Swiss Chard Tart Recipe

Swiss Chard is a leafy vegetable which is much under used and a lesser known alternative to spinach. Whereas spinach had a cartoon sailor hero to promote its muscle growing benefits, Swiss Chard or Leaf Beet as it is also known has never been endorsed by a Popeye.

Chard is rarely sold in supermarkets as a vegetable but is easy to grow, tasty and can be attractive to look at too. We grew a mix called Swiss Chard ‘Rainbow Mix’ which has plants of various coloured stems, pink, red, white and yellow, and even plants with sealing wax red stems and dark leaves.

Like when sowing lettuce, I often despite my best preaching to others I grow too much, ending up with a glut. Luckily we found some recipes that we adapted to use large quantities to produce something really special; Swiss Chard Tart. A delicious combination of sweet and savory ingredients which includes dried fruit, port and parmesan cheese. Is it a dessert or a savoury dish, it is both, I think. It is a tart that defies classification, we simply call it DELISH!

Swiss Chard Tart Recipe

Ingredients

• One Portion of my oat spelt pastry (see below)
• 3-4 cups of Swiss Chard stems
• 5-6 cups of Swiss Chard stems cut into 2.5cm lengths
• 1/3 cup of golden raisins
• Sherry for cooking raisins
• 1/3 cup of sunflower seeds, dry toasted
• 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
• 30g Parmesan Cheese, finely grated
• 1/2 cup of light brown sugar
• 2-3 eggs
• 1/2 large cooking apple, peeled and thinly sliced

Pastry Recipe

• 1 cup of Organic oatflakes
• 1 cup of whole grain spelt flour
• 4 rounded dessert spoons of dark Muscavado sugar
• 90g butter
• cold water

Pastry Method

1. Place oat flaked in food processor and process into a coarse flour
2. add the spelt flower and mix
3. add sugar and mix well
4. slowly add the butter while mixing in the food processor
5. when butter has mixed in add a little water to make a moist pastry that is not sticky.
6. wrap in baking paper and place in fridge for an hour.

Tart Method

1. Heat oven to 180 degrees Celcius
2. Wash the chard leaves and remove the leaves from the stalks.
3. Steam the leaves for about 10 minutes and than place in cold water to preserve the colour, squeeze firmly to remove excess water and set aside.
4. Fry the chooped chard stalks in a tbsp of rapeseed oil until soft. (Add some water and cover the pan with a lid if they start to stick).
5. Dry toast sunflower seeds on a frying pan.
6. Meanwhile put raisins in a saucpan and cover with sherry, bring them to the boil and then simmer until the sherry is absorbed by the fruit.
7. Chop up the chard leaves finely and add roughly chopped raisins and sunflower seeds. Stir together and add in the cinnamon, finely grated parmesan cheese and sugar. Mix well.
8. Add in lightly whisked eggs and stir again to mix the ingredients.
9. Roll out a little over half the pastry and transfer it into a tart tin (9inch -23cm diameter)
10. Place chard stems into base and then add the mixture of leaves, finally cover with thinly sliced apple.
11. Roll out the rest of the pastry and place on top of tart, prick the surface a few times with a fork or knife.
12. Place in the heated oven and cook for about 40 minutes.
13. After removing from the oven allow the tart to cool before serving.

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