Goats’ Cheese and Mint Tart

I’m still singing Land of My Fathers (in law) and, although this one isn’t traditional, I like to think it has a nice Welsh twist. I was sent a voucher a while ago by the very lovely Thomas who is digital PR for Sainsbury’s and a jolly good sort. He asked me to come up with something using pastry from the By Sainsbury’s range and this is my offering. To be honest, I use the pastry anyway so it wasn’t a hardship! This is a fresh, light tart perfect for the coming of spring.

Ingredients

1 pack of By Sainsbury’s Shortcrust pastry (You’ll only need about half of this and you can wrap the other half and freeze it to use another day!)

1x 300ml pot of Crème Fraiche (you can use low fat fromage frais if the thought of this makes your arteries shudder)

1x 125g log of Abergavenny Goats’ Cheese (See? There’s the Welsh bit!)

2 Eggs, beaten

half a packet of fresh mint

freshly ground black pepper

sea salt

Method

• Preheat the oven to 200°C
• Roll out the pastry and use it to line a greased 23cm loose bottomed flan tin. Prick it all over with a fork and pop it into the fridge to rest and recover while you make the filling

• Whisk the goats’ cheese and the creme fraiche together
• Whisk in the eggs
• Chop half of the mint leaves and add them to the filling
• Add a good grinding of black pepper and a sprinkle of sea salt
• Line the tart case with tin foil or grease proof paper and fill it with baking beans (I use dried chick peas which I keep for this purpose and reuse again and again)
• Pop it into the oven for 10-15 minutes
• Remove the beans and foil and return to the oven for 5 minutes until the case is light golden and cooked
• Pour the filling into the case and top with the rest of the mint leaves (whole) and a grind of pepper
• Bake for 10 minutes until firm on top
• Grill for 5 minutes or so to brown

We ate this at room temperature. I boiled some baby new potatoes and added a knob of butter, I fried some chestnut mushrooms a red onion and some strips of red pepper and steamed some tenderstem broccoli. It was delicious! This tart also makes excellent picnic food and is delicious served cold with a selection of salads.

Sainsbury’s sent me a £5 voucher, the ingredients for the tart came to £4.25. It serves 6-8 people so that works out at between 53p and 70p per person which isn’t bad! (The crème fraiche is on offer at the moment at two for £1.80 which helped!)