“Impressionist” courgette and apple quiche tart

Serves 4 or 6 people.

Difficulty: medium.

Cooking time: Around 30 minutes (+ 1 hour to stand for the pastry, 1 hour and a half for the tart).

Ingredients:

For the parmesan shortcrust pastry:

– 200 gr of pastry flour.

– 75 gr of butter.

– 50 gr of very finely grated parmesan cheese.

– 1 egg size L.

– Half a teaspoon of salt.

Fort he filling:

– 2 small/medium sized courgettes that aren’t very broad and preferably straight.

– 50 gr mushrooms.

– 1 “fuji” or similar type of apple.

– 2 medium leeks, just the white part.

– 1 chopped garlic clove.

– 1 chopped sprig of parsley.

– 100 ml of liquid “cooking” cream.

– 2 eggs.

– the leaves of 2 small sprigs of fresh thyme.

– 2 spoonfuls of better, and another half a spoonful for the gratin.

– 1 spoonful of EVOO.

– freshly ground salt and pepper to taste.

Cooking method:

For the shortcrust pastry:

We mix all of the ingredients, kneading them just until blended. In this type of “brisée” pastries, if they are kneaded too much, the flour develops gluten thus hardening the final result.

We cover it up with plastic and leave it to set in the fridge for an hour.

We knead it until we get a more or less circular dough of between 3 or 4 mm maximum. We very carefully place the dough into a quiche mould or similar in which we will have placed a piece of baking paper in the bottom – it is important that it is not very deep. We press all over the surface and we trim the edges so that they are flush with the mould, with a fork we prick it throughout the top, including the outer edges. We bake it at 180 ºC by covering it with foil for 15 minutes and then uncovered for 10 more minutes. We remove it from the oven and allow it to cool to room temperature.

For the quiche:

We cut the leeks into thin slices, we chop the mushrooms well and sauté both with the 2 tablespoons of butter and the AOVE, along with the garlic and parsley over a very low heat; it’s interesting that it starts caramelising without changing colour. I have kept it on the fire at level 2 of 9, covered up for half an hour or so.

Meanwhile, we cut the courgettes with the help of a ham knife or a slicer. It is interesting to cut it lengthways and very thinly, and cut each slice in half. We cut the apple to the same thickness, which we will have previously emptied and discarded the area of the core, seeds, etc. We reserve the sides (as in the photo) and we chop up and keep the centre to one side.

When the leek is tender, we remove it from the flame. We beat the eggs with the cream, we add the leek, the small thyme leaves and chopped apple. We pour the cream mixture into the mould and vertically place the slices of courgette and apple however we like, more or less as in the photo. Finally, we put a few knobs of butter on top of it.

We bake it for 30 minutes at 180 ºC. It is important to place the mould in the centre of the oven with heat above and underneath, and 20 minutes more with just the heat above and in au gratin mode. If the surface has not yet been gratinated, we can move the tart one row higher and cook it au gratin at 5-minute intervals until it is to our liking. It is very important that we cover the edges of the mould with foil by covering the pastry dough so that it does not get too toasted and we ruin the delicate and intense flavour of it.

Notes

We can accompany it with a tomato vinaigrette made from the flesh of a very ripe high-quality tomato that we will chop as much as possible, and that we will add it to 6 tablespoons of a good EVOO, 2 of sherry vinegar (never Modena or the like!), and salt and freshly ground pepper. A spectacular combination of flavours.

The dough can be bought ready-made, but after the laborious preparation time, why not devote time to our own pastry dough? It is easy and quick to make and absolutely ideal for any filling. Try it with caramelised onions and anchovies. A treat!

You can cut the courgette and apples brunoise-style and mix everything into the cream with the eggs. It will be fast, easy, very tasty, but without the striking effect of the Impressionist-style preparation. You already know, if you go in head first, the pupils start widening, and the taste will always gets better. Cheer up and give it time, it’s so worth it.

Photos and recipe: cocinaDsastre.