Can you make a tart with cauliflower?
"To use a recipe to fuel improvisation, we need to break it down into parts that are often beyond what the author dictates. Once we’ve done that, we can use these parts in any way we choose. That is, we improvise." Purple Kale Kitchenworks
I decided to make a quiche today - I do them often and they are a super easy thing to do as well because I tend to make my pastry in big batches, then freeze it in smaller pieces, so that I don't have the bother of doing the pastry. And then I started to think about what I could use for the filling.
I began with leeks - pretty standard and very, very delicious but I felt like experimenting a bit more. Then I remembered I still had some cauliflower so started wondering how I could use that. The popcorn cauliflower I served recently was so popular I thought maybe I could extemporise on that. And by now I had broadened my search from quiche to tart. So I looked at Jane Grigson's Vegetable Book, because not only is she the queen of vegetables but she is also the queen of tarts. But - no cauliflower tart. Indeed it was interesting flipping through her recipes for cauliflower for none of them roasted the vegetable - or fried it. Everything was sort of creamy. Very interesting to see how cooking vegetables has evolved over the years.
So I browsed the net and found lots and lots of tarts with an amazing range of fillings. Above are two sort of extremes - a quiche type on the left and a filo pastry tart with scattered roasted vegetables, including cauliflower and no creamy filling. There were tarts without a tart as well - crustless as they say. But I wanted a crust. Love pastry.
And here are two more - one with tomatoes and the other, I think, with zucchini. I browsed the recipes to find some common sort of theme, but really there wasn't one. Mind you I was struck by the ones with caramelised onion - there were a few of them - for I suddenly remembered that I have a jar of Maggie Beer's caramelised onion that one of my dinner guests gave me some time ago. And I also remembered some leftover marinated feta. So I think I shall improvise on a theme of a quiche type filling, roasted or fried cauliflower florets and maybe mustard and some kind of herb - tarragon, parsley, rosemary or thyme? Maybe thyme - I think it would go better with those caramelised onions.
And I'm going for the quiche kind of filling because I realised when I got back from the shops with a new carton of eggs that I had already bought one a day or so ago. David did ask in the shop and I foolishly said I only had a few, so needed more. So I think we might be having omelette in the near future too.
Now I just have to resist the temptation of putting in some bacon or salami too. I try to have at least one vegetarian meal a week. Well there is a tiny bit of that glazed ham left so maybe I should put that in. It would go well.
So there you have it. How I improvise. Anyone can do it. You just need to sort of know what goes with what.
And going back to that interesting quote at the top of the page. I guess the parts are - pastry, eggs + cream, vegetables, cheese. It's what you do with those that inspire the improvisation.
This one had chestnuts in it. But (a) I don't have any and (b) I don't like them. You could use walnuts or pine nuts though. Oh and I have a few green beans that will go off soon if I don't use them. Maybe a few of them - just to boost the number of vegetables we have. Maybe I should make a bigger one than usual - that would use up the eggs as well.
Looking forward to playing around. I should seek out some of those jars lurking at the back of the cupboard and do something with them some time.
POSTSCRIPT
Yes you can make a tart with cauliflower. It was delicious. I think it was the onion jam and the mustard on the bottom really. And it wasn't Maggie Beer's it was somebody else's. But you could make caramelised onions yourself anyway. I was just feeling lazy.
The cauliflower was cooked like the cauliflower popcorn I told you about recently.
