Onion, blue cheese and pecan tarts
The key to enjoying a dinner party as much as your friends are enjoying it is to have as much prepared in advance, making it as stress free as possible, and that’s exactly what this reciepe is going to do.
Now the first thing I’m going to show you is the onions. I’m going to take a nice sharp knife and just, very carfully, slice into thick rounds. They need to be about half a centimetre to a centimetre thick, keeping the onion together just like this. Any trimmings you can pop in the fridge and use at a later date. And then these need to just be fried in some olice oil for about three to five minutes on each side, untill they’re nice and golden and slightly softened and then just pop these to pne side to cool.
And then you want to take your pastry, we’ve just got some ready rolled puff pastry, straigt onto a board and cut into six discs. Now you can either use a pastry cutter, or if you haven’t got pastry cutters just use a plate or a glass to cut around with a knife. And then transfer them onto a baking sheet that’s lined with paper just to stop them from sticking when they cook. And then taking a smaller pasty cutter, or a glass, just do an indent in the middle of each one, making a little border, creating a space for you to add your topping. Just take care not to push all the way through. Now to top the pastry we’ve got some soft blue cheese. I’m just going to spread some on the top of each circle. Now if you use this at room temperature it makes it much esier to spread over the top. However, if your cheese is slightly firmer, you can just crumble it and scatter it into the centre.
And the next thing to put over the top I’m just going to scatter some roughly chopped peacan nuts, but walnuts could aslo be used, and then take some fresh thyme and just pick the leaves and put them on the top. And then this is where you want to bring in your onions. So just very carfully lift from the pan and then place each one on top of each one. Now getting up to this stage can be done in the morning. Or even right up to the point where you’re getting ready and your waiting for your friends to arrive. And then when you’re ready to cook, just want to get some olive oil, drizzle over the top just to make sure that they go lovley and golden whilst cooking.
Add a twist of pepper, a little sprinkling of salt, and put them in the oven for twelve to fifteen minutes which gives you plenty of time to sit and have a drink with your friends. So these cooked tarts smell amazing and we just want to put one onto a plate. And then for a little side salad garnish that I’m going to serve with this I’ve just got some nice hot peppery rocket and I want to dress it with some balsamic vinager and olive oil but I don’t want to do much washing up so let’s just put a drizzle of olive oil straight into the bag, little bit of balsamic and a pinch of salt and then making sure you’ve still got some air in the bag give it a really good shake to coat all those leaves. Sit your dressed rocket just next to the start for a stylish finish to a simple receipe.