsley before serving.