Strawberry Bourdaloue Tart

This classic French recipe is traditionally made with pears and butter in the almond paste. It’s a good way to roast some extra flavour into those very large Spanish strawberries which are very hard to resist before our gorgeous Irish ones are properly in season! Here, I’ve used olive oil but of course you can sub that with 50g softened butter.

For 6
25 minutes preparation
30 minutes baking

Ready-made short crust pastry (about 250g)
2 eggs
70ml olive oil
3 tablespoons maple syrup
125g ground almonds
Pinch of salt
10 – 12 large strawberries, washed, hulled, halved
Sugar for sprinkling

Roll the pastry out thinly and line a medium sized tart tin. Leave in the fridge as you are making the filling. Heat the oven to 150C.

Beat the eggs with the maple syrup and oil or butter, then fold in the almonds and the salt.

Fill the pastry case, then set the strawberries into the mixture, half submerging them.

Sprinkle with sugar and bake for 30 minutes or so, until the tart is golden and the almond filling has nicely risen around the fruit. Serve with ice cream, yoghurt or cream.

Kapow tart

The chilli makes this tart pack a punch, but please feel free to turn down the heat if you prefer and use less, or leave it out completely.

For 4
30 minutes preparation
20 minutes cooking

1 ready-made shortcrust pastry (about 250g) rolled nice and thinly.
1 red pepper, seeds removed, cut into 2cm chunks
1 large onion, chopped finely
3 garlic cloves, chopped finely
½ scotch bonnet chilli, chopped finely
1 400g tin tomato pulp
1 tablespoon tomato paste
Salt and pepper
200G fresh cod fillet, cut into 5cm chunks
10 – 12 black or green olives

Heat the oven to 180C. Roll out the pastry, press into a medium tart tin and bake blind until slightly golden. Remove and reserve the pastry case.

Sweat the onion with the garlic and chilli. Add the peppers then the paste and cook for a few minutes. Then tip in the pulp with about half a can of water, season with salt and pepper, stir well and bring to a simmer. Leave to cook gently until it becomes melded and jammy.

Fry the fish separately in some olive oil until brown. Settle the fish into the tomato sauce and leave on hob to cook together for a few minutes.

Fill the pastry case with tomato and cod, dot with the olives and cook for 10 to 15 minutes until the top is slightly caramelised. Serve hot.