I love to have puff pastry on hand. It’s such a good thing to have when you want to put together a quick, tasty meal. You could use just about anything you have on hand to make a delicious savoury tart for a quick meal. In this case, it was beef mince (ground beef), tomatoes, onion, garlic and fresh basil leaves.
Beef, tomato and basil tart
1 sheet frozen puff pastry
grated cheese (any sort is fine – I used mozarella)
small quantity of beef mince
1 tbs olive oil
3 tomatoes, chopped
1 onion, diced finely
2 cloves garlic, chopped finely
salt and pepper
fresh basil leaves to garnish (or dried if you don’t have fresh)
- Brown onion until softened. Add minced meat and garlic and cooked until just browned. Season with salt and pepper. (Add dried basil at this stage if you don’t have fresh.)
- Add chopped tomato and remove from heat.
- Score a line around the perimeter of the pastry sheet about 1-2cm (1/2″). This will become the crust of the tart and give you a defined area to put your topping.
- Top the tart with grated cheese. Besides making the tart tasty, it will give the rest of the topping something to stick to.
- Add beef/tomato mixture to top of tart and put in a 180 deg C (380 deg F) until pastry is golden.
- Top with fresh basil.
You could just about use any ground meat, any vegetable and/or any cheese. Even a selection of roasted vegetables makes a gorgeous tart. No need to worry about making pastry and you’ve got a really delicious meal on the table in less than 30 minutes. A great weekend meal.
