Sweet potato and goats' cheese tartlet

Preheat the oven to 180 °C /gas mark 4. Put the sweet potato cut side up onto a baking tray. Drizzle over the olive oil, season well with salt and pepper and bake for about 45 minutes. The potato is ready when a knife slides into the flesh with no resistance.
Remove the potato from the oven and scoop out the flesh, discarding the skin. Mash to a puree and leave to one side to cool.
While the sweet potato is cooking and cooling, make the pastry by blending together the butter, cheese, flour, polenta and egg yolk.
When the ingredients are combined, knead into a ball, wrap in cling film and place in the fridge for about 30 minutes.
Finish the filling by mixing together the whole eggs, yolks, cream, crumbled goats' cheese and the pureed sweet potato.
Adjust the seasoning to taste.
On a floured surface, roll out the pastry and line a 25cm tart tin. Return to the fridge for another 10 minutes.
Blind bake the pastry (cut a square piece of greaseproof paper about 30cm, scrunch it up and place on the pastry, fill with baking beans) for about 10 minutes in a preheated oven at 180°C/gas mark 4. Remove the paper and baking beans and cook for a further 4 minutes.
Pour the filling into the tart case, turn the oven down to 160°C/gas mark 3 and bake for about 20 minutes or until the filling has set and the pastry is golden.

Tips:

Best served at room temperature, but you can also make smaller tarts and serve them hot as a starter with a little walnut and herb dressing.
These tartlets are great on picnics as they can suffer a lot of moving around and juggling.
For extra texture, cut some sweet potato into small cubes and toss in a little olive oil. Add to the filling.

© Felice Tocchini 2011

Food photography by Alex Miller.

For the pastry

90g butter

90g mascarpone cheese

170g plain flour

70g polenta flour

1 egg yolk

For the filling

1 medium sweet potato halved lengthways

1 tbsp olive oil

4 eggs, plus 3 egg yolks

250ml double cream

200g goats' cheese crumbled

4 sprigs thyme, chopped

Salt and pepper

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