Butternut Feta Tart

One of my earliest blog posts featured a recipe for Roasted Butternut Soup, marking the beginning of butternut’s presence on my blog as a star vegetable ingredient and it is no different with this Butternut Feta Tart. The tart looks fabulous and so sophisticated but it really is the simplest of savoury pies. The subtle sweet flavour of the butternut works so well with the salty feta cheese, making it a seasonal favourite as autumn settles across the northern hemisphere and with all the festive eating and entertaining just around the corner.

The pastry used in the tart is phyllo (or filo), an ultra-thin pastry dough used in many Mediterranean, Middle Eastern, and Balkan dishes. It’s known for its delicate, flaky texture and multiple layers of pastry is usually stacked on top of each other then baked. It adds a satisfying crunch and holds up well to a variety of sweet or savoury fillings (think baklava or spanakopita). Due to its delicate nature, phyllo needs to be handled carefully and kept covered with a damp tea towel while working to prevent it from drying out.

Though the layers may be delicate, phyllo pastry is so forgiving – a blessing if, like me, you’re not particularly skilled with pastry dough.  Keep the pastry covered under a damp tea towel and brush with butter before using. You just need 8 layers, 4 to layer into the pie dish and another four that you fold into a concertina like strip to make the spiral coil as the main decoration. And then all that is needed is to place the roasted butternut in and around the coil, add the feta cubes and gently cover it all with a creamy, egg custard. Then off to the oven to bake until firm and set. Make it even more sophisticated and garnish the tart with some crispy fried sage before serving.

I hope you enjoy this recipe for Butternut Feta Tart. Once you’ve made the recipe, please share it with me by tagging and following @heinstirred on Instagram. It is always a treat to see the recipes made and enjoyed.

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And if you love falafel you will love this scrumptious Roasted Butternut Falafel with Whipped Feta recipe. It is a bit of work but so worth it. 

Butternut Feta Tart

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Ingredients

  

• For the filling
• 300 g butternut peeled and cubed
• olive oil for drizzling
• 100 g feta cubed
• 1 tsp ground cumin
• 1 tsp ground coriander
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 4 eggs
• 250 ml double cream
• 100 ml milk
• Sea salt flakes and cracked black pepper to season
• For the pastry
• 8 sheets phyllo pastry
• 40 g butter melted

Instructions

 

• Heat the oven to 200 degrees C
• Place the butternut cubes on a baking tray, drizzle with olive oil and season with the spices
• Roast for 20 - 30 minutes until the butternut is cooked and starting to caramelise on the edges and remove from the oven to cool down
• While the butternut roasts, make the tart
• Brush one of the filo sheets with melted butter and place, buttered side up, in a round pie dish of around 22 cm diameter and at least 5 cm high
• Press the pastry into the corners and then brush another sheet of filo in the same way, pressing it into the dish at a 45-degree angle to the first sheet
• Repeat with 2 more sheets, covering the base and sides of the dish
• Trim the overhanging pastry leaving about one centimetre of the filo over the edges of the dish
• Take another sheet of filo, brush with melted butter and place it with the long side in front of you
• Fold the bottom edge up to form a fold of 3 centimetres wide
• Keep folding the pastry in alternating directions like a concertina so that you end up with one long pleated strip
• Repeat with the 3 remaining sheets of pastry in the same way
• Starting from the middle of the tart tin, coil one folded strip from the middle outward to start forming a rough spiral shaped “snail”, spreading the spirals at least a centimetre apart
• Continue with the second, third and 4th strips in the same way until you have a spiral of pastry in the pie dish
• (You need the gaps between the filo spirals so that you can fill them with the butternut and feta)
• Gently brush the pastry with the remaining butter, fixing any part of the coils if they fall over
• Place the pie dish on a baking sheet and bake for 10 minutes until the pastry is a light golden brown
• Remove from the oven and set aside to cool for 20 minutes
• Whisk together the eggs, cream and milk and season well
• Gently place the butternut and feta in between the gaps of the filo pastry, being very careful to not break the pastry base
• Pour the custard over evenly, a little at a time, allowing it to flow evenly into all the gaps in the pastry
• Bake for around 25 minutes until the mixture has just set (lightly cover with foil if the pastry browns too much)
• Rest the tart for 10 minutes and serve warm with a crunchy salad