Monday, January 25, 2010

chestnuts roasting on an open fire

Since I'm the only one in my family who doesn't eat meat (including my husband and in-laws), my holiday meals were often limited to side dishes until I discovered a recipe for Chestnut, Spinach, Mushroom Phyllo Tart with Tomato Ginger Coulis in one of my favorite cookbooks.
It's delicious, easy, and a good thing to make after the holidays and when chestnuts are on super sale at the grocery store.
I made it for the brunch we had last weekend because Amy and Mark are vegan (check out Mark's blog for good recipes). Phyllo dough itself is vegan, and if you use olive oil instead of butter between the layers so is this tart!


For the tart:
4 cups spinach
2 tablespoons olive oil
2 medium onions, chopped
2 cups mushrooms, chopped (about a pound)
2 teaspoons coriander
2 teaspoons cinnamon
3 cloves garlic
1 pound chestnuts (you can roast your own, but it's a pain, peeling them hurts my fingers and the ones in a jar work just as well.)
3 tablespoons marmalade (homemade apricot jam works too)
salt and pepper
6 sheets phyllo dough
melted butter or olive oil for brushing the dough

Preheat the oven to 350 and grease a 9" spring form pan.

Put the spinach in sauce pan over medium heat, cover and cook until it's wilted, stirring occasionally. Let it cool in a colander, squeeze out the extra juice and chop. (squeezing out the extra juice keeps your tart from being soggy.)

Saute the onions, mushrooms, coriander, cinnamon, salt and pepper in the olive oil in a large frying pan until the onions are soft and most of the juices have evaporated. Add the garlic and the chestnuts and cook for a couple more minutes. Add the spinach and the marmalade and heat through. Adjust the seasonings and set aside.

One layer at a time and brushing with the butter in between each layer, put the phyllo dough in the spring form pan.
Scoop in the chestnut mixture, and fold the sides over. (It doesn't matter if your dough looks sloppy- once it bakes it'll look lovely.) If there's a hole in the middle of your tart, just take an extra sheet of phyllo dough, brush it with butter or oil, fold it into fourths and stick it over the hole. No one will know.

Bake for 30 minutes. Remove the outer part of the spring form pain (carefully!).
Bake it for another 20 minutes until it's crispy and brown all over.


For the Coulis:
1/3 cup olive oil
4 cloves garlic
3 tablespoons freshly ground ginger
2 lbs canned tomatoes
1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar
1 tablespoon brown sugar
2/3 cup sherry
pinch of cayenne pepper
salt

Saute the garlic and ginger in the oil over med heat for a minute or two and then add the tomatoes, vinegar, sugar ad sherry. Simmer for about 20 minutes until the sauce is nice and thick and add the cayenne and salt to taste.
For a real coulis you're supposed to blend it until smooth and strain it, but I can't be bothered.
No one has ever complained.

When the tart is done, let it set for a few minutes before cutting it with a serrated knife and serving it with the coulis.

11 comments:

Hip Hip Gin Gin said...

This looks amazing! My mom loves chestnuts, I may have to surprise her with this on my next visit.

Paulina said...

yummmm!!! i tried chestnuts for this for time this year and was so pleasantly surprised!!

Tanya (a Taste of T) said...

Mmmmm looks pretty and I bet taste super yummy!

Brandi said...

This looks so fantastically good. Why does phyllo dough make so many things better? I've wrapped brie and fig jam with it. I've made little phyllo-nutella squares...it's just one of those magical food things.

tanvi said...

I'm vegetarian, too, so I know how you feel. This recipe looks SO delicious! Do you recommend the cookbook? And also, is it easy to follow for the most part?

chiara said...

That looks amazing. Why, oh why, do 618 miles separate me from you?

abigail said...

Tanvi- I absolutely recommend the cookbook! It's out of print- but Amazon has a few used ones. I have a couple others by the same author and I love every single one.

Chiara- I ask myself that same question. U of M needs to open a Brooklyn campus.

Unknown said...

Wow this looks delicious!

Mark said...

I ate this--it was awesome! I always forget that chestnuts are (a) edible and (b) awesome. Thanks for looking out for us in such a tasty way!

Caroline, No. said...

This looks delicious. I have some chestnuts I need to use up, I'm going to try this. Thanks!

Amy said...

This was DELICIOUS! We're so happy to go to brunches at Abigail and Steven's, and always leave contentedly clutching our full bellies. Thanks for thinking of us Abigail, everyone there was glad you did!