Three Cheese and Asparagus Tart 🧀🥦

June 3, 2022

Wonderful cheeses, wonderful buttery shortcrust pastry and a fantastic spring vegetable! This three cheese and asparagus tart – a great evening snack and a very elegant way to squeeze an extra portion of green vegetables into your diet.

This tart is very quick to make, insanely good both hot and cooled, and the ingredients are easy to get hold of. Every time I look at this dish I feel a certain aesthetic satisfaction – who would have thought that asparagus could look THIS elegant?!

This recipe makes two tarts. Although, for those who like loooads of cheese, it might only make one.😁 You can use more cheese and less asparagus, or more asparagus and less cheese. One tart takes about one bunch of asparagus. Either way, it will be delicious. If you have some cured ham or sun-dried tomatoes lingering in the fridge, do use them – those ingredients are especially good here.

I bake the puff pastry twice. That is how I try to avoid an underbaked base. You can certainly bake it once, putting all the ingredients on straight away, but in that case I recommend moving the tray lower in the oven so the base gets more heat.

Three Cheese and Asparagus Tart

Ingredients

2 sheets all-butter puff pastry (250g each)
2 bunches fresh asparagus
250 g ricotta
110 g mozzarella
45 g grated Parmesan
grated lemon zest
2-3 cloves of garlic
1 egg
salt and pepper to taste
dill
oil for brushing

Instructions

Grate the mozzarella and Parmesan and mix them with the ricotta. Grate in the lemon zest, season with salt and pepper and press in the garlic. Separate the egg yolk from the white, add the yolk to the cheese mixture and keep the white for glazing the pastry. Mix well.
Roll the sheet of puff pastry out a little to suit the size of your asparagus (mine came out around 20x40). Leaving about 1.5cm from the edge, score a rectangle with a knife (just cut the surface of the pastry, don't go all the way through). Prick the inner area with a fork. Bake in an oven preheated to 200°C for about 10-15 minutes.
Once the pastry has cooled a little, spread over half of the three-cheese mixture (the other half goes on the second tart). Lay out the asparagus, brush the pastry edges with egg white, brush the asparagus lightly with oil and bake at 200°C for 15-20 minutes.
You can drizzle the baked tart with balsamic vinegar – it works very well here.
P.S. baking the pastry twice isn't essential – you can spread on the cheese mixture, lay out the asparagus and bake straight away, but in that case I recommend putting the tray lower in the oven so the base cooks properly and the pastry isn't left raw.