Feta tart with walnut pastry

In the post for the Fig Tart recipe, I mentioned that the walnut and rosemary pastry works really well (minus the sugar) in savoury recipes too, and this weekend I used it to make a feta tart with a secret ingredient that gives it a huge hit of extra flavour - Peppadew peppers. (If you haven't come across them before, you can find them in jars, usually near the olives, in the supermarket). They come in 'mild' and 'hot' but the mild ones are quite spicy enough for most things, and they add a fantastic sweet, chilli-like flavour to a tart or quiche filling like this one. Chop them up really finely to spread the flavour through the whole tart, or leave them chunky for a pop or two of heat in each slice.

In the photo, you can see that the pastry’s a bit rough around the edges - that's because I didn't add quite enough liquid (I should have taken my own advice and added a tbsp of milk after the egg - doh!) and so it was a bit trickier than usual to roll out. But the end result was super-crumbly and delicious to eat, so probably worth the hassle of wrestling it over the rolling pin to lift it into the tart tin without it cracking!

TIP: Peppadews are great stuffed with garlic and herb soft cheese to serve as little nibbles with drinks too (I use Boursin cheese for this). If you don't need the whole jar of Peppadews, they freeze well to use another time.

Here's how to make the tart filling:

Blind bake a 23cm tart case, as per the Fig Tart recipe (use a loose-bottomed tart tin, ideally). Slice and fry 2 leeks and 1 large sliced courgette in a dribble of olive oil until soft, then add a chopped clove of garlic and fry for another minute. Beat 2 medium eggs with 125ml milk in a jug. Chop 100g feta and 6 Peppadew peppers and add to the jug. Season with a little salt (the feta is already quite salty) and freshly ground black pepper. Add the leeks and courgette to the jug and pour into the tart case. Grate over a little Cheddar and bake at 190C (fan oven) for 25-30 mins until the filling is set and golden on top.

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