SATURDAY VEGETABLE TORTE

I adapted these from a recipe in a July Corriere della Sera supplement:

For the courgette tart, I more or less did what it said, which was: Line a baking tray with baking parchment and on this put a ready-rolled sheet of bought puff pastry [pasta sfoglia if you are in Italy]. With a sharp knife, mark a 1 cm border all around, taking care not to cut right through the pastry. [How much is a centimetre? I don't know. I can do metric weights but not measures! Go for half an inch if you're not sure.] Now, this is my addition: I remembered from one of the wonderful Nigella's pie recipes that she said that sprinkling some breadcrumbs on the pastry helps stop it getting soggy under the filling, so I threw on a handful of pane grattuggiato. You can use fresh breadcrumbs if you can't get this. Next slice 4 courgettes as thinly as possible [I used the processor slicer] then put them in a bowl with the grated rind of a lemon, 2 tablesp olive oil plus seasalt and black pepper. Mix them well and then arrange on the pastry. Use a pastry brush to brush the borders well with beaten egg. Put the tray in an oven heated to 180 C for 25 mins. Have ready some nice, crumbly feta cheese and some fresh mint leaves and sprinkle both over the torta when you take it out of the oven. Serve immediately. [It will be too fragile to be removed from the baking tray so cut into slices and serve from that.]



Well, that turned out all right so I got adventurous:

Prepare the baking tray and pastry as before. Don't forget the breadcrumbs! Heat 2 tablesp olive oil in a wide pan and add a very thinly sliced aubergine. Stir this around and leave to soften and take on some colour. [No, I didn't salt the aubergine first.] Be prepared to add more oil as aubergines are devils for soaking the stuff up! Prepare 2 courgettes as before, using only 1 tablesp oil, and add 2 sliced tomatoes to them in the bowl. When the aubergines are ready, arrange them with the tomatoes and courgettes on the pastry. Cook and add feta and mint as before.



Buon appetito.