Asparagus and wild garlic tart

Hello food lovers,

Last spring, you loved our wild garlic roulade recipe.

This year we'd like to work with this wild garlic in a new form: a wild garlic tart with green asparagus.

It will consist of a seeded tart shell, a wild garlic/pistachio pesto filling and green asparagus.

Let's get started with the recipe!

To make a 35 x 11 cm tart, you will need:

Tart shell

- 225gr of wholemeal flour

- 75gr of almond flour

- 112gr of water

- 75gr of olive oil

- 1.5 tsp of salt

- 50gr of pistachios

- 25gr of sesame seeds

- 25gr of sunflower seeds

- 15gr of pine nuts

Asparagus

- 1kg of green asparagus

- Olive oil

- Salt

Wild garlic/pistachio pesto

- 50gr of pistachios

- 70gr of wild garlic

- 40gr of fresh spinach

- 50gr of olive oil

- 15gr of nutritional yeast flakes

- 1/2 tsp of salt

Pesto filling

- 200gr of plain Philadelphia

- 80gr of heavy cream

- 1 pinch of salt

- 5 turns of the pepper mill

- 80gr of wild garlic/pistachio pesto

Assembly and decoration

- 1 tbsp of pistachios

- 1 tbsp of sunflower seeds

- Edible flowers - Violet mallow

- Edible flowers - Cornflower and marigold

We'll start by making the seeded tart shell.

Tart shell

First, in a large bowl, pour 225gr of wholemeal flour, 75gr of almond flour and 112gr of water.

Add 75gr of olive oil and 1.5 tsp of salt. Use measuring spoons to weigh the salt precisely.

Using the flat beater (K beater) of your stand mixer, mix for just a few seconds at low speed until you get a crumble texture.

Use a plastic scraper to form a nice ball of dough.

Be careful not to over-knead the dough, otherwise it will puff up during baking and that's not what we want.

Add 25gr of sesame seeds, 25gr of sunflower seeds and 15gr of pine nuts.

Finally, add 50gr of crushed pistachios.

To do this, pour the whole pistachios into a zip-lock bag and crush them with a large rolling pin.

Mix the dough by hand to incorporate all the seeds, then form a nice ball of dough again.

Place the dough between two sheets of baking paper.

Place 5 mm guide sticks on each side to ensure an even thickness, then roll out the dough with a large rolling pin.

Slide it onto a perforated baking tray and place everything in the freezer for 15 minutes.

For this recipe, we used a 35 x 11 cm rectangular loose-bottomed tin.

Place the dough in the tin, pressing it firmly into the corners. Remove the excess dough with a knife.

Cover the tart shell with baking paper and pour in some baking beads. These will prevent the tart shell from puffing up.

Place your tart shell in the freezer for 30 minutes.

10 minutes before baking, preheat your oven to 180°C fan-forced.

Place everything in the middle of the preheated oven for 25 minutes.

After 25 minutes of baking, remove the baking beads. Be careful, they are very hot!

Bake again without the beads for 15 minutes to get a nicely golden crust.

There you go, the tart shell is baked. Let it cool at room temperature.

While the tart shell cools down, we can move on to cooking the asparagus.

Asparagus

Preheat your oven to 180°C fan-forced.

Start by trimming the ends (about 5 cm) of 1 kg of green asparagus.

Lightly peel the lower part of the asparagus.

On a perforated baking tray, place a silicone mat and spread the asparagus over it.

Season with a drizzle of olive oil and salt.

Bake in the middle of the preheated oven for 15 to 20 minutes. The cooking time will depend on the size of the asparagus.

Check for doneness with the tip of a knife — the asparagus should be tender.

Once cooked, let them cool in the fridge while you prepare the rest of the recipe.

Leave your oven on, we'll need it for the next step.

Now let's move on to the wild garlic/pistachio pesto. The recipe comes from Karin and I can assure you this pesto is incredible. ;-)

Wild garlic/pistachio pesto

You can also make this pesto with basil, depending on your preferences.

First, on a perforated baking tray lined with a perforated mat, pour 50gr of pistachios.

Toast the pistachios for 10 minutes at 180°C in the middle of the oven. This will bring out their flavour. :-)

Let them cool before continuing with the recipe.

Roughly chop 70gr of wild garlic (or basil) and 40gr of spinach. Pour everything into a blender.

In our range, we have this blender which is ideal for this preparation.

Add 50gr of olive oil, 15gr of nutritional yeast flakes and 1/2 tsp of salt.

Finally, add the 50gr of toasted and cooled pistachios.

Blend everything into a very smooth purée.

Pause your blender a few times to push any remaining ingredients from the sides to the centre. This will give you a nice consistency.

And there you have it, a lovely wild garlic/pistachio pesto. Set aside 80gr for the recipe.

The rest will keep for 2 weeks in a well-sealed jar in the fridge.

We're almost at the end of the recipe.

Pesto filling

In a bowl, pour 200gr of plain Philadelphia and 80gr of the pesto made just before.

Add 5 turns of the pepper mill.

Season with 1 pinch of salt and mix everything with a whisk until you get a smooth and homogeneous mixture.

In a jug, whip 80gr of heavy cream into a firm but not too stiff whipped cream so that it blends well with the rest of the ingredients.

Pour the whipped cream into the Philadelphia/pesto mixture and fold in with a spatula until you get a well-combined mixture.

All our preparations are ready. We can now move on to assembling and decorating the tart. :-)

Assembly and decoration

Pour the pesto filling into the tart shell. Spread it out using a small offset spatula.

Cut the cooked and cooled asparagus into 3, then arrange them on top of the filling.

I didn't want anything too uniform, so I arranged my asparagus randomly.

Create volume by layering the asparagus. As you can see in the first photo below, I arranged my asparagus without tidying them up too much. ;-)

Sprinkle 1 tbsp of sunflower seeds and 1 tbsp of pistachios to echo the flavours of the tart shell.

And for the spring touch, decorate the tart with edible flowers such as violet mallow, cornflower and marigold.

And there you have it, a tart that smells of spring! :-)

I hope you enjoy this recipe.

It will keep for 2 days in the fridge, well wrapped.

Wishing you a lovely Sunday, food lovers.

Sophie

P.S.: All the equipment used can be found at the bottom of the recipe.