There is something distinctly summery about having this dish. It’s colourful, vibrant and is full of Mediterranean flavours - it’s pretty much sunshine on a plate. And when you have it with a crisp green salad and a glass of wine you could pretty much be on the terrace of a Greek taverna. Or an Edinburgh living room, as it so happens.

I think this is the best point to admit that this tart was meant to be so much more; however, in keeping with my usual levels of disorganisation, it didn’t quite go according to plan.

My original intention had been to go the whole hog and do everything from scratch, since it was to be for lunch when Kat popped by (as if my disorganisation needed further evidence, it’s taken an entire week to write this post). However time was not on my side. I decided on the Saturday that pastry making just wasn’t going to happen, so picked up some ready made stuff (I know, I know) whilst out and about; but it was Sunday morning whilst bullying myself to cycle just that little bit further in the gym I did the maths and realised that there simply wasn’t going to be enough time to chop and caramelise the onions - not without risking the whole thing, or being hideously late to meet Kat in town.

So I had a bit of a think and remembered that there was a jar of caramelised onion chutney in the fridge. It wasn’t the perfect alternative, but I reasoned that it would do. In actual fact, it did a lot better than that - its slight sweetness really helped to counter the salty feta and ensured that it was indeed the peppers that were the main star on the plate. Sure, I’d have liked to not cheat - and I’m sure the end result would have been delicious - but it wasn’t the way that the pastry was going crumble and it all turned out rather nicely. I guess that sometimes taking the odd shortcut works out just fine.

Pepper and Feta Tart

This is an original recipe from The Usual Saucepans, it makes enough for two people for lunch.

Ingredients

1 pack of ready-made pastry
1 red pepper
1/2 yellow pepper
3 tbsp caramelised onion chutney
75g feta cheese
1/2 tsp olive oil

Directions

Preheat the oven to 150ºC. Roll out your cheats pastry and line a 20cm loose-bottomed tart with the pastry. Place some baking beans in the centre and put in the oven for 15 minutes. Remove from the oven and take out the beans, put back in the oven for another 5-10 mins if it doesn’t look ready. Leave it to the side to cool.

To make the filling, slice the peppers thinly* (top to bottom, not a cross section) and then half each slice so that it is about 4-5 cm in length. Put the oil into a non-stick frying pan and gently soften the peppers, but ensure that you don’t completely cook them, as they will be going into the oven shortly. Add a little black pepper to boost the flavour.

Take your onion chutney - you can caramelise your own onions, if you have time - and spread it evenly across the base of the pastry, ensuring that it is entirely covered. Add the almost-cooked pepper slices on top of this (trying to make sure an equal spread of colour across the tart, if you’re as pedantic as me); they should be a couple of slices deep across the tart. Finally crumble the feta over the top.

Put back in the oven for 8-10 mins, or until the feta starts to colour. Serve with a fresh salad, a decent glass of wine and plenty of laughter.

*If you have more time you could quarter the peppers and roast them in the oven, then slice them down. This will give a deeper flavour.

Craig Craig (257 Posts)

Edinburgh-dwelling, baking and food-obsessed, twenty-something adventure enthusiast. Runs on liberal amounts of coffee, cheese, cake and gin; bribable with same.