Friday, February 21, 2014

Jamie Oliver - A Valentine's with Benefits...

I have to admit that I find Valentine's Day one of the most superfluous "holidays" ever. Love on command, all those totally overpriced roses, chocolates and bottles of bubbly - not for me, thank you very much. And what is more depessing than a whole restaurant of tables of two drinking their pink champagne, eating a pink starter, pink main course and pink dessert? Been there, done that, exactly once and we still laugh about it. But somehow my darling husband saw all those guys queuing at the florist's and probably felt kind of funny being seen without anything (Valentine's is huge here in Provence!) . And so what did I get? A beautiful rose and this:


The French version of Jamie Oliver's magazine. Monsieur just knows that I love cooking mags and used to buy far too many of them and recently put myself on a strict magazine detox.
Guess who was first to look through it and decorate it with more than half a dozen page markers? Let me just say that so far these are the only recipes I had time to look at and today we had Jamie's very simple but delicious "Tarte de Printemps" for lunch. The ingredients are easlily found this time of the year, leeks and spinach are about all the fresh produce you find besides various cabbages and squashes in our markets now. So I guess my husband got himself a Valentine's with benefits...

Jamie Oliver's Tarte de Printemps (Spring Tart)
270 g filo pasty
200 g baby spinach leaves
6 slices bacon
6 eggs
200 ml milk
3 medium sized leeks
pepper and salt
Preheat the oven to 180 C, oil a 20 x 30 cm tart tin.
Distribute the filo leaves one by one slightly overlapping the tin and oiling between layering the next filo leaf. Put the spinach in a colander and pour boiling water over the spinach so it wilts. Leave to cool. Finely chop the well rinsed leeks (white parts only). Grill the bacon until crisp, degrease on some papertowels. When the spinach is cool enough to handle, squeeze out as much of the water as you can, then roughly chop the spinach and mix with the chopped up leeks. Crumble the crisp bacon and mix with the spinach and leeks.
Distribute this mixture on the filo pastry. In a bowl mix the eggs and the milk with freshly ground pepper and salt and pour over the tart. Bake for 30 minutes.
PS: The only thing I would probably add next time is a handful of grated cheese into the egg mixture.
Jamie's Tarte de Printemps

18 comments:

  1. That looks lovely! A Valentine's present that will last longer than a box of chocolates is a great thing.

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  2. that is a very cute a story :-) sweet man. In our little area we didn't even see a Valentine's card, nothing special at the Patisserie either and oddly no one French we know receives flowers on VD, though flowers throughout the year.

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    1. Hi Lynn,
      just try booking a restaurant table next year February 14th....

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  3. Replies
    1. Thank you Rosaria, funny how the name of this dough is written differently in Britain and in the US.

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  4. What a perfect gift. Your husband obviously knows you well. I have never made a tart with filo dough before. Will have to try it. It sounds delicious.

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    1. I am a recent convert to filo, too and was surprised how easy it is to bake with.

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  5. Hi Barbara! Long time no correspond but this is a lovely post with which to restart! So good ole Jamie has gone French too, eh? He is amazing and I admire his energy. Do you know that we now have our very own Jamie's bistro in Istanbul? But sadly the general verdict is : overpriced and not all that special. I too think that VD is overrated - we have our very own lovely hubbies anyway so who needs that, right? x

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  6. This looks very nice! Happy spring!

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  7. Your husband sounds like mine. He's always buying me sweet culinary gifts as he knows that's my love language :) Love your tart, it sounds wonderful. Your husband's gift kept on giving :)

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  8. Barbara, you make me laugh out loud with your quick wit. If by chance that magazine has his recipe chicken in milk be sure to make it. It has lemon in it which causes the milk/sauce to break which is not attractive but I put a stick blender to it and turned it into a smooth sauce. It is delicious and Jamie Oliver is a genius.

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    1. Thanks Madonna, I will look for this recipe, it sounds very delish!

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  9. Now that's a Valentine's gift to love! And Jamie's tarts are always divine!

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