Sweet Potato, Bacon and Tapenade Tart

This is an elegant comfort dish on top of a tart. The long, slim tarts are practical – because you don’t have to cut individual tarts when they are hot, you can just serve them from the oven – and they’re very pretty. The size of pre-rolled pastry sheets varies, so the first time you make this, cut all the pastry into portions, lay the ones you don’t use in a single layer on a cling film lined tray and freeze them. Once frozen, wrap the individual portions in cling film, then store them in the freezer in a plastic box ready for the next time you want to bake one of these tarts. Any trimmings can be folded together and frozen for another use.

Sweet potatoes are great for kids. They can make their own tarts, cutting the pastry to a size that suits, or slice the cooked tarts into soldiers. For younger kids, leave out the bacon, use less tapenade and undercook the pastry slightly. No good to chop or freeze.

(Serves 2)

Sides  - Crisp vegetable or leaf salad

Prep ahead to the end of step 6, a day ahead

Prep/cooking 40-45 mins

Active time 20-25 mins

Ingredients

• 1 pre-rolled sheet of puff
• pastry 40 x 20cm
• 2 small sweet potatoes (300g), washed (or 1/2 large one, halved lengthways)
• 5 rashers of streaky bacon, halved widthways
• 5 tbsp tapenade
• knob of very soft butter (15g)
• 1 tbsp honey
• ½  tsp red wine vinegar
• ½  mild red chilli, deseeded, finely diced
• 4 tbsp creme fraiche
• salt

Method

Preheat your oven to 200°C/Gas 6, position upper middle shelf. Boil your kettle.

Start with the puff pastry. Unroll it; turn it over onto a small board and pull away the plastic. Put the pastry in the freezer for 15 minutes. Get a baking tray with slightly raised sides. Line it with a non-stick mat or baking paper. With a sharp knife, cut the pastry into 2 rectangles, each 20 x 8cm. Put the rectangles on the baking tray.

While the pastry is in the freezer, get a medium-sized saucepan. Fill it with boiling water from the kettle. Add salt, cover and bring to the boil. Put a colander in your sink. Cut the sweet potatoes into 1cm thick slices; you need 10 slices per tart. Cook any extra to serve on the side. Add the sweet potato slices to the boiling water. Turn the heat to low and simmer gently for 6 minutes. Add the bacon. Simmer for 1 minute more or until the sweet potato slices are just soft enough to push the point of a knife through easily. Drain in the colander. Pat dry with kitchen paper.

Spread 1 tbsp of the tapenade across the centre of each pastry rectangle, leaving a 1cm margin at the sides. Put a piece of bacon at the top of each tart, then 2 side-by-side overlapping slices of sweet potato. Continue overlapping with the remaining sweet potatoes and bacon.

Mix together the butter, honey, wine vinegar and diced chilli. Brush two thirds of this mixture over the top of the sweet potatoes, bacon and pastry. Bake for 15 minutes.

Get the tray out of the oven. Turn the oven down to 180°C/Gas 4. Brush the tarts with the remaining glaze. Bake for 5 minutes or until they are glazed and golden. Serve the tarts hot or warm, with the creme fraiche and remaining tapenade on the side to dot on top.

Wine match

Shiraz
Penny's Hill 'The Specialized' Shiraz Cabernet Merlot 2009