Not interesting? Too boring? Excuse me!
Little tarts with vegetables in a cheese sauce.
Warm and appetizing.
No one says you need to eat plates full! These are tiny morsels, enough for a bite. Pretty and filling.
I’m giving you one option for filling for these tiny tarts /canapés, you may, of course add your own.
What we are doing here is DE-Mystifying short crust pastry. One never attempts to make short crust pastry…..it’s almost as scary as entering Dracula’s coffin with a cut finger. First all this cuss word stuff about the chilled ice cold butter and flour…then the fact that one does not want to wash too many dishes in the winters…we the people , don’t want to petrify the maids. Here they are as scarce as the chances of hair sprouting on a bald pate.
So food processor to the rescue.
And that’s why I buy butter in 100gm packages. No real need then to always weigh.
Simple as ABC…is short crust pastry, all you need is flour, butter and water. Problem here is, so many people are pure vegetarians-NO egg…so meat and its derivatives are a far call.
One has to cater for the eggless variety. So these tart /pastry cases are eggless.
Here’s how you make them-this recipe made 16 small tart cases. For a 9 inch shell you’ll need to multiply all the ingredients by 1.5.
For the
Vegetable Tartlets...
you need
1 cup/160 Gms plain flour
½ cup/80 Gms butter (not frozen but COLD)
Couple of pinches of salt
Ice Cold Water to knead the dough.
That’s the 80 Gms of butter, very easy to remove 20 Gms when you have a 100 gm stick of butter.
That’s the flour. Notice the steel blade in the processor-only because I was in no mood to cut the butter into small pieces.
Whiz it all till you get the bread crumbs like texture….basically the flour and the butter have come together ,but not yet.
Now a spoonful of water at a time and bring it to this. Your dough is done….not too much of mess was there?
If you want to you can use beaten egg instead of the water, but don’t dump all at the same time…little by little.
Now a bit of dough to roll, fairly thin.
About 1/8th of an inch thin.
Place the tart mould on top to guide you and roughly cut off some dough.
Pop them into the oven, pre heated 180C/350F for about 12-15 minutes. Golden brown and they are ready to be brought out.
You can try the first one warm from the oven….I scarfed down two without the filling, the pleasures of being a cook.hmm
For the
Cheese sauce and the vegetables..
300 mils warm milk
2 tsp butter
2 tsp plain flour
Salt and pepper to taste
100 Gms grated cheddar cheese
2 tsp prepared mustard
1 cup each iced vegetables-green peppers, cabbage, cauliflower, carrots, and peas
1 tsp chopped chives, some leaves basil
The best part is the cheese sauce.
That’s 2 tsp each butter and plain flour.
Make a roux, which is a fancy French name for the cooked butter and flour mix that helps to thicken any sauce.With all this fancy-schmany stuff be sure to keep an eye on the roux -don't let it colour.
Pour in the milk, ensure you stir well…..nobody loves lumps.
Cooked-now it’s time for the mustard paste English/French/Bengali…take your pick.
And the cheese and the salt and pepper.
I added chives and basil…flavors always enhance the taste.
Ok, now that’s 5 cups full of assorted vegetables, cut small-peas, carrots, cauliflower and cabbage.
Pour ¼ cup water in them and zap in the microwave for 5 minutes, full power, covered. These are the cooked vegetables...still have a crunch in them. You don't have to cook thye capsicum.
Mix well, now stir in the veggies and the cup full of diced green pepper.
Now simply serve in the pastry cases…
Since this was for two tweens celebrating a new television totally dedicated to the play station…there was KETCHUP.
They had a ball…
You can too-get rid of those draconian fears of pastry making and stop using soggy boxed canapés.
So what are you baking today???
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