Tomato and ricotta puff pastry tarts

Take a sheet of store-bought puff pastry and pile it high with lots of delicious summer ingredients and, hey presto, you get these beautiful tomato tarts!

Credit: Donal's Meals in Minutes

• serves

  4

• prep

  15 minutes

• cook

  20 minutes

• difficulty

  Easy

This is a perfect example of a cheat ingredient meal – ordinarily puff pastry can be complicated to make from scratch. Here you get all the best bits of a homemade tart in a fraction of the time. Change up the topping depending on what’s in season.

Ingredients

• 500 g frozen puff pastry block, thawed (or use one pre-rolled sheet)
• 1 egg, beaten

Filling

• 100 g cherry tomatoes (red and yellow, if possible)
• 1 small zucchini (courgette), cut into thin ribbons using a vegetable peeler
• A few fresh thyme sprigs
• small handful of oregano, roughly chopped
• 3 tsp (15 ml) balsamic vinegar
• 3 tsp (15 ml) olive oil
• 250 g ricotta cheese
• Salad, to serve, optional

Instructions

1. Preheat the oven the 190°C. Line a baking tray with baking (parchment) paper
2. For the filling, slice the tomatoes in half and place in a bowl. Toss with zucchini, thyme, oregano, balsamic vinegar and a little olive oil and season with sea salt and ground black pepper. Set aside at room temperature to allow the flavours to develop.
3. Roll the puff pastry out on a clean well floured work surface using a rolling pin, until it is about 1cm thick and you have a large square, about 20 cm x 20 cm. Use a sharp knife to cut the pastry cut into four squares.
4. Transfer the pastry to baking tray lined with parchment paper. Using a knife, score an inner square to create a 1 cm border (do not cut all the way through the pastry). Prick the pastry bases with a fork and then spread the area inside the scored border with ricotta cheese. Place tomato and zucchini mix on top of ricotta.
5. Use a pastry brush to brush a little beaten egg on the edges of each tart. Avoid brushing egg over the border lines cut into the pastry, as that can prevent the puff pastry borders from rising.
6. Bake for about 20-25 minutes until the tomatoes have reduced in size by half and the pastry has turned a nutty brown. Leave to cool for 5 minutes.
7. Arrange on plates and serve with simply dressed salad.

Cook's Notes

Oven temperatures are for conventional; if using fan-forced (convection), reduce the temperature by 20˚C. | We use Australian tablespoons and cups: 1 teaspoon equals 5 ml; 1 tablespoon equals 20 ml; 1 cup equals 250 ml. | All herbs are fresh (unless specified) and cups are lightly packed. | All vegetables are medium size and peeled, unless specified. | All eggs are 55-60 g, unless specified.

This is a perfect example of a cheat ingredient meal – ordinarily puff pastry can be complicated to make from scratch. Here you get all the best bits of a homemade tart in a fraction of the time. Change up the topping depending on what’s in season.