Faux Middle Eastern Lamb Tart

OK Uncle Richard, you can look away now! This is a totally inauthentic bit of fusion food that I've taken even more time-saving liberty with than the original. But it was surprisingly tasty, and I think I will make it again.

Ingredients

• 1 red onion
• 500g lean lamb mince
• 1 tbsp tomato paste or three tomatoes
• 3 garlic cloves
• 1.5 tsp ground coriander
• Pinch of dried chilli flakes
• 3 tsp cumin seeds, toasted
• juice of a lemon
• a generous handful of finely chopped mint, plus extra leaves to serve
• 3 sheets frozen puff pastry
• two more tomatoes
• handful of chopped flat-leaf parsley
• hummus made from one tin of chick peas
• 1/2 to 1 pack of feta cheese, to taste

Lay the pastry out to defrost, preheat the oven to 200C, and make the hummus, if you haven't already.

Finely chop the red onion and fry gently for a few minutes, until translucent and soft. Add the lamb mince and fry, breaking it apart, until browned. Crush in the garlic and stir through the paste, or finely chop the tomatoes and stir them in. Add the spices and fry for a few minutes, until fragrant. Turn the heat off and add half of the lemon juice, cumin seeds, and mint. (The mixture will appear undercooked compared to e.g. moussaka; you can cook it for longer, but it will get a blast in the oven later, so don't make it too dry.)

Spread the middle third column of each pastry sheet with hummus, then top with the lamb mixture, and scatter over the crumbled feta. Loosely fold over the outer thirds of the pastry to form a fat edge. You can slightly crimp the tops and bottoms of the sheets if it looks like the juices are going to run out. Bake in the oven for 25 minutes, or until the pastry is risen and golden.

Meanwhile, dice the remaining tomatoes and combine with the parsley and the remaining mint, cumin seeds and lemon juice. When the tart is finished, top with this salad, the reserved mint leaves, and serve.

Butternut Squash and Red Onion Galettes

Frozen puff pastry is a wonder for making the simplest meal look super-fancy. These were a whiz to make and you could leave them in the oven after assembly, ready to switch it on half an hour before you want to serve them. My recipe was inspired by this page.

Ingredients

• Four sheets of frozen puff pastry
• olive oil or butter
• Three red onions
• Half of a large, or a whole small butternut squash (about 600g)
• a large handful of fresh sage leaves or 2 tsp dried sage
• 50-100g blue cheese (to taste)

Method

Defrost the pastry, preferably slowly by leaving it out on the counter, while you do the rest of the cooking. Thinly slice the red onions into rings, or if you're in a hurry, half-moons. Peel and chop the butternut squash into bite-sized pieces. Finely shred the sage leaves. Gently fry the onion and squash in 2-3 tbsp of oil or butter, stirring occasionally, until the onion is soft and translucent, and the squash is golden and just barely beginning to break up. Turn off the heat and stir through the sage leaves, and season very well with salt and pepper.

Heat the oven to 180 C. Lay out a couple of large baking trays and cover with greaseproof paper, then brush with melted butter or oil. Lay out each piece of puff pastry on the lined tray and spoon a quarter of the mixture into the centre. Roughly fold up the sides -- I find it's easiest to fold up each corner, then crimp the new small edges to stop the corners unfolding again. If you like, you can brush the pastry with oil, milk, butter, or egg, but I find the frozen stuff is fine without. Bake for 15-20 minutes, until the pastry is puffed and risen, and cooked where it is in contact with the tray. Remove and top with crumbled blue cheese, and serve with a simple salad of bitter lettuce dressed with a splash of red wine or balsamic vinegar.

Tarte au Chevre (Goat's Cheese and Onion Quiche)

Shamelessly stolen from the February 2011 issue of the Observer Food Monthly, where they share some excellent French recipes. I cheated and used store-bought pastry, and it wasn't as good, but I didn't have time to make it myself. I also had the wrong size tin so had to scale the recipe up by about 40%, and it worked fine, with 5 minutes extra cooking time.

We served this with their baked fennel (shown in the background of the photo), but I didn't find it a sufficient improvement on braised fennel to actually warrant bothering in future, unless I already had the oven on and felt like using the spare energy to heat something up.

For the quiche, you'll need a round 22cm tart tin at least 3.5cm deep with a removable base and beans for baking blind. I was extremely sceptical of their instructions for greasing the tin, but they really worked! One layer of butter, then another of flour.

Ingredients

For the pastry

• 200g flour
• 100g butter
• 1 egg yolk
• a little milk

For the filling

• 400g onions (usually 2-3)
• 25g butter
• 2 tsp thme leaves
• 2 eggs
• 200g creme fraiche or sour cream
• 200g full cream milk
• 180g goat's cheese

Blitz the flour and butter together in a food processor, until it forms tiny breadcrumbs. Stir in the egg yolk and enough milk to make a pastry dough. Pat the pastry into a flat round and roll out large enough to line the tart tin. Lightly butter the tin and dust it with a small amount of flour, shaking off any excess. Lay the dough into the tin and push it right into the corners without stretching. Trim off the overhanging pastry and repair any holes. Chill for 20 minutes.

At 200C, pre-bake the pastry case, using greaseproof paper (or foil) and baking beans to hold down the base. After 20 minutes, remove the case from the oven, pour out the beans, remove the paper and bake again for another 5 minutes, until the base is dry to the touch. Remove from the oven and turn it down to 180C.

While the crust is pre-baking, you can finely slice and fry the onions in the butter and thyme for a good 20 minutes, over a low heat, until they are totally falling apart, golden and tender. Beat the eggs and creme fraiche together, then slowly add the milk. (It will look like way too much, but the volumes do work out!) When you have blind-baked the pastry shell, put the onions in a layer on the bottom, crumble over the goat's cheese, then pour over the rest of the filling mixture. Bake at 180C for 40 minutes. The centre should quiver when gently shaken. Let it rest for at least 10 minutes, so you can serve it warm.

Apple Turnover

One of my colleagues at work regularly buys enormous decadent pastries for "lunch dessert", from the local patisserie. He let me try a bite of his apple turnover, which was taller than it was wide! It consisted of a puff pastry base, then inch-thick layers of pie apple, custard, and whipped cream, topped at least with a puff pastry hat. It was amazing.

I knew that sitting at home was a bag of extremely cheap apples, which had not turned out very good for eating. I resolved to make apple turnovers to use them up and satisfy my craving for such an awesome dessert. While you could add custard and cream to these, they're more of a simple quick dessert that you can serve hot, with an added side of ice cream. I've written instructions for just two turnovers, but they're easy to make in large batches, as long as you have enough oven trays.

Ingredients

• two eating apples
• 1 tbsp of lemon juice
• 2 tbsp sugar
• 1 tbsp cornflour
• a sheet of ready-made puff pastry

Core, peel and dice the apples, dropping into the lemon juice as you go, to prevent browning. Stir in the sugar and cornflour, then microwave for 4-5 minutes, stirring occasionally, until the apple has softened and the cornflour has thickened the juices.

Preheat the oven to 200C and lay out a greased or silicone-lined baking tray. Cut the sheet of pastry into two rectangular halves. Lay out one half and spoon half of the apple mixture onto one side of it. Fold the other side over the top and press the edges together all around, so the pastry sticks together. Prick the top a couple of times with a fork. Do the same for the other piece of pastry, with the rest of the mixture.

Bake for 15 minutes or so, until risen, golden and crispy. Serve immediately, with vanilla ice cream.

Cornish Pasties

Recently I was back in the UK, and the first thing I bought as I stepped out of the airport was a Cornish pasty. My mum used to make them for us when we were little and they were such a treat! Any spare pastry would be spread with jam and popped in the oven to make tiny bonus tarts. When I went to uni in Bristol I fell in love with all the different pasty bakeries - over the years I tried all the varieties at all the little shops until I knew where to get my favourites anywhere in town. Sadly in Cambridge, the only pasty shop was a 'Cornish Pasty Co.' chain franchise, whose pasties are always a bit sad, flat, salty and missing those beautiful generous pieces of meat that make pasties such a treat.On my return to pasty-less Perth, I resolved to make my own, for the very first time in my life!

I'm a big fan of well-cooked stewing beef; I can't stand underdone chewiness. So I simmered a very plain and warming beef stew last night, then left it covered overnight. In the morning the meat had reabsorbed much of the juices and the remaining gravy had thickened into a pasty-perfect consistency. The pasty pastry was simple: 600g plain flour, 130g butter, 130g cooking margerine, and a pinch of salt, all whizzed together in a blender to make breadcrumbs, then folded together with just enough water to combine. I cut it in half, flattened each piece into rough discs, then chilled it for twenty minutes while I prepared a nice clean dry worksurface, dusting it and a rolling pin with plain flour. I also greased a couple of baking trays and found a plate of roughly the right size to serve as a guide for cutting circles of pastry. Then I carefully rolled out each disc of pastry until it was around 4mm thick, and cut out discs, stacking them on a plate ready for use. I combined all the offcut pastry together and was able to get a couple more discs out, ending up with eight 12cm discs from that quantity of pastry.

To fill the pasties, I placed a disc on the edge of a baking tray, and filled the center, lengthwise. Then I brushed the edges with beaten egg, and brought the edges up together, pressing them together with my fingers and forming that awesome ripply pattern. According to Wikipedia, you can make pasties in this upright fashion or in the crescent fashion; both forms have been practiced in Cornwall for generations. Personally I like this shape as it's the same one my mum uses, and the filling is less likely to ooze out if you mess up the pastry join! That said, make sure to pay special attention to the tips of the pasties: squash them together very well to prevent ooze and create those wonderful decadent flaky-pastry-only moments at the beginning and end of eating a pasty.

I kept filling until I ran out of pastry - I missed running out of stew by a few spoonfuls - then brushed them lightly with beaten egg and baked for 35 minutes in a preheated 200C oven. With great restraint I managed to cool them on a rack for a couple of minutes before chowing down on a couple for dinner! I'm sure they'd be great for lunch but they didn't last long in our house :) We only managed to keep another pair of pairs for dinner the next night by sealing them in a plastic box and hiding it from ourselves. Pastry is so GOOD.

Savoury Pumpkin Pie

Another crafty use of pumpkin! Still munching our way through the Crown Prince: this recipe used about half of the 4kg monster. Once again, delicious sweet flesh with body and flavour: it really works well here as it's meltingly soft against the crisp buttery pastry. The only sad thing about this pumpkin is that the seeds are so enormous, they don't roast well in the oven to give a good snack.

Anyway, this recipe works well for six people as the carbohydrate portion of a main meal, or as lunch on its own. It would be brilliant to make a few as part of a large buffet. In my opinion it should always be served warm. It keeps well, but the pastry may become soggy if reheated in the microwave, so be prepared to use the oven if you want to recover the freshly-cooked crispness. Also bear in mind this takes 1.5-2 hours from start to finish, as there is a lot of cooking time.

Ingredients:

• 1.3-1.5kg of peeled and deseeded pumpkin (budget 1.8-2kg of raw pumpkin)
• vegetable oil
• cinnamon
• 375g puff pastry
• 1 egg, lightly beaten, for brushing

Preheat the oven to 200 C. Cut the pumpkin into small cubes and steam for 15 minutes, until tender. Tip the pieces into a roasting tin, add a generous pinch of cinnamon and a few tbsp of vegetable oil, season well and toss to coat. Roast for 45 minutes without turning: the edges will crisp and go lightly golden. When cooked, crush the pumpkin into a coarse mash.

Cut the pastry in half, and roll each piece out to fit a baking sheet. Place a sheet of greaseproof paper on the tray, then a layer of pastry, and spread out the filling over the top. Brush the edges of the pastry with the beaten egg, lay the other layer over the top and crimp the edges together. Using a sharp knife, make two or three slits on the top, so that the steam can escape as the pie cooks. Brush the pastry over with the remainder of the egg and bake for 25 minutes. Nigel Slater's original recipe calls for you to wait for 5-10 minutes for the pie to settle before cutting, but you will find that very difficult :)