Made something special this time and it was fun! 🙂 My first handmade tart. The tart tasted awesome with the cottage cheese filling & the tangy kick of tomatoes. And of course, it was looking gorgeous. I took the recipe inspiration from ‘Good Food Magazine’s March issue’. Followed their shorcrust pastry recipe totally, but added my own twist with the paneer filling, and the whole thing turned out really well together.
Tomato, Dill & Cottage Cheese Tart
Ingredients
For the shortcrust pastry
- All-purpose flour/Maida- 3 cups
- Butter- 1 1/2 stick (I used Amul’s. If you are using unsalted butter, add a pinch of salt while working with the dough)
- Chilled water- 8 tbsp + more (add water little by little as required to form a firm dough)
For the filling
- Cottage Cheese/Paneer- 300g (crumbled)
- Kasundi (Bengali mustard sauce)/ use any other mustard sauce if ‘Kasundi’ is not available- 1 tbsp
- Salt
- Vegetable oil/Olive oil- 1tbsp
- Cheese- grated (I used regular Britania cheese)
- Cherry tomatoes- 17-18 (cut into halves lengthwise)
- Oregano
- Freshly chopped dill- 1/2 tsp
Method for shortcrust pastry
Shift flour in a bowl. Add butter, mix well using your fingers, until the flour mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs. Add water & knead the dough well on a floured surface. Wrap the firm dough in a cling film & chill in the refrigerator minimum for 30 minutes. In between prepare the filling.
Method for filling
Crumble the paneer & keep aside. Heat oil in a frying pan. Add the paneer, salt & kasundi (or any other mustard sauce). Mix well, sauté on medium flame for 2-3 minutes. Make sure not to dry the paneer much. This way the extra water of paneer will be evaporate. Remove from heat, keep aside.
Making of the Tart
Preheat the oven to 200 degree centigrade. On a floured surface roll out the chilled pastry to 1/2 cm thickness. Grease a 20 cm loose bottomed tart tin with vegetable oil/olive oil. Use the rolled pastry to line the tart tin. Prick the base lightly with a fork (but don’t pierce). Line with butter paper/parchment & baking beans. Bake blind for 12 minutes. Remove the baking beans & parchment. Bake again for 5-7 minutes or until pale golden in color. Remove the tart from oven. Reduce the oven temp to 180 degree centigrade.
Watch this video, it will be helpful for making the ‘Tart’.
Now evenly cover the base of the tart with paneer mixture. Add grated cheese on top. Place the tomatoes (cut side up). Sprinkle dill & oregano. Bake for 25 minutes. Remove from oven. Wait for 10 minutes.
Cut into slices & serve warm. Enjoy!
Note:
- In the original recipe, little large tart pan was used. So the amount of flour was more than 3 cups. I adjusted the quantity according to the size of my tart pan. But after rolling & lining I ended up with some extra dough. So if you are using the same size of tart pan like mine, I think 2 cups flour should be fine for making the pastry.
- Add salt carefully while making the paneer filling. As kasundi is salted.
- Baking beans are not very easy to find. So I replaced them with rajma beans/red kidney beans . And it was fine for me. Yes, of course you can cook with those rajma beans later, no probs. 🙂
