Thursday, October 29, 2009

Broad bean & bacon tart

Growing up, broad beans were something that I never really liked and ate only under protest. I had relatives who grew them prolifically and they were always in abundance at the dinner table. I got sick of being told how good they are for me and I suspect more beans were surreptitiously slipped into pockets and onto the floor than made it into my mouth. I'm not sure exactly what it was. Perhaps it was the smell of them cooking, or the thick grey skin that you get on older beans. I just wasn't impressed.

These days, the tables have turned and I get excited when I find fresh broad beans in their shells for sale anywhere. I love carefully choosing them from the box, all the while imagining what I'm going to do with them when I get them home. I love announcing to Tim that I found fresh broad beans and I love peeling them and placing the fresh green beans to one side, and the pods in a bucket for the chooks or the compost. I really love that particular shade of green they turn when just blanched and are still tender and full of flavour.

Infatuation aside, what I don't love is eating them as a dish all by themselves. For me, broad beans have to be the high note in another dish; a key point, a little treasure that distinguishes an ordinary dish from something special, however simple it may be. Recently I've had them in risotto and pasta, and this week I worked them into a savoury tart. And it worked very, very well.

Ingredients
180g fresh (podded) broad beans
4 rashers bacon, thinly sliced
4 free range eggs
2 sheets of puff pastry
1/2 a large brown onion, thinly sliced
1/4 cup milk
1 tbsp light sour cream
1 tbsp fresh parsley, chopped
olive oil
salt & pepper

In a frying pan, splash a little olive oil and fry the bacon and onion together. You can brown, but don't crisp the bacon. You really just want the flavours infusing and the onion softening. This should only take a few minutes and when done, set aside to cool a little.

Grease a tart tim (mine is 23cm) and line it with the pastry to form a shell. I used puff pastry this time, but only because I'd run out of short crust. It worked pretty well, but you can't bake it blind because of the puff factor.

Pierce holes in the pastry with a fork and spread the bacon and onion mix evenly.

Heat a small pan of water, and when boiling rapidly, throw the beans in for three minutes. You really don't need any more than that. When done, drain and plunge in ice cold water to retain the colour. Drain and then scatter the beans over the bacon and onion.

In a bowl, beat the eggs, milk, sour cream and parsley together until well mixed. You can add some salt and pepper if you want to. Carefully pour this mix over the bacon, onion and beans.

Cook at 180ยบ oven for half an hour, or until golden brown. Serve hot or cold, with or without salad. This also keeps really well for a couple of days in the fridge.

2 comments:

Bells said...

you must grow them! After zucchinis, I've never grown anything easier! I still have some in the freezer (blanched) from my bumper crop last year.

And you are so right about how wonderful it is to peel them. My favourite pasta to use them in is with angel hair pasta and chilli and olive oil. Magnificent! I'll post it soon!

My crop is a bit slow this year (I was late) but if I do end up with enough to share, I would happily share them with you.

Julia said...

I'm highly embarrassed to admit it, but I tried last year and from six plants I got about 3 beans. And that's single beans, not three pods full of beans. Am not sure what went wrong but I didn't have the heart to try again this year. You're so generous! I would never turn down home grown produce! I'll start sending grow vibes to your plants!

I will have to try that version too. I'm so into really simple, non tomato based pasta dishes just now. I've gotten Tim slightly addicted to penne with chilli , olive oil & bread crumbs. I'm thinking broad beans could only add to that.