Tomato, olive & goat cheese tart
It is tempting, when you have friends over for drinks, to put out the same old cheese platter every time. Every single time you go to someone's house for a cocktail or glass of wine, there it is: cheese, some sliced meat, 5 grapes and maybe a sliced pear. Don't get me wrong - everyone loves a cheese platter, and grapes...and pears. But, if you want to change it up a bit, this puff pastry tart, studded with black olives and fresh tomatoes, is an easy and impressive last minute appetizer.
You don't need a lot of time or ingredients to make this show stopper but, when it's done, it really looks like it took a million hours and cost a million bucks. My kind of cooking.
Ingredients
1 sheet of all butter puff pastry rolled into a large rectangle.
2 tbsp olive oil
1 clove garlic - minced
1 large tomato cut into thin slices
5-6 cherry tomatoes - sliced
10 Kalamata olives - pitted and halved
3oz goat cheese
1/4 tsp dried oregano
handful of fresh basil leaves
salt and pepper
1 egg - lightly beaten
Method
1. preheat oven to 400° and line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
2. brush pastry rectangle with olive oil. sprinkle with garlic, salt and pepper.
3. arrange large tomato slices on top of the pastry in a single layer, leaving a 1 inch border on all sides.
4. scatter over olives and cherry tomato slices and add bits of goat cheese evenly over the tart.
5. fold or crimp outside pastry edges until tomato filling is tightly surrounded. brush edges with beaten egg.
6. bake 30 minutes or until pastry is golden brown.
7. season with salt and pepper and scatter over fresh basil.