Food: Roast Beetroot Tart

I love summer food and golden beetroot have been one of the star crops so far this year.  They are far too good just to pickle.  I wanted to show off their lusciousness and also find a way of using the tops in the same dish.  Actually, this is a slight cheat; the beet tops are a mixture of the golden beetroot leaves and a big bunch of rhubarb chard.  I love the contrast of golden and ruby red stems and veins in the leaves.

The tart is simplicity itself, no more an assembly of ingredients.  And of course the changes you can make are limited only by imagination and availability.

The one above served two, and used about half a dozen golden beetroot, between hen's egg  and tennis ball size.  The tops were cut off a thumb's width or so from the root and they were then washed.  I didn't bother to trim the fine roots from the base as they will come off with the skins later on.  The beets then went into a covered pot with a little sea salt and a dash of olive oil and were roasted for about thirty minutes.  How long depends on the size, age and variety of the beetroot.

The tops were picked through just to remove any grotty bits and wildlife and I bulked them up with a good handful of young rhubarb chard, stalks and leaves.  I try not to let the leaves get any bigger than this but they've done well this year and despite the successional sowing, the plants are growing far faster than we can eat them!

The washed leaves went into a big pot with about a cm of water in the bottom to be wilted down, just enough to make them easy to eat but not to a mush.  There is nothing worse than a puree of green at the bottom of a tart!  After squeezing out the excess water the leaves were roughly chopped and returned to the pot to be seasoned with salt, pepper and nutmeg plus a good knob of butter and about a tablespoon of mascarpone.  I wanted the chopped leaves to be moist and malleable, not the aforementioned mush.

Once the beets were roasted and soft but not squidgy - I think I might be a bit obsessed with food having a bit of bite - and cool enough to handle,  the tops were pulled out and the skin peeled off; it should come away easily with just your fingers or a small knife.  Cut the beets into quarters or six depending on their size.

Fill a cooked pastry case with the leaf and mascarpone mixture and top with the beets.  The tart is best served warm and will hold for a while, but the longer it is left the soggier the bottom will become.  And we don't want that.

I served it with a sweet cucumber pickle and a simple green salad; four of your five a day.