Salted Chocolate Tart

I was invited to a dinner last night, where the hostess was promising curry. Then came the casual request…and you can bring dessert, yes?

So I was up at 6:30am yesterday, reading some cookbooks for inspiration. My inclination was to start with something Indian, but I quite quickly realised that most of the recipes involved making some sort of paneer cheese and then frying it (yup, deep-fried desserts). I’ve bookmarked them to try another time, but I was left scratching my head nevertheless.

I had initially resisted the idea of something with chocolate as I was not too sure that it would be a good follow on from hot, spicy food, but then I came upon a recipe from the Paul A Young cookbook for a salted chocolate tart, topped with caramelised pecans. It looked like a winner, especially when I remembered that I had a tiny pot of edible gold leaf in the cupboard. I could make that, then top it off with gold leaf! And that’s basically the thought process that was going on in my head as I was drinking a cup of tea and finishing off toast with marmalade.

I made one large tart that I took along, and had enough extra pastry to make two small tartlets for later. Sadly I don’t have a picture of the big one, so you’ll have to be content with these two. I have to say, small as they are, they are still just about the richest thing I’ve made for a long, long time.

I really liked the way that this recipe turned out. The pastry is pretty easy, and the filling is a complete doddle – equal weights of chocolate, cream and muscovado sugar, then round out the flavour with some sea salt. Think salted caramel meets dark chocolate. As a flavour experiment, it was quite interesting to taste a spoonful of the cream and sugar mixture on its own (very sweet!) and then appreciate how much it changes once you add the salt. The flavour becomes so much deeper and richer.

However, my eyes did pop open when I saw how much salt was supposed to go into the mixture – I had made one-and-a-half times the filling, but still thought the suggested 10 grams was too much. I measured it out, and just didn’t trust it, and I didn’t have enough other ingredients to make another batch if the worst were to happen. I went with my gut, and added about two-thirds of the amount suggested, and the taste was great. So if you’re going to have a go at this tart, I recommend mixing the cream and sugar in a bowl, and add just enough salt to the cold mixture to suit your taste. There is a fine line between tongue-tingling salted caramel and a salty, sugary mess, and this is a recipe where less is more and you may wish to err on the side of caution.

So how was this tart received? The recipe book said it would silence a table of dinner guests, and it seemed to have the desired effect. This is definitely a keeper for the dessert portfolio, and I’m already planning to use the filling as the base of a tart to be topped off with fruit. I’m seeing great things involving passion fruit, or a few punnets of juicy ripe raspberries.

To make a salted chocolate tart:

For the pastry:

• 175g butter
• 75g caster sugar
• 2 egg yolks
• 35ml water
• 20g cocoa powder
• 250g plain flour

For the filling:

• 300g dark chocolate
• 300g light muscovado sugar
• 300ml double cream
• 1 heaped teaspoon sea salt (or more or less, to taste)

For the topping

• 100g nuts (pecans or skinned hazelnuts)
• 100g caster sugar
• 1 level teaspoon sea salt, finely ground

To make the pastry:

1. Cream the butter and sugar until soft. Add the egg yolks and water and combine. Add the cocoa and flour, a quarter at a time, and mix to a dough. Wrap the dough in cling film and chill for an hour.

2. Preheat the oven to 180°C (350°F). Roll out and use to line a 24cm loose-bottomed flan tin (no more than 5mm thickness). Place the pie crust in the freezer for 15 minutes.

3. Line the pie crust with greaseproof paper, and fill with baking beans. Bake the pie crust blind for 20 minutes, then remove the greaseproof paper and baking beans, and bake for another 8-10 minutes (the base should look dry and cooked, but the edges should not be dark). Leave to cool completely.

To make the filling:

4. Put the sugar and cream into a bowl. Stir well, then add salt to taste, then add the chocolate.

5. Place over a pan of very hot water, and allow everything to melt together. The mixture is ready when the chocolate has melted completely and the mixture looks thick and glossy.

6. Once ready, pour into the prepared tart shell, allow to cool slightly, then chill in the fridge for two hours.

To make the topping(*):

7. Lightly toast the nuts in the oven – they should be just toasted, not dark. Remove from the oven.

8. Put the sugar into a saucepan with a dash of water, and warm over a medium heat until you just have a light caramel. Don’t be tempted to stir it.

9. Once the caramel is done, add the salt, stir well, then add the nuts. Stir briefly, then turn out onto a sheet of non-stick baking parchment.

10. Leave the nuts to cool completely. Break or roughly chop the nuts into smaller pieces, and sprinkle generously on top of the tart.

(*) The topping can be made ahead of time – if you do this, be sure to store in an airtight container to stop the caramel from getting sticky.

Endive, Pear, Feta and Pecan Salad

I am sitting on the sofa and can see sunlight streaming through the clouds. Might Spring be here?

Making a huge leap of faith, I have assumed that the start of March really does mean Spring is actually here, so time for a salad. This is a tounge-tingling combination of bitter endive, sweet pear, creamy/salty feta and sweet pecan nuts, topped with a simple light olive oil and white vinegar dressing, all of which looks quite dramatic on the plate, like this:

Endives are something I am very familiar with from my time living in Belgium, must usually seen baked. I have to admit, I am not a fan of the grey, sad witloof or chicon sitting in water when brought to the table. Maybe I will work out how to prepare baked endive one day, but for the time being, I like them raw and crisp, to add an interesting dimension to a salad. The white leaves, fringed with bright yellow-green also hint at Spring arriving. My research also revealed that they go by many names. I usually call them chicory, but that can be confused with the blue flower of the same name. Then I happened to see an episode of the dreadful Hell’s Kitchen USA, with everyone talking about en-dive (rhyming with hive). Maybe I’m just posh or wrong, but I thought it was pronounced like believe. I digress.

The pears in the vegetable shop at this time of year actually work quite well here – they stay quite firm and have a little crunch, which makes the salad more interesting that using their riper – but softer – cousins in the middle of summer. The trick is to try and get them into thin, tapering slivers that look good on the plate. You can keep them pale and interesting by dropping them into acidulated water – that’s water with a squeeze of fresh lemon juice to you and me.

As the for the nuts, I was fully planning to use walnuts, but realised that I didn’t actually have any. I did, however, have pecans. Walnuts are more of a nutty “savoury” flavour, but with the tang of the endive and the salty taste of the cheese, I figures that sweeter pecans could work. Well, they would have to work, as I had not checked I had everything at home before starting, and I was mid-recipe when I worked out that it was pecans-or-nothing. In the event, they worked, and worked very well. And the silver lining is that pecans are the less obvious addition than walnuts, and add an interesting flavour element to the salad. Playing fast-and-loose with the classics, eh?

I loved this salad – interesting flavours, lots of texture, and a sharp simple vinaigrette with white wine vinegar and the last of my monocultural olive oil from holiday last year. Maybe time to start looking at a little trip too?

To make endive, pear, feta and pecan salad (starter for four):

• one pear
• one endive
• 100g feta, crumbled
• 30g pecans, chopped

Peel the pear. Cut into thin slices (removing any of the core or pips) and place the pieces in acidulated water (i.e. water, with a little lemon juice – this stops the pear turning brown).

Separate the endive, and cut each leaf in two lengthways.

Just before serving, drain the pear slices. Arrange the endive, pear, feta and pecans on each plate, and add a little of the dressing.

For the dressing:

• 6 tablespoons olive oil
• 2 tablespoons white wine vinegar
• 1/2 teaspoons salt
• 1/2 teaspoons freshly ground black pepper
• pinch of white sugar

Add all the ingredients to a jam jar and shake vigorously until the dressing is smooth.

Worth making? This is a nice, simple and tasty dish. The flavours mean you will probably prefer this as a starter, but add green salad leaves to bulk out, add some croutons and a bit more feta, and it can also make a substantial main course. And of course, it’s great to eat outside in the warm weather that it just about to arrive…any day now…