Serve these individual tartlets with the best that the summer has to offer: baby salad leaves, soft herbs such as chives, basil and chervil and lots of beautiful edible flowers.
Ingredients
- 300g cherry tomatoes
- Few fresh thyme sprigs
- Small handful of oregano, roughly chopped
- 1 tblsp olive oil
- 1tbsp balsamic vinegar
- 250g ricotta cheese
- For the Pastry
- 250g plain flour
- 170g very cold, butter, cut into small cubes
- 1 tsp sea salt
- 1 egg
- 1 tblsp balsamic vinegar
- 2 tblsp ice cold water
- Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
- Summer salad, to serve (see intro)
Method
- Cut the tomatoes in half, add them into a bowl with olive oil, balsamic vinegar, season with sea salt and black pepper, thyme, oregano, mix well and set aside.
- To make the pastry, place the flour and cold butter in a bowl and using a pastry blender (or two forks), mix the butter into the flour until you have a rough pebble mixture.
- Whisk together the egg with the balsamic vinegar and sea salt. Add this to the butter and flour and using two forks gently toss through until the dough begins to come together.
- Add a little cold water to bring the dough to a rough ball. Turn the pastry out on to parchment paper or cling film, parcel up and place in the fridge to rest for 30 minutes.
- Preheat the oven to 200°C.
- When the pastry has rested, roll the pastry out on a clean, well floured work surface using a rolling pin, until you have a square. Use a lid to cut out 4 even circles. Quickly transfer the circles to a well floured baking tray. You can save any left over pastry in the fridge.
- On each circle, dollop on the ricotta and carefully place the tomato mixture on top. Slowly fold the pastry in towards the tomatoes. Brush with a beaten egg and season with salt and pepper.
- Cook the tarts for 25 minutes until lovely and golden.
