So, yesterday, we made the tart dough.
Today, we make the tart.
The thing is, I based my tart filling on a recipe from Bon Appétit that called for using frozen puff pastry sheets, and I used my own pastry in a tart pan. I added additional artichoke arts to the amount called for in the recipe (12 oz instead of 8), but didn’t add additional feta cheese and cream, so when my tart came out of the oven, it looked very nice but, ermmm a little skimpy…
So, since I happened to have some muffaletta filling leftover, I added a bit of that to the top and tossed the whole thing back into the oven for a few more minutes.
Nice.
We all quite enjoyed the enhanced tart, but I still believe it would be fine without the muffaletta enhancement – with the adjustments I list below.
INGREDIENTS
•1/2 cup heavy cream
•8 oz feta, divided
•1/8 tsp sea salt
•1/8 tsp Tellicherry pepper
•1/8 tsp Aleppo pepper
•12 oz marinated artichoke hearts, drained
•2 tsp olive oil
•1 large egg, lightly beaten
•Fresh parsley, chopped
Heat your oven to 375º.
Blend the cream with four ounces of the feta cheese, the sea salt, Tellicherry (or your black pepper of choice), and Aleppo pepper together in a food processor fitted with the metal blade until smooth.
Spread the cheese and cream mixture over the bottom of your prepared (and partially baked) tart dough.
Note: fretting about dragging out the food processor just to chop some cheese? Don’t! If you plan things well, you’ll get three uses out of your processor with only one real clean-up. First, you use it to blend the flour and salt with the butter for the pastry, then to form the pastry as well. You can then make your feta and cream filling in the cleaned out processor and save it in the fridge until you’re ready to make the tart. Finally, tumble your drained artichoke 
hearts into the processor after you’ve removed the feta and give ’em a couple of good pulses to chop. The ‘chokes will be in good shape to top the tart, and you’ll have gathered up any left over bits of feta from the processor bowl. Now, you can toss it in the dishwasher with the confidence that you have gotten your washing’s worth out of your processor that day.
Arrange the chopped artichokes over the feta and cream, then sprinkle the remaining four ounces of feta over the top (as you can see, mine was already looking a bit lacking in the feta department, but the original recipe called for only four ounces total).
Brush the edges of the dough with the olive oil, then, if you like (I did), sprinkle a bit more of the Aleppo pepper over the tart.
Bake the tart for 20 minutes, then remove from the oven, sprinkle with the parsley, and cover with a pastry shield (this silicone version works a treat!) or add crimped foil around the edges to protect the pastry.
Return to the oven for another 3o minutes, then remove and let for five minutes before slicing.
As I noted above, I thought the filling looked a bit skimpy after baking, so I added that leftover muffaletta, replaced the pastry shield, and popped it back into the oven for another 15 minutes.
Remove your now nicely filled and finished tart from the oven, again let it rest for five minutes before removing from the tart pan, then place it on a platter and serve hot or at warm room temperature.
Nice tart!
Still, I’d really been wanting a vegetarian dish to go along with the other, kinda meat-heavy, munchie I was serving at this particular gathering, so I believe I need to try this tart again, with the adjusted amounts of feta and cream and…
hmmm…
mebbe a bit of Ciao! Piccolo for an added bit of zip? ‘Tis the season, after all, and we have a lot of gatherings coming up.
Stay tuned!