Vegetable & blue cheese tart with traditional Finnish pastry

Finns have a penchant for blue cheese so I have noticed, however I don’t recall being served blue cheese as a kid, unless Mum snuck it in! As I have recently reduced meat in my diet I have started to really enjoy trying out new vegetable dishes.

This recipe was inspired by the Nordic Bakery Cookbook and is simply divine! You can fill it with any vegetables you like. And for even the die-hard meat lover that is my husband, it was a hit. He ate it for breakfast. If you don’t like blue cheese you can omit it and just add cheddar. I use Mersey Valley crumbly vintage which is just dreamy.

I use my grandmother’s traditional ricotta pastry which is used in a lot of Finnish pasties and pastry sweets. This is the same pastry I use to make Finnish Joulutorttu as featured here.

250g plain flour

250g unsalted butter, cubed, at room temperature

250g ricotta

Mix the flour and cubed butter together with your fingers to make a crumby consistency. Once crumbs have formed add the ricotta and combine well to make dough. Roll out into a disc shape, cover with cling wrap and place into the fridge for 30 minutes.

Meanwhile roast the vegetables. I roasted the following vegetables however you can add whatever vegetables you like. I would avoid overly watery vegetables otherwise your tart may wind up soggy.

1 punnet of cherry tomatoes, halved

1 bunch of broccolini

8 mushrooms, halved

½ zucchini, diced

½ brown onion, chopped

1 clove garlic, crushed

Place into a baking dish with generous lashings of olive oil and freshly ground sea salt and pepper. Roast for approx 15 minutes at 200^oC. Don’t overcook as the vegetables will cook more in the pastry case. Strain, put aside to cool slightly.

Take the pastry dough out of the fridge, roll out on a floured surface, fold into 3 like an envelope and roll out again. You need to make a circular shape to cover a 28cm flan tin, at about 10mm thickness. Once rolled out, gently lift the dough with the rolling pin and place into the greased tin. Press into the sides and cut off any excess. Place the strained vegetables into the pastry case, cover evenly with 50g crumbled blue cheese and 100g grated cheddar cheese, bake in oven for approx 25 minutes. The pastry will need to be slightly golden brown and crispy to touch.

The aroma of this tart fresh out the oven is just mouth-watering!