Transformation (Nettle tart)

Actual recipe

Nettle tart with goat cheese and currants

This recipe is inspired by Renée Erickson’s nettle-lentil salad from A Boat, A Whale, & A Walrus and Suzanne Goin’s swiss chard tart from Sunday Suppers at Lucques. I combined the flavors from the salad with the technique of the tart into this savory-sweet nourishing dish.

Serves 6-8

INGREDIENTS:
1 box frozen puff pastry (preferably all-butter like DuFour)
1 raw egg mixed with 1 tbs. Water
Grapeseed oil
2 bunches of nettles, about 8 cups raw
2 shallots, peeled and sliced thinly
½ cup dried currants
2 tbs. amaro
2 tbs. sherry vinegar (can substitute white or red wine vinegar)
4 oz. soft goat cheese
4 oz. crème fraîche
Zest of 1 lemon
Salt and pepper to taste

EQUIPMENT:
Parchment paper
Baking sheet
Paring knife
Pastry brush
Large bowl
Tongs
Large sauté pan
Large cutting board

Partially thaw the puff pastry. Cover a baking sheet with parchment paper. When the dough is pliable enough to work with, unfold it on the parchment paper. Take a sharp paring knife and score the pastry around the edges. Use a pastry brush to brush raw egg mixed with water onto the edges of the dough, about a 2-inch border on all sides. Cover the dough with plastic wrap (you may be able to reuse the wrap the dough came in) and place in the refrigerator.

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees (if your oven has a convection bake setting, use that). In a small bowl, soak the currants in the amaro and sherry vinegar. Fill a large bowl with water and carefully submerge the lentils in the water, using tongs to handle them (or cover your hands in plastic produce bags). Agitate the nettles until the dirt clinging to them settles to the bottom of the bowl. Change the water and repeat twice more until there’s little dirt settling.

Heat a large sauté pan with a few tablespoons of grapeseed oil. Using tongs, transfer the clean wet nettles to the pan and cook on medium-high until they are wilted. Add a few more tablespoons of water for them to steam if they look dry. When they are dark and look cooked through, turn off the heat and let them cool in the pan.

While the nettles are cooling, mix the goat cheese, crème fraîche, and lemon zest together, and add salt and pepper to taste. Slice the shallots if you haven’t already.

Transfer your cooled nettles to a cutting board. In the pan the nettles were in, turn on the heat and add more oil or butter, and then the shallots. Sauté the shallots for a few minutes until golden and soft, and then add the currants and their liquid and turn the heat to high to reduce the liquid to a syrupy thickness. Chop the nettles and remove any woody stems.

Take the dough out of the refrigerator and remove the plastic wrap. Spoon the goat cheese mixture onto the tart, leaving one-quarter inch border. Layer on the nettles, and then the currant shallot mixture. Sprinkle with a little flaky salt and fresh pepper. Transfer to the oven and bake until thoroughly brown and crispy on the bottom – if it is not crispy on the bottom, the dough will be gummy and unpleasant to eat. Check after 20 minutes and keep going until it’s crispy, turning down the heat if you need to to keep the top from burning.

When the tart is done, remove it and slide it onto a cutting board to slice it into rectangles the size of your choosing. Enjoy as an hors d’oeuvres or a side dish or a light lunch with a salad.