This tart is such a delight, you can make it with regular chard or silverbeet but it just won’t look as pretty. And it sure is pretty thanks to the contrast with the white ricotta and colourful rainbow chard stems.

This is one of those things that’s the perfect weekend lunch as you can make it as high or low effort as you like. i usually make my own short crust and flaky pastry and used a shortcrust spelt pastry in this recipe. However, if you’re short on time you could use store bought and short crust or flaky will work, they’ll just give the finished product a different look. The pastry I usually make uses either spelt or a high fibre wholegrain variety and extra virgin olive oil for the fat. The cook time isn’t particularly long so you’ll retain heaps of the antioxidants found in the extra virgin olive oil.

The rainbow chard in this is mostly the stalks so it’s an excellent thing to make to use those up if you wouldn’t usually. It actually doesn’t use all the leaves but these are super easy to use in smoothies, pastas or just in place of spinach with your breakfast so it’s unlikely you’ll be wasting them.

The tart also uses buffalo ricotta, which when I compared the varieties at my local supermarket was both lower in lactose and fat than the cow’s milk option thus makes everyone happy:)

Serves 4

Ingredients

Spelt Pastry

½ cup water

½ cup extra virgin olive oil

1 tsp baking powder

2 cups spelt flour (or any wholegrain flour you prefer)

½ tsp salt

Tart

1 cup buffalo ricotta (or normal ricotta see notes above about why I used buffalo)

zest of 1 lemon (reserve a little for garnish)

Juice of 1 lemon

1/4 tsp pepper

1 Tbs extra virgin olive oil

2 tsps fresh thyme

2 cloves garlic

1/2 cup finely chopped spring onion or shallot

4 cups rainbow chard stems, in 1cm thick slices

3 cups rainbow chard leaves, roughly chopped (reserve the rest for alad, pesto or to stir through pasta

1/4 tsp salt

beans or pie wieghts to bake pastry

Thyme leaves for garnish

Directions

Preheat oven to 180 degrees celsius. Set aside a fluted 24cm tart tin.

Make pastry: combine flour, salt and baking powder. Whisk together water and oil and then combine with flour mixture. Mix until a dough forms. Leave to rest in the fridge for 30 minutes. Roll out on a piece of baking paper until about 3mm thick. Make sure it is at least 4cm wider than your fluted tart tin. Transfer the pastry to your tart tin and press up the fluted sides. Trim at the edge, it will shrink but you don’t need it to be very deep.

Cover the tart pastry in pie wieghts and bake for 15 minutes. Remove pie weights and bake for another to-10minutes or until golden and cooked through. Allow to cool in the pan. it does not need to be completely cool when you fill it.

Meanwhile, combine the ricotta, black pepper, lemon zest and 2 tsps lemon juice in a small bowl and stir to combine. Set aside.

Heat a large heavy based fry pan on medium high heat. Add the oil and once hot add the garlic, onion, thyme and chard stems. Cook until the stems have softened but not coloured and then add the chopped leaves. Cook until these have wilted. Season with salt pepper and the remaining lemon juice.

To serve, remove the tart case from the tin and place on your serving plate. Spread the ricotta over the tart base and then top with the chard mixture. Garnish with lemon zest and thyme leaves and a drizzle of extra virgin olive oil. Serve with a side salad for a lovely lunch.

HH. x