Corsican pie with zucchini flowers

You can use a wide range of wild, cultivated or supermarket greens in this recipe. Consider nettles, beetroot tops, turnip tops, spinach or watercress in place of the chard. The combination is up to you so choose the ones you like most. The zucchini flowers look wonderful but you can leave them out or substitute them with some long shaved strips of zucchini, if you prefer. Brocciu, produced on the island of Corsica and considered a national food, is a fresh young white cheese made with goat’s or ewe’s milk. I couldn’t omit it from the ingredients, but the easier-to-find Italian ricotta can be used just as well instead.

Credit: Jonathan Lovekin

• serves

  4

• prep

  15 minutes

• cook

  45 minutes

• difficulty

  Easy

Ingredients

• ½ small red onion, thinly sliced (85 g)
• 3 celery stalks and leaves, thinly sliced (220 g)
• 8 large chard (silverbeet) leaves, roughly chopped, white stalks discarded (175 g)
• 2 garlic cloves, thinly sliced
• 1½ tbsp torn mint leaves
• 1½ tbsp chopped parsley
• 2 tsp chopped sage
• 30 ml olive oil, plus extra for drizzling
• 75 g feta, crumbled
• 50 g pecorino, finely grated
• 15 g pine nuts, lightly toasted
• grated zest of 1 lemon
• 350 g all-butter puff pastry
• 100 g brocciu cheese or ricotta 
• 6 zucchini flowers, cut in half lengthways (optional)
• 1 egg, lightly beaten
• salt and black pepper

Chilling time 10 minutes

Instructions

Place a large sauté pan on medium–high heat and sauté the onion, celery, chard, garlic, mint, parsley and sage in the olive oil. Cook, stirring continuously, for 15 minutes or until the greens have wilted and the celery has softened completely. Remove from the heat and stir through the feta, pecorino, pine nuts, lemon zest, ¼ teaspoon of salt and a hearty grind of black pepper. Leave aside to cool.

Preheat the oven to 220ºC/200ºC Fan/Gas Mark 7.

Roll out the pastry on a floured work surface until 3 mm thick, then cut it into a circle, approximately 30 cm in diameter. Place on an oven tray lined with baking parchment. Spread the filling out on the pastry leaving a 3 cm border all the way around. Dot the filling with large chunks of brocciu or ricotta and top with courgette flowers or courgette strips, if using. Bring the pastry up around the sides of the filling and pinch the edges together firmly to form a secure, decorative lip over the edge of the tart. Alternatively, press with the end of a fork. Brush the pastry with egg and refrigerate for 10 minutes.

Bake the tart for 30 minutes, until the pastry is golden and cooked on the base. Remove from the oven and brush with a little olive oil. Serve warm or at room temperature.

Recipe from Plenty More by Yotam Ottolenghi (Ebury Press, $49.99, hbk). Photography by Jonathan Lovekin.

Cook's Notes

Oven temperatures are for conventional; if using fan-forced (convection), reduce the temperature by 20˚C. | We use Australian tablespoons and cups: 1 teaspoon equals 5 ml; 1 tablespoon equals 20 ml; 1 cup equals 250 ml. | All herbs are fresh (unless specified) and cups are lightly packed. | All vegetables are medium size and peeled, unless specified. | All eggs are 55-60 g, unless specified.