Double-Egged Crustless Spinach & Bacon Tart

I have a real hankering for old-fashioned food, the sort that my grannies cooked in the Sixties when I was growing up. In particular, I have a craving for a raised ham pie, with boiled eggs tucked inside. A Scotch egg would do nicely, too. My English mother-in-law made fabulous Scotch eggs that were deliciously springy, the pork-sausage meat encasing a perfectly cooked boiled egg.

Double-Egged Crustless Spinach & Bacon Tart

The tricky part of putting whole eggs in pies - a very old English tradition -  is boiling them just hard enough to peel, but not so hard that their yolks cook to sawdust while the pie's baking. In this crustless tart, I've dropped the whole raw eggs into nests made in the mixture, and reduced the oven temperature during cooking so that the yolks are just done by the time the quiche mixture has puffed and browned.

Drop the eggs into 'nests' you've made in the spinach mixture

I do appreciate crustless tarts - they're brilliant when you don't have time to faff around with pastry - but one of the challenges is creating a mixture that is firm enough to slice and pull away from the bottom and sides of the pan, but not so firm that it bounces when dropped on a plate.  I think that the way to achieve a lovely trembling texture is to add some grated butter to the mix.

This had never occurred to me until I tried Zaheera's Easy Sweetcorn, Coriander and Chilli Crustless Egg Tart, which has a beautiful texture that I can only attribute to the butter.

This is just as nice without the spinach (see photograph at the end of this post), but omit the nutmeg, and increase the amount of chopped fresh parsley to ¾ cup (180 ml).






Double-Egged Crustless Spinach & Bacon Tart

200 g fresh spinach or Swiss chard
200 g streaky bacon
1 Tbsp (15 ml) sunflower  or vegetable oil
13 large, free-range eggs
¾ cup (180 ml) milk or cream
1 tsp (5 ml) hot English mustard powder
½ tsp (2.5 ml) grated nutmeg
3 Tbsp (45 ml) finely chopped fresh parsley
the juice of half a lemon
1 tsp (5 ml) finely grated lemon zest
60 g cold butter, grated
1 cup (250 ml) grated Cheddar
salt and milled black pepper

To top:
2 tsp (10 ml) poppy seeds
a little paprika or cayenne pepper

Rinse the spinach well (remove the thick stalks, if you're using Swiss chard). Give it a light shake and place in a large pot, with some water still clinging to the leaves. Add a pinch of salt. Cover and cook for a few minutes over a medium heat, turning the spinach over now and then, until it has wilted down, but is still a vibrant green. Place in a colander over a sink and cover with a saucer weighed down with something heavy.

Preheat the oven to 180 ºC. Dice the bacon. Heat the oil in a frying pan, add the bacon and cook until brown and beginning to crisp. Drain off the fat and set aside. In a large mixing bowl, lightly beat eight of the eggs (set the remaining eggs aside). Add the milk, mustard powder, nutmeg, parsley, lemon juice and zest, grated butter and Cheddar and stir well. Season well with salt and pepper.

Squeeze all the moisture out of the cooked spinach (it's easiest to do this with your hands) and chop it up. Add this to the mixing bowl along with the bacon. Pour the mixture into a large greased pie dish. Using a large spoon, make a little well in the tart, near the edge, and break a whole egg into it (don't worry if the egg white runs over the top a little). Repeat with the remaining four eggs (see photograph above). 

Scatter the poppy seeds over the top of the tart and dust with paprika.  Bake at 180ºC for 15 minutes, then reduce the heat to 160ºC and bake for a further 15-20 minutes, or until the mixture is puffed and golden, with a slight wobble in the middle.

Serve hot or warm with a green salad.

Serves 6-8

The same tart, without spinach

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Ripe Figs with Baked Camembert and Spicy Caramel Walnuts

This is such a versatile, sexy recipe, because it can be served as a starter, a snack or right at the end of a meal as a combination dessert and cheese course. I found these gorgeous purple figs at my local Woolies, and, as I don't like eating figs whole, I melted some lovely ripe Camembert over their middles. But the final result was too evenly voluptuous, so for texture and crunch I added walnuts, which I coated in caramel and then tossed in paprika, cayenne pepper and salt.

You could use any sort of nut here - macadamias and cashews, for example - but I like the slightly bitter taste of walnuts.

If you're serving this as a savoury course, dress the rocket leaves with a little olive oil and freshly squeezed lemon juice before you arrange them on the platter. If this is a sweet course, omit the salad leaves and the salt and pour a little warmed honey over the figs.

Ripe Figs with Baked Camembert and Spicy Caramel Walnuts

6 ripe figs
a round of ripe, but not oozing, Camembert or brie
16 walnuts
4 Tbsp (60 ml) white sugar
1 tsp (5 ml) fresh paprika
½ tsp (2.5 ml) cayenne pepper or chilli powder (or more, to taste)
flaky sea salt
fresh rocket or salad leaves

Preheat your oven's grill to its hottest setting.

First prepare the walnuts. Put the nuts into a dry frying pan and toast, tossing frequently, for a minute or two, or until just beginning to turn golden on the edges.  Set aside.  Sprinkle the sugar evenly into the saucepan, set it over a medium heat, and watch it like a hawk. The sugar will begin to liquefy and then turn golden in patches. At this point, give the pan a sharp swirl, or stir gently to redistribute the melted bits. (Here are some great tips for making caramel). The moment the sugar is melted and turning a light copper colour, remove the pan from the heat (it will continue to darken after you've removed it).  Toss the walnuts into the hot pan and shake to coat.  Fish them out with a fork, put them on a plate or sheet of greaseproof paper and sprinkle with paprika, cayenne pepper and plenty of salt. Leave to harden.

Put the figs on a baking sheet. Cut a cross in the top of each fig, stopping a little short of its bottom.  Squeeze the base of the figs so that the four 'petals' open up.  Lightly press a little wedge of cheese (how much is up to you) into each fig.  Place under a very hot grill - on a rack in the middle of the oven - and grill until the cheese is just melted. Watch the figs closely as they grill, making sure that they don't burn.  Serve on a bed of dressed greens, sprinkled with the whole, or chopped, caramelised walnuts.


Serves 6. Print Friendly

Weekend bliss: camembert, halloumi, roast lamb, a birthday and a nomination

I had such a lovely, golden, sun-soaked weekend that I felt as gloomy as a goldfish as I mooched to my desk this morning; what a lovely surprise to find that this blog, and my other blog, Salmagundi, jointly written with my friend the terrible Muriel, are both finalists in the 2009 South African Blog Awards.

Thank you for nominating us, dear friends and readers, and please cast your vote for this blog by clicking on the gold tag at the top right of this page (or click here, which will take you to the voting page and automatically check the box next to my blog; all you need do is fill in your email address at the bottom of the page and respond to the confirmation email when it arrives).

Two things made my weekend memorable. One, I went to a cheese-making workshop, hosted by Brian and Jo Dick, who own that wonderful shop, Cheese Gourmet, in Linden, Johannesburg. Cheesemakers Hans Keller and Barbie Pretorius of the De Rust Cheese-Making Academy, near Hartebeespoort Dam, showed us how to make halloumi cheese, that lovely, salted, springy taste of Cyprus.

Do you know how easy it is to make your own halloumi? It's a piece of old cheesecake. If you have 10 litres of raw, fresh milk, a thermometer, 6 ml of rennet, and some sterilised pots and trays and weights, you can make a lovely, squeaky halloumi cheese in your own kitchen in under two hours.

Ok, I haven't tried it myself yet, chiefly because I'm at a loss as to where to find 10 litres of raw fresh milk - pasteurised, homogenised supermarket milk won't do, says Hans - but I intend to give it a try the minute within udder's tweak of a cow, or at least close to a proper dairy. And I have good reason for wanting to make my own - my 16-year-old son thinks that crispy fried halloumi cheese is the best thing since sliced bread, and is also under the impression that it's as cheap as sliced bread. I can't afford to indulge his cravings too often, much as I'd like to (bones that are growing as fast as his surely need all the calcium and protein they can get).

Anyway, once I've tried halloumi-making myself, I will pass on the details of my experiment. In the meantime, if you'd like to try making your own, click here for details of courses offered by Hans and Barbie, and here to contact The Cheese Gourmet. If you live in the Cape, check out the two-day cheese-making courses offered by Finest Kind of Plettenberg Bay.

During the demonstration, Brian Dick presented a selection of superlative hand-made South African cheeses for us to taste, and it was just fascinating to hear Hans commenting on each cheese, and talking about the art of cheese-making: a blend of chemistry, experience, instinct and sheer alchemy.

All the samples were gorgeous, but the most sublime, for me, were the organic cheeses from the Jersey herd at Dalewood Fromage, near Franschhoek in the Cape Winelands. Their unique Huguenot cheese - a mature, semi-hard cheese - is neither a Gouda nor a Cheddar, but in an indefinable category of its own. They also specialise in a range of bries flavoured with chilli, green fig, crushed olives and wild mushrooms. Their Cape Chilli Brie, an oozy dream of a cheese with a subtle zing of red chilli, is just outstandingly delicious; I'm not surprised to learn that it's won numerous awards.

I also took home some of their Wineland Blue camembert, decadently creamy and delicately freckled with patches of blue mould. This made a wonderful salad (see pic above) combined with baby salad leaves, ripe figs, walnuts and just a lick of olive oil and Balsamic vinegar.

Now to the second thing that made my weekend wonderful. My darling honorary niece, Julia, turned 18 this weekend, and her mother and uncles threw a celebratory Sunday lunch for her and her best friends. Is there anything - anything - to beat a long, lazy lunch on a shady Highveld patio, surrounded by trees and singing grassland, overlooking a sparkling dam? Lazy jazz sounds drifting over the lawn, crisp white wine, candles, presents and sparkling conversation? And the food: I wish you'd been there. James made his signature dish of seared fresh tuna with rocket, avocado and Wasabi mayonnaise, Claire pulled from the oven mountains of lemony, herby, slow-cooked shoulder of lamb, served with with roasted baby vine tomatoes and new potatoes, and we finished up with fudgy chocolate birthday cake and a dreamy Tarte Au Citron.

Oh, my, I feel lucky.

PS On the subject of halloumi cheese, try my halloumi salad with a lemon-caper dressing. Print Friendly