When I became a vegetarian, by the age of fifteen, it was a bit of a challenge for my family. Even though they have always been interested in food, most of their recipes included chicken/fish/cow/lamb. However, one vegetarian dish that always has been on my mom’s repertoir was vegetable pie and tart. She was famous (at least in our family) for her tarts, and during my first vegetarian years they were very often (read always) on the menu. Today my mom can easily whip together all kind of creative vegetarian menus, but we still often ask her to make tart when we visit for dinner. It has become a tradition.
Since my mom was the tart-maker in the family I always stayed out of it, and to this day we still never make tart at home. So you can understand my surprise when I came home from work a few days ago and found a tart waiting on the kitchen table. I of course immediately started looking after my mom in the apartment …
This tart was however created by Luise. It is actually quite different than my mom’s, since it is made on a thin and crispy rye dough, with an egg filling instead of mom’s cream and cheese. She topped it with tomatoes, fennel and chanterelles, all which are in season in Sweden right now. The thing with tarts is that they are actually quite quick and easy to make, and if you stick with vegetables in season it will guarantee you great taste. Leave the stem on the tomatoes for a rustic look.
Tomato & Chanterelle Rye Tart
Makes 2 tarts
Dough
1 2/3 cups (4 dl) rye flour
7 tbsp olive oil
3 tbsp flax seeds
a pinch of salt
5 tbsp cold water
1 egg
Making the dough: Combine all ingredients in a bowl and start working the dough by hand. When it comes together, start to kneed it on a clean surface for a couple of minutes. Place it back in the bowl, cover the bowl and put it in the fridge for about 1 hour. Take the dough out of the bowl and divide it into two. Place the dough in two 9-inch (23 cm) tart shells covered with parchment paper. Pad the dough out by the heel of your hand until it covers the whole tart shell and sides. Prick the dough all over with the tines of a fork. Pre-bake the tart crusts for 10 minutes at 350°F/175°C.
Filling
4 eggs
1 cup milk (we used soymilk)
1 tsp nutmeg
a pinch of salt & pepper
Vegetables
500 g fresh roman tomatoes
1 medium size fennel (thinly sliced)
200 g chanterelles (divided in halves)
2 fresh rosemary sprigs
Making the filling: Add all ingredients in a bowl and whisk it together with a fork. When well combined, pour over the pre-baked tart crusts. Add the vegetables and rosemary. Bake the tarts for 25 – 30 more minutes at 350°F/175°C. Serve!
Ps. We forgot to tell you that:
A) Our oven glass door exploded when making this recipe.
B) We dropped the other (better looking) tart on the floor 5 seconds before we had planned to take photos of it.
C) We decided to laugh about the whole thing even though crying was a much closer option.
With that said, we agree that if you follow the recipe (in cups) it might still come out a bit too moist. In Sweden we use the metric system (dl & liter instead of cups) when we bake, and it is always a little problematic to translate it to cups, since you get very odd numbers. So we often round it down to an even number. In this case 1 dl oil is actually a little less then 1/2 cup. When you cook, these small differences doesn't matter, but in baking they are more important. The dough will be a little more moist than we intended (but still not impossible to bake with). We have however adjusted the recipe now (using tbsp instead of cups), so it is more accurate. We are sorry if it didn't come out well for you, but please try to bake it and do let us know how it turned out. /Luise & David