Rustic artichoke, red onion and blue cheese tart

Things in jars. They entice us from their snug little hideyholes on the shelves of our grand supermarkets, tempting us to pick them up and pay their price.

One of my favourite meals to throw together in hardly any time at all is a rustic tart made of just those sorts of things.

The advent of our excellent new newsletter, Baywatch, got me thinking about iBayi, Die Baai, Gqeberha, Port Elizabeth – all of those names are valid, but the way, and all are used by locals, often interchangeably – took my mind back to a visit to the city two years ago when I visited one of the new fancy Checkers stores for the first time. It has a prime spot at the Boardwalk Mall right across from the beachfront, and this is arguably one of the best-situated malls in the country.

There were so many wonderful things in jars that I thought: why even bother to cook? But, always, I must cook, need to cook, have to cook, because, as you may know, I deliver a new recipe to you five days a week. And if you happen to live in the Friendly City (I’m not going to call it windy) and are new to Daily Maverick, you may like to know that there is an archive of every single recipe we have published since TGIFood was launched six-and-a-half years ago. You can find that archive here. And if you subscribe to Baywatch, my TGIFood or any other Daily Maverick newsletter (and they’re all free), they will drop into your inbox regularly. Find all of our newsletter options here, including Baywatch and TGIFood. Just scroll down and click on the ones that interest you.

For today’s edition, let’s dedicate this recipe to this city that I fell in love with 10 years ago when we first moved to Cradock, just a two-and-a-half-hour drive away. We’ve made regular jaunts to PE (we do still call it that, it’s an old habit too hard to break, as a lot of locals tell me they find too) ever since, staying in a beachfront hotel and almost invariably going to Ocean Basket for a shared platter of lovely things.

Oh and I never leave the city for the trek home without first driving down to the docks and buying fresh fish at Fisherman Fresh deli. On one occasion I bought fresh East Coast sole and cooked this. On another occasion I made this carpenter recipe, and when I occasionally buy Norwegian salmon there I’m likely to prepare this recipe.

Anyway, here we are with this jar of globe artichokes in brine in my kitchen cupboard, and I thought about what I was going to do with them. I’d also bought blue cheese, soft and delicious (there’s a great cheese section at that Checkers branch too). Oh and a pack of puff pastry, of course. Never apologise for using shop-bought puff pastry – even chefs of the ilk of Gordon Ramsay urge us to use that rather than spend half a day making our own puff pastry.

This kind of rustic tart needs a few other things too: I used red onion, fresh rosemary, and cream and an egg beaten together. This savoury custard, as it were, brings everything together on top of the pastry.

Tony’s rustic artichoke, onion and blue cheese tart

(Serves 4-6)

Ingredients

1 x 400g packet of Today puff pastry, or similar

3 Tbsp extra virgin olive oil

3 medium red onions, sliced

125 g globe artichokes in brine

100 g blue cheese, crumbled

2 eggs, beaten

80 ml cream

12 small rosemary sprigs

Coarse sea salt and black pepper

Method

The pastry needs to be thoroughly thawed. Flour a working surface and roll out the pastry. Cut a 2.5 cm strip of pastry from each of the four ends. Squeeze this into a ball, then roll it into a long strip, the same length as the edge of pastry it was cut from, using your palms the way you would when rubbing them in icy weather. Just make it longer and longer until it stretches the full length.

Grease a standard oven pan, the kind that comes with it when you buy a stove. Lift the pastry carefully and lay it on the greased pan.

Beat one egg in a ramekin and brush some of the egg along each edge of the pastry, then lay each strip down and press down to glue it to the pastry underneath. Keep the remaining eggwash.

Using a fork, prick the base many times, to encourage crisp cooking.

Brush more egg over the tops of the edges you have rolled out – these will puff up when the pastry is cooked.

Peel the onions and slice them into slim wedges. Sauté them in olive oil, just for a minute or two, to soften them and ignite their sweet flavour. Arrange them evenly on top of the pastry. Retain the olive oil in the pan.

Drain the artichokes and slice them in half. Arrange them on the pastry base. Keep the brine to use in a creative way in something else; keep it in the fridge in its jar. (Such as a marinade or dressing.)

Dot the blue cheese all over. 

Add a second egg to the beaten one, beat it well, and stir in the cream. Pour this evenly all over the tart.

Drop the rosemary sprigs here and there.

Season with coarse sea salt and black pepper.

Drizzle any remaining olive oil over.

Bake in a 190°C oven for 30 to 35 minutes or until the pastry is golden and flaky. But ovens differ – in my old gas oven it took 45 minutes. Most ovens will do the job quicker though. DM

Tony Jackman is twice winner of the Galliova Food Writer of the year award, in 2021 and 2023

Order Tony’s book, foodSTUFF, here.

Follow Tony Jackman on Instagram @tony_jackman_cooks.